Series: Standalone
Traits & Tropes: class difference; age gap (older heroine); opposites attract; cinnamon roll hero
Publication Date: 04.19.22
Genre/Setting: Contemporary; Michigan/Iowa, USA
Heat Level: 2
Rating: 3/5
Narration Rating: 5/5
After a racoon in the road sees Alexis Montgomery driving her car into a ditch, she finds her world even more upended by the sexy carpenter who rescues her. Daniel Grant is ten years younger and simple and casual to Alexis’ city sophisticate. These two couldn’t be more opposite, but their chemistry is undeniable.
Alexis’ parents are well-known, uber-wealthy surgeons and fully expect Alexis to continue to bring notoriety to the family name. She’s not interested in any of that and is fine with her position as an ER doctor. But as she steals more and more time to spend with Daniel in his charming, small town, Alexis begins to question what really matters in life. She knows making her relationship with Daniel into something permanent would mean losing her family and the opportunity to potentially help many more people, yet she I loved the oft-repeated concept in this book, that grace costs nothing, and I was glad to see Alexis embrace that can’t seem to completely give up the happiness she feels when she’s with Daniel either. Things seem destined for failure between them and Alexis can’t see a future that leaves them both with their hearts intact.
First off, I have to say this book had much more angst than I had anticipated. There was physical chemistry between this couple, but I’m not sure I ever felt a real connection, probably because Alexis had one foot out the door the entire time even as Daniel was bending over backwards trying to make things work between them. Daniel definitely carried this for me as the ultimate cinnamon roll hero and a major example of competence porn. Alexis on the other hand was a complete pushover. This characterization was used well as a tool for examining emotional abuse in a gentle and tactful way, but it didn’t exactly make Alexis more likeable. Basically, she starts off as a major snob and undergoes some serious growth after she meets and starts getting to know Daniel, but the fact that she remained so cagey with him even over the course of months of them spending time together makes it hard for me to like her, even as she redeemed herself. Don’t get me wrong, there were definitely some pretty big obstacles between Daniel and Alexis, but in the end they were overcome fairly easily once Alexis decided to stand up for herself and get her priorities in line, so while it made for a satisfying ending, it also meant that for me at least, much of the tension and impossibility of the relationship was built up in Alexis’ head and a direct result of her refusal to try. Her complaints about her parents and her refusal to stand up to them or to her ex just became a bit repetitive after a while and made Alexis seem very much younger than she was purported to be, so this never really felt like an age-gap romance.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the constant reminders that any relationship between Alexis and Daniel was temporary and that he could never fit in her world and basically wasn’t good enough for her. I also didn’t care for Alexis’ constant reference to Daniel as a boy when he was clearly more of a man than any of the other males in her orbit. Even Daniel realized she was a little embarrassed of him and all that really negated the romance. Finally, I did not like that Alexis was so wholly in control of the relationship, always maintaining distance between herself and Daniel, never even confiding some basic things about her situation with her ex with him despite having many opportunities to do so. This lack of communication or honest conversation brought this down for me because it seemed Alexis never really got to know Daniel beyond what he was capable of in relation to her and I really was left feeling like she didn’t deserve him/he deserved someone to take care of him too rather than things being so one-sided between them.
I did love the oft-repeated concept in this book, that grace costs nothing, and I was glad to see Alexis embrace that idea and carry it into other parts of her life as she realized she’d been surrounding herself with all the wrong sorts of people. This book had me tearing up at the sweetness of the citizens of Daniel’s town and wishing I had such a supportive community, and I thoroughly enjoyed the comic relief here that kept this from being a depressing story. In fact, some scenes had me laughing out loud and the dual narrators really helped set the scene for me. I was also completely charmed by the bit of magic the town had in bringing these two together. This was my first read from this author and I did enjoy listening to it, despite not caring overly much for the heroine, and I’ll likely try her again.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an audio advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/2099682880
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4686728050
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