Conflict on Several Levels But Some Steamy Moments

This is a tale of opposites attracting. The heroine, Emily, is newly returned from a Peace Corps mission because her father said that the situation was dire back at the family ranch; she was needed at home. Donovan has taken a lease on part of their property, part of the effort to get the ranch back in the black, and he has set up a lodge for hunters who pay a lot to shoot some of the game on the property. Emily’s a vegetarian with very strong feelings about animals. In fact, she attempts to sabotage some of his hunts. An attraction does simmer between them despite them being in very different camps when it comes to meat. Several complications arise in the story, some having to do with the ranch and some having to do with Donovan’s sordid past as the son of an imprisoned con man.

I found the philosophical interplay between the couple to be fascinating to watch. They were each willing to compromise, Donovan taking her to a new vegetarian restaurant and she grudgingly agreeing that shooting the feral Hogs that overran parts of the ranch was perhaps a good idea. The sensual aspect of this felt rushed given the build of the relationship and the back-and-forth issues they had, and oh my goodness, I didn’t suspect that the heroine would be quite as much of a wild child as she was. All in all, I have mixed feelings about this book because of my feelings about the intimate moments, which I didn’t like, and the other aspects of their relationship, which I did like. By the way, this is a part of a series. You don’t really need to read them in order as they can stand alone, though you definitely will enjoy the series better if it is read in order because doing so will give later stories context..

The Call of the Ocean and Romance in Northern California

I read one other book by this author, and I enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to this book. The book called to me for another reason. I am not sure precisely where on the northern California coast the fictional town of Blue Moon Bay is, but I traveled that route often when I lived in California when visiting family.

This is a sweet little contemporary romance. The heroine is a bit excitable, though she claims not to be. She does have a complicated and sad past, being abandoned by her parents when she was a young girl. They put her and her brother under the care of one of their grandmothers. The hero is an absolute sweetheart, thought that always makes you question if there’s something deeper that might be going on! The book felt a bit repetitious the way that the heroine would go on and on about why she couldn’t have even a little fling with a hero, even though there was definitely attraction and chemistry and he did actually changed his trip so he can spend more time with her. How can you turn down a nice guy even if the relationship might be brief? I thought it was odd, too, that both the hero and heroine had ties to reality shows. Not everyone in California is on reality shows! The heroine had her own briefly, and the hero’s father had one. It just was quite bizarre.

As someone who lived on the Northern California coast for more than a decade and did much traveling up and down it, I did have a few quibbles with the way the author described the area of course, I don’t actually know where this fictional town is supposed to be other than probably someplace where it would be comfortable to drive to Napa for the meet-in-the-middle visits of the heroine and her grandmother. In the fictional town, she described many two- and three-story houses. Where I lived on the coast, such dwellings were rare. I don’t think I ever saw a 3-story one. Also, compared to the Oregon coast, the Northern California coast does not have a ton of seafood restaurants. I know that one would think that it would have, but on the northern California coast, they’re actually surprisingly rare. You can find good seafood in regular restaurants, but there aren’t many strictly seafood joints. The Oregon coast is entirely different; I live in Oregon now, and I know that every little burg on our coast has some sort of seafood shack, joint, or restaurant. She also described sandy beaches. Much of the northern California coast is bluffs and cliffs with no sand in sight. Of course, there is sand in places, but if you drive from San Francisco to Eureka, it is surprising how little is sand there is in places. One last Coastal rant. She described the sunlight as glinting off the ocean surface as golden discs. As a coastal resident for many years, I never once saw anything like that. When the sun is out and fully shining down on that glorious Pacific Ocean, what it actually looks like is a scattering of glittering diamonds, little brilliant white shards reflecting back at you from the blueness. It is actually quite spectacular to have full sun on a choppy ocean.

I just had to share all that because, for me, having these kinds of details wrong kind of detracted from my enjoyment of the story. Perhaps if you’re not a foggybottom, you wouldn’t notice or care. Again, this is essentially a sweet little romance that is a pleasure to read.

Well-Done Exploration of Familiar Trope

I had read the other two books in this series, and I wasn’t really wild about them. But I always like to give an author two or three shots to impress me. In this case, I am so glad I did. I found this book to be an absolute delight. One of the things that I had enjoyed from the previous book was Zeph, the owner of the horror bookstore. He was an excellent foil for the heroine in that book. In this one, he gets his own story, and I was delighted to see that there was so much more to his character. He has gotten himself into a bit of a bother because his mother believes that he is engaged to the French woman who runs the patisserie across the road from his shop. So, yep, this is a spin on the favorite fake engagement romantic trope. Both the hero and the heroine are having parental problems. Mirabelle has never quite lived up to her father’s expectations, and she is bound and determined to do so even at the expense of her own dreams. She is a kind and generous person who is also being hassled by her landlord; she gives too much money away helping others and doesn’t pay her rent on time. She agrees to be Zeph’s fake fiancee. Of course, Zeph has been nurturing a silent attraction for the French woman. The stage, as you can see, has been set for humor, romance, and drama between warring factions and because of lies and secrets.

The book did have a few problems. There were some issues with grammar, punctuation, and usage. As someone who has actually studied the French language and has a great appreciation for the French culture, I was definitely annoyed at the author’s use of the nonword “zee” to portray Mirabelle’s way of saying “the.” That rankled every time I saw it; it is just so wrong.

By the way, the Walden Pond in the title is NOT the one you are thinking about. All in all, I found the book to be a delightful read.