<i>Quick Stats</i>
<b>Age Rating: 18+</b>
<i>Spice Level: 2/5</i>
Over All: 2.5 stars
Plot: 2.5/5
Characters: 3/5
Setting: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Representation: 1/5

<i>Special thanks to Berkley Romance and NetGalley for an eARC of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.</i>

I really wanted to like this book. Largely because the author’s name is Katie Shepard, which is my cousin’s name (or it was, before she got married). Also it has disability rep! What else could you ask for?
A lot, apparently.
The characters had no depth, no personality, and no chemistry. The story didn’t really go anywhere, and the entire premise… did not work for me.
Darcy and Teagan meet at rehab, where she is the groundskeeper and he is an inpatient. He’s there because, for some reason, his sister decided to drag him to rehab for drug addiction and alcoholism to treat a panic disorder. So, Darcy thinks he’s an alcoholic. And when he has to leave early, she decides to go with him and be his sober companion while he lies about being an alcoholic. Also while they sleep together and have a romantic relationship. What.
They do touch on the potentially ethical dilemma of SC screwing her recovering alcoholic for about a sentence, but decide it’s fine because “she’s not his sponsor or his therapist.” Wrong. Also they don’t consider the quite obvious negative effects that would have on his purported recovery if their relationship went south. Like, I get he’s not actually an alcoholic, but Darcy thinks he is. But I digress.
Anyway, they decide this is totally a great idea! And Teagan decides to just, lie to her indefinitely without getting any help for his actual mental health issue. Also he goes off his meds without talking to a doctor because they’re giving him ED, which Darcy has no problem with him doing. And aside from a single comment from his sister of “you did WHAT?!” it’s never condemned as a dumbass thing to do. 
You know what other stupid thing is prevalent throughout the book and never condemned? The comparison of addiction and panic disorders, as in panic disorders are worse to have than addiction. Teagan has multiple internal monologues about how it would’ve been easier to have an addiction, because he could just not drink, but his panic disorder is a part of his brain chemistry and he’ll have to live with that forever. That’s not how addiction works and that entire thought process is fucked on so many levels. So many. Similarly, when talking to his sister about her own potential addiction, Teagan tells her she just has to decide to do better and go to rehab, as if it’s that easy. Darcy’s thought process about the whole thing seems nontoxic, but this aspect is never addressed from her POV, and it’s never condemned in the novel.
None of this worked for me, and I’m beyond disappointed that that’s the case. But even outside of the rep, I simply did not care about the characters, the setting, the world. It all felt underdeveloped. While these things weren’t terrible, I’m not sure I could call them good, either. I can’t say I recommend this book, nor do I intend to pick up any of this author’s future work.