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Blurb
One last thing, if you do fall in love with him, please go slowly. Be careful. Trust your gut and know not all things are easy. Damaged things can become beautiful if they’re placed in the right hands. –Love, Gran
A small town where pickup trucks rule, the farmer’s market is bigger than the grocery store, and just about everyone goes to church on Sunday is the last place Henley Warren expects to find herself three months after her grandmother’s death. But Gran left a list of things she needed Henley to do after she died, and fulfilling those wishes means spending a summer in the same place her mom fled from when she was only seventeen years old. With each task that is ticked off the list, events are set in motion that uncover secrets surrounding Henley’s life.
Although Henley may have arrived on the shores of Alabama’s Gulf Coast feeling alone and lost in a world without her Gran, things soon change. The small town holds more than she realized- including a broody, gorgeous, potentially dangerous guy who is always showing up when she needs him the most. Henley fears her heart isn’t ready to trust someone so unpredictable but he makes her feel things deeper than she thought possible. So, when Henley discovers the twisted, dark world he is living in, will it be too late to save her heart? Or has her heart been beyond saving from the moment he stepped out of his truck on that very first day?
Review
3.5 stars
This is a sweet, emotional and sexy romance from Abbi Glines – very reminiscent of her Rosemary Beach series as a young girl travels to a small, beachside town looking to reconnect with her family roots and find herself, finding a sexy, broody man along the way.
Henley Warren has just lost her beloved Grandmother and, grieving and feeling very alone, she travels to her Gran’s home to fulfil her last wishes, which she left in a list for Henley to complete. It soon becomes clear that Henley’s tasks are more than just busy work – her Gran had a plan, and wish each visit that Henley makes, she begins to uncover secrets about her own past that will change her life forever.
“The path you were given is yours to walk. Wishing for a different path only hinders your success on the path you are on.”
Along the way, she meets Saul… local badass who is a wealthy, broody, semi-manwhore with two best friends and a truckload of family issues who initially ignores Henley, but who is definitely intrigued and ultimately irresistibly drawn to her sweetness and innocence (Rush Finlay, anybody?). It takes a little while for them to find their way to each other, but once they do, it’s all on, and Saul is full of intense declarations.
“She left out that when I looked into your eyes the first time I would find it hard to fucking catch my breath … She left out that I could see just how damn sweet you were by looking into your eyes and she left out that it would be impossible for me not to want to be around you after I met you.”
I’ve got admit, I found Saul to be a bit too standoff-ish to really warm to him. His switch from coldly ignoring Henley to being all-in is so sudden. It’s lucky there’s a whole lot of lusty feelings between the two of them, because their sexual attraction is pretty much the basis of their relationship – and their chemistry is explosive. There didn’t seem to be much of the ‘getting to know you’ moments that build a romance, and I feel like we didn’t really get to know Saul very much, which made the rest of the love story a little bit bland for me.
It’s actually the rest of Henley’s journey that I enjoyed the most. It’s a really well put-together story as Henley learns so much about her Gran, and her own life, and I loved the way it all unfolded. There are some great twists and turns in the story, and I liked the direction of Henley’s story.
Maybe it was time I wasn’t so careful…this could be my chance to truly let go and just live.
There is some drama, as truths about Henley’s past come to light, and when she whole-heartedly throws herself into Saul’s issues, his family dramas are pretty intense. And then there’s a big moment of drama thrown in at the end *sigh*. It could have been easily resolved, but it wasn’t, and instead there’s unnecessary angst, which is too quickly resolved at the end of the book to really elicit a lot of emotion.
There’s a good cast of side characters, especially Saul’s two best friends who bring a lot to the story, and the stage is set for this to continue as a series with books for them.
The book ends in a good place, and I enjoyed seeing Henley’s journey come to a satisfying ending.
3.5 stars.