Virtually nothing about this book worked for me. Earlier this year, I discovered this series and chugged through the first several novels. They were good. Not life-altering, but good. But this was a train wreck after the first 20%. Plot: Ronan is a lawyer looking to leave his big city life and angst behind, so he sets up shop in Calamity. He is, apparently, rich enough from a lawsuit to never worry about money or need clients. Must be nice. Larke is a local school teacher and single mom who is feeling bruised because the gossip in her hometown was so mean when she got pregnant. Okay. Ronan sees Larke and is hot for her. She blows him off. In the beginning, this book was fun. Some lighthearted banter, some good bits about an arrogant attorney getting his ego bruised. But then, wow, it just became stupid. Very, very stupid. First off, the entire lawsuit plotline is absurd. Not because a student couldn't sue a teacher over a grade. You can sue someone for anything. What drove me nuts is that Ronan does the dumbest thing at every turn. He ends up taking the case because this kid threatens Larke's reputation and he feels bad b/c Larke's been through enough gossip. But why not just tell the student--Ember--that if she does that she'll be liable for slander and defamation? Especially because, I'm not joking, Ronan apparently made all his money on a...wait for it, defamation case. Also, you wouldn't risk your reputation as a lawyer in a new, small town for this. Suggest a mediation? Suggest extra credit? Anything? Nope, he files the lawsuit. And sleeps with Larke, you know, his client's opponent. There's some lip service paid to this maybe being an ethical gray area, but, hey, the heart wants what it wants. Is it weird he knows what his heart wants after eating dinner with Larke once and talking with her and her daughter in the driveway? Nah. Second, you can figure out within about five seconds what is going on with Ember. But these two idiots spend 50% of the book wandering around asking "what's up with Ember? Her family life seems weird? Why won't mom call us back?" For heaven's sake, it's so frigging obvious. When they finally decide to investigate by taking the genius step of just following Ember home, they show up TOGETHER (because what lawsuit?) and try to flush Ember out. Sigh. Third, the pacing of this book is terrible. As noted, you spend 50% of the book with Ronan and Larke wringing their hands about what to do with the lawsuit, and Ember, and gossip and whatever. Then in the last 15% or something kids get adopted, college tuition gets paid, lives are saved, careers are salvaged. You name it. Boom, boom, boom. Fourth, the final act reveal of who Larke's father is made me yell out loud. Actually, it made me swear out loud. But at that point, I was at 95% and determined to finish. And this was another unnecessary plot twist. Spoiler alert: turns out Larke's kid's father is Ronan's best friend. Because of course it is. This gets dispatched in five pages, during which Ronan draws up termination of parental rights papers and trades his beloved car for said friend signing away his kid. They never speak again. Not making that up. It's like an afterthought. I haven't even mentioned the mutual guilt-fest between the two characters because Ronan didn't notice his ex-wife was spiraling and then she tried to kill him and Larke had Ember in her class and didn't notice something seemed off about her home life. Pages are devoted to these MCs telling each other, "it's okay, you couldn't have known. You're not a bad person." If I'm being totally honest, this entire book read like the novel version of one of those gag gift books that consist entirely of pictures of hot guys doing childcare and housework tasks. There is literally a multi-page scene where Ronan provides a steamy night, wakes up, makes breakfast, and then helps Larke with all of her chores while her too-cute daughter plays in the background. And I guess for some readers that is like catnip, but I'm just not one of them, especially when the author opts to reduce massive and potentially traumatizing life events to throw away pages at the end. Finally, last rant item, I hated that Ronan's nickname for Larke was "mama." But, again, that's a personal peeve and might be super-charming to someone else. Hard pass from me on this one.