I hate using cruel words to describe someone’s work.
But I hated this. I’m sorry, but I did.
This book had no soul. It had a foundation, but without any substance.
The love interests didn’t know each other.
I’m not overreacting.
This can’t have been a second chance romance, because they were never actually together, and they just CAN’T have been in love.
I thought, through the whole book, that they had had some epic love story and one of them broke the other’s heart in a cruel way.
But really they met one week, not even every year.
And after one summer when they had grown up, West decided to move on and got engaged.
And then she got married to someone she didn’t particularly like.
But her father liked him, so she stayed with him🤦🏼♀️
Anyway.
What went on between them was a summer fling at best, and only physical escape at worst. They admitted to each other that they didn’t know the most basic things about each other, but they still talked as if they had been desperately in love and carried each other’s hearts on their sleeves.
Every single person in this book was cruel.
Not just mean. Cruel.
Where do I even begin.
West’s father was mad at Indya for buying the ranch, when he should be on his knees kissing her feet for buying the business he ran to the ground, was willing to stay for a whole year to fix everything he ruined, and then sell it back to his family for a FAR cheaper price than she bought it.
Instead he quit and didn’t help restore it.
Charming, I know.
West was mad at his father for selling the ranch, but he came across as more furious at Indya for buying it because it irked his pride to have to work for her.
He showed no respect.
She ran herself to the ground to juggle every broken piece of land she was trying to save, and he was just bitter, not showing up to meetings, making her life that much harder.
And then at every turn he was all “that was actually a good idea. I never thought of it. I should have. I just didn’t care about anything anymore”
Jax, West’s brother was just the same. Refusing to work for her, not showing up taking guests on hikes, and started listening to rumours about Indya being a bitch.
West’s mother was a terrible, terrible human being.
I hated her when she first had a conversation with West and found out about the ranch being sold.
West was all “I didn’t know about it”, and she was all “that’s not good enough! Fix it West!” And stormed off in her car.
I’m sorry lady.
You haven’t had a conversation with your ex-husband, the man who ran that ranch for years, and actually make your son be the go between whenever you see fit, because you can’t grow up and simply talk to your ex husband. And you think you have any right to comment on decisions being made about it and be heartbroken and furious when it gets sold, when it had been run into the ground? And you never did anything to help out at all as it was happening!
Go touch grass lady.
I hated her even more when I found out she wouldn’t let Jax call her “mom”!!!
She raised him since he was a baby! (Jax was the product of an affair between West’s father and someone else).
West even told Indya about how his mother would correct Jax anytime he called her mom! And acknowledged how it must have been confusing to him that he called her mom, but Jax wasn’t allowed to. OF COURSE IT’S CONFUSING, NOT TO MENTION CRUEL! He was literally in diapers when he came to live with them! Not to mention how none of it was his fault and the only “mother” he ever knew was that sorry excuse of a woman!
Indya was no saint either.
She always made a comment about how she was the boss, how it was her ranch, and the very first day she came there to talk to them, she just went right on up to the study and sat behind the desk. As if to prove which position was hers. Which was above them.
That is destructive leadership right there.
What happened to being humble. Or demure.
There was also such controlled leadership where she would spend entire days hovering over people’s shoulders, such as the kitchen and the housekeepers.
Set guidelines, make rules, get to know the employees, then trust them to do their jobs without hovering. That’s what true leadership looks like.
Now, you may be asking where the romance in present tense takes place. Please tell me if you find it, cause it isn’t in the room with us.
They had sex.
The end.
The book was just one horrible person after the next, and in between those people it was just a bunch of administrative work to get the ranch back up and running, that was of absolutely no interest whatsoever.
I’m gonna find some comfort food now, because I’m sad this was the book I read on the ONE DAY OFF I have had in ages!