2020: A very pleasant surprise of a romance novel that I very much enjoyed! It was both a smart read as well as a steamy CONSENSUAL slow burn of a romance. I was a big fan of how close January and Gus got to each other as friends before they started sleeping together (and it made it all worth it when they finally did).

The biggest thing that bothered me about this story was the complete abandonment of the main conflict. The book starts out with January's inability to speak to her mother, and her recent introduction to her father's mistress. Then, +/- 20 chapters of a completely different story happens, and they wrap things up nicely at the end. I get that this is probably something that happens quite frequently in romance novels, and might have been just a shock to me, but it was disorienting.

Henry does an excellent job tackling the grief that January is working through, and how insignificant everyday things can sometimes overwhelm you - it got way deeper than I thought it was going to. She calls out how difficult it is to be a woman in the writing industry, in particular in reference to the inherent sexism in the label "Women's Fiction". *insert eye roll here*

As snarky as I wanted to be about the meet-cute in the bookstore, I was actually truly cheering on this couple by the end of it. Their banter is excellent and I loved watching their friendship develop. I will say, if you're into bad boys who are really just sad boys waiting for someone to come along and patch them up, this book will definitely do the trick for you.

Two smaller notes / plot holes: there is NO WAY that her dad would have planned to ~reveal~ everything on her 29th birthday. He ABSOLUTELY would have waited until she was 30 and to pretend otherwise is asinine. Secondly, who on earth was paying the fees of the marina where her dad's boat was docked the whole time he was dead!?