Okay, I was supposed to be trying to read more romance this year, but the past couple of months I've hardly read anything, so it all sort of fell apart in the middle there. Still, back to it I go, and this one was okay. I've read a couple of others in this series that I did not like at all, and this (the first) is a clear step up. The improvement is basically down to the fact that the protagonists aren't awful people. The hero can be a little annoying, and the constant inability of the central pair to use their words and actually tell each other what's bothering them makes me roll my eyes at the both of them, but they're basically decent people. It's also mildly funny - especially the disastrous honeymoon - so that too is a step up from some of the standalone sequels, which try to be funny but aren't so much.

I do wish, though, the the not-like-other-girls trope wasn't being its horrid self here. Haley's friends are nearly all total bitches, as are her mother and sisters, and every time Jason refers to any women he's ever met, it's derogatory. And all his ex-girlfriends are apparently terrible, which only makes me think of the common denominator. I don't enjoy this trope at the best of times, but I especially don't enjoy it in romance, because it impacts my ability to think of the protagonists as nice people who deserve happy endings. It was such a minor theme here that Mathewson skated by, but only just.