Not sure if there is any way to say just how much I loved this book, without using some kind of fishing pun. But I fell for Sam hook, line, and sinker. The author used the bits from her own tire shop writing experiences to reel me in and get me laughing. It started out with the main character Maggie, being a total fish out of water as she tried to find her more adventurous side, to prove her ex-boyfriend wrong for calling her basic. After helping her with the fishing, Sam kind of decided that he was going to teach her to fish instead of just giving her a fish, that way she would be adventurous however she wanted. Part of the helping came from knowing that if she went off by herself she would probably get hurt, or you could say he just felt like he wanted to keep her safe, and also away from other guys who were trying to take her up on her new experiences.

I totally loved getting our couple from the last book, Miles and Kate, to be such a big part of this one. When Kate came back, her romance author sense of humor and topics of conversation were the best! She tried to help Maggie see that there were definitely other fish in the sea besides her ex. Then there was the steamy scene halfway through the book, where, holy mackerel, was that sexy! Not just sexy, but sooooooo realistic! But soon the romance developing between Sam and Maggie was a sweet one, you could tell they both wanted more, but each was sure the other was not right, or else that they weren't relationship kind of people, in Sam's case anyway.

Maggie gets into a bit of a fine kettle of fish when her ex just shows up. Now her brother Miles didn't know about the breakup, so when Sam showed up at the dinner where it had been just Maggie, Miles, Kate, and Maggie's ex, Maggie got a little green around the gills wondering how to deal with that. Maggie's ex seemed to feel like he was a big fish in a small pond when he visited her in Colorado, even going so far as to say he didn't want to play professional football there. That was a big hit to poor Miles, who of course was a Broncos fan. He also thought getting Maggie back would be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Soon both Maggie and Sam were thinking that the other might be the one that got away for them. Which led to some almost jumping the shark types of ploys to get the other one back. I won't say what, you need to read and see how it all works out.

Yes, Maggie definitely spent too much time carping about how much she wanted her ex back, and that was totally annoying. However, all the other characters didn't let her get away with it, they kept telling her there were bigger fish to fry than getting that guy back. So that made up for her behavior.

Once again Daws made me stay up later than I should have so that I could finish and find out just how it all would end and everyone could get their HEA. I love how she brings her other characters back in, I so want a friend like Kate. I kinda wonder if being friends with the author would be a similar type of experience. Now I'm eager to find out if book 3 will be Lynsey and the lovely Dr. Dick that we met in this one.

P.S. - How did my fishing idioms/puns review format work for you?

Review first appeared on Lisa Loves Literature.