I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read by this author both in and outside of the SmartyPants Romance Universe, so I was excited for this one! Once again I really liked the characters, and was happy to get to spend some time with the characters from the other stories in this series by this author, Under Pressure and Not Fooling Anyone. Austin was a tough looking guy, and Tessa had a background that made just his outward appearance a bit unnerving to her at first. But once she got to know him, he was more of a big old teddy bear, at least with her.

But then she had this friend named Joel that she was doing her psych project with, and wow, he was just a creep from moment one in the story. Between bringing her drinks that weren’t ones she liked, and kind of bossing her around or being critical of things he had no right to be, he was unlikable from the start. If there was one thing I might change, it was how nice Tessa kept being to him, and the chances she kept giving him. I had a feeling he did what we found out towards the end, so that wasn’t a surprise to me, he totally was giving off the vibes. And it was obvious he did what caused the huge darkest night moment for Austin and Tessa as well.

I do like how the author made even the family issues that Austin had with his dad more of a misunderstanding, or maybe just missed communication between the two, so that in the end, there was no reason to be upset with his dad, and to understand why things happened the way they did. Oh, one other thing that bothered me a bit was the cat that seemed to be a kind of big part at the beginning of the story, then when Tessa had to stay at Austin’s for a few nights, it was almost like the cat wasn’t there? I think maybe there should have been more with the cat based on the beginning.

But that is just a little thing that bugged me, because I loved the story and the characters overall and look forward to reading more by this author, especially as she alluded to possibly getting into the Green Valley world in the future!