⭐ 4
🌶️ 2
🥵 Spicy chapters: 11, 12, 13, 17, 19, 26
📚 Tropes/Themes: enemies to lovers, hate to love, found family, he falls first, protective MMC, small town
👀 Dual POV 1st person
💔 Triggers: mentions of adoption and foster care, mentions of cheating, sibling death, parental death, abusive parent
🛍️ Available: 6/3
💬 So I have a lot of thoughts on this book. And I know starting off that way makes it sound like it's bad, but it's not. 😂 A lot of it is just it's not you it's me. I think most would enjoy this book so I definitely recommend it.
First thing, this is the 6th book in the Bourbon Canyon series. I did try to read the previous books, but ended up DNFing the first one because the adoption/foster care storyline took up too much of the story for me. I decided to go ahead and still read this ARC though because the MMC, Teller is not adopted / a foster child
I don't know if this is marketed as a standalone, but there were a lot of things that I was confused about (like Maddy's history/backstory) probably because I didn't read the first five books. I also found it hard to keep the the connection between the MCs, their exes and Maddy's brother/nephew straight- I kept having to go back and rework it in my head 😂
I started off not really liking Maddy, even though I totally understand why she is the way she is. She definitely grew on me though, and my opinion did a 180 by the end of the book- I think her character is relatable, wonderfully complex and has an incredible growth arc. She is definitely the star of the story.
I also enjoyed how both MCs were essentially fighting against their last names.
Teller is sweet and swoony and everything you'd expect from a 40 something bourbon distiller who thinks he's never going to find love. It was a tiny bit too insta-lusty for my taste but I still enjoyed their relationship and watching how he took care of her as she worked through her shit.
Also need to mention that the radiographer takes XRs, not the radiologist (they're the docs). Radiologists would never deign to do that kind of grunt work 😂