I'm hesitant to write this review. I hate giving bad reviews, and I'm diving pretty deep into some issues here that are somewhat of hot button issues.

I'll start by saying that I had high hopes for this book. I really enjoyed the second book in this series. I liked the character of Nate, so I was looking forward to his story. Unfortunately, I felt the characters fell flat. The plot moved slow. And the writing was just weird.

Sunshine is bi racial. But throughout the entire book, we hear her referred to as "mixed". I can't speak for POC, obviously, so I asked a few friends if this was as problematic as I thought it was. Yeah, turns out many of them found it problematic. Especially since it's used so much. And, then when I added that the H describes the h's skin as "tastes like chocolate milk", again, not a great reaction. In fact, every description of Sunshine's skin is some sort of food related item. That's what I mean about the writing being weird.

Sunshine and Nate grew up together, in their small town. Sunshine's dad was offered a job and they moved to a bigger city. Sunshine missed the small town that she loved. Yet it's mentioned that because Sunshine is "mixed" (as they say in the book) she was lucky that she was good friends with Nate's respected (white) family. People didn't bother her because of her connection to them. So, apparently, save for having Nate, the white savior as her friend, the town would have been a bunch of assholes to her, and she's still like "Yeah, this is the place I'd like to raise my kid" WHAT?

Sunshine heads back to town, finds out Nate is a stripper and goes to the club to see him. He basically uses his body to torment her as his big “fuck you” to her for leaving. He pulls her into a dance in one instance. In a second, she wants to talk to him, so she pays for a private dance. Both times he gets things all heated between them, but is still angry that she left him and didn’t write or call him. I get his anger, but the whole using her the way he did was just immature and gross.

I also hated how the daughter was described. She is thirteen, and yet we hear her described as being incredibly beautiful, to the point her mom has been approached several times about getting her to be a model. But, of course, she doesn't want her daughter in "that type of lifestyle". It's just odd to hear a child's looks described so much in an adult way.

Once Nate finds out about his daughter, he’s all in as a dad, but still mad at Sunshine, which is fair. However, he also knows he’s eventually going to forgive her and he knows that he loves her, so the whole thing seems to drag on for no real reason.

My last real issue with the book, and I really hesitated including this because I know with 100% certainty, that this is an issue that not everyone is going to have. But I DO have an issue with this particular thing, so I just asked myself, “Would I have wanted to see it included in a review?" And, yeah, I would have. Because I wouldn’t have read the book based on this alone. So here it is and you can judge as you will: Sunshine is a lawyer. We rarely see her at work, which is fine, as the story isn't about that. But the ONLY time we see her at work (other than when she reconnects with the H, Nate) is when her assistant calls to tell her that a "Mrs. Sanchez" is calling and she needs help with some paperwork for immigration. Sunshine replies "Good for her, doing it the right way!"

Fuck. No.

I kept reading because there are so many five star reviews, I thought it must just be a "me" thing, but, if I’m being completely honest, nope. It has racism written all into it and I’m just not here for that.