I was so excited for Hank’s story and this one started out in a surprising way! I knew of course the whole reason Charlotte would want to become an exotic dancer couldn’t possibly be why she was telling him. So when we found out it was to help locate her missing cousin, that made so much more sense. Although I still feel the idea was a little crazy knowing her ex’s family.

This was a total grumpy sunshine romance, but oh my gosh how much Hank made my cheeks hurt from smiling so much at his interactions with Charlotte’s kids. Especially the first one. It just made me fall completely in love with him! I liked getting to know more about Charlotte in this story too. While we knew a bit about her from Jackson’s book, we didn’t quite know the whole/real story for her. And I ended up really liking her a lot as well.

There was so much to this story. I can see why the author mentioned several times that Hank kind of took over and told the story differently than she thought it would go. When we got Jackson James's story in Totally Folked, he was all sexy from pretty early in the story, I mean “Release the Kracken!” was a line that made the story. Hank, well this was a slow-burn romance. While that made sense with Charlotte being a single mom and how she had been portrayed as being Ms. Perfect by the town, the fact that Hank was such a rebel and ran a strip club had me thinking it would get hot and heavy pretty quickly.

But you know what? I loved the way this went instead! I loved that this story was different in so many ways than I might have expected. I loved all the ways the Winston family fit into the story. Cletus not showing up other than a joke about his sausage one-liners until later in the book was a little disappointing. I kept thinking why didn’t Charlotte reach out to Cletus for help with her cousin or her ex’s family? But then when Sienna got Cletus over to help Charlotte, it was obvious from the way she reacted to him and the thoughts she had at first about him being a simple guy.

And the ending, the epilogue, oh my gosh how I loved the glimpse into their future lives with the wedding being that of one of the kids. Penny Reid has once again blown me away with her characters and story and world. And oh my gosh, now that I know who the third story in this series is going to be about, both characters in the couple, I am sooooooooooo excited!

Review first posted on Lisa Loves Literature.