My favorite kind of hero is one with an underlying vulnerability beneath the flashy bravado, and just enough baggage to make things interesting. That said, Julius Cunningham is a train wreck. His personal life is off the rails, trying to balance his NFL career with sorting out his home life and taking care of his number one priority, his children.
Autumn LaRosa is new to Portland and the latest addition to the local television news team. Coming from a small-town station, she's not used to the notoriety she quickly finds as the area's newest meteorologist. She's found an authentic friend in a fellow sorority sister and NFL wife, Peyton Westbury, and seems to fit nicely into her new group of friends. Except for Julius. He's nothing but awful to Autumn from the start, so when, on a whim, she places a bid on an auction a at a charity function that involves spending an entire day with him and wins, she plans to put Julius in his place.
You’d have to be living under a rock to not at least be familiar with this talented wordsmith’s name. Or the Beaumont name. Or the movie based on the first book in that series. Surprisingly, I haven’t seen the movie or read any of the books. (I like my life under the rock. Don’t judge.) So I thought it was past time for me to find out what all hype was about, and McLaughlin has made me a fan for life.
She has a way of perfectly balancing all the elements I love in a good romance and carefully placing them for optimal emotional impact. She then brings her words alive with detailed descriptions and authentic characters I wish I could be friends with. The fame and fortune of these characters is simply window dressing, because beneath the layers they face the same struggles and challenges we're all familiar with or have been touched by in our own lives. This allows them to easily capture our hearts and find a permanent home.
Beautifully told with splashes of humor and heat, it's the heart of this story that powerfully carries it through to the HEA. With so many poignant moments that tweaked my heart in the most delicious ways, this is one you definitely won’t want to miss. In the meantime, I’m working my way through this gifted lady's back catalog, starting with Noah and Peyton.