4⭐️ 4❤️‍🔥
🎧 audiobook narration was great!

Read this book if you like:

📑 Academia settings
🔥 Great chemistry
📧 Hilarious student emails

Anytime Ali Hazelwood publishes a book, I want to read it. While this wasn’t one of my favorites, I still enjoyed it.

Jack is my favorite of all the Ali Hazelwood book boyfriends though. He was confident and so sweet. I also liked the fact that he was so patient and understanding to Elsie.

Even though I didn’t understand most of the physics talk, I actually really enjoyed the science academia setting. It’s so different than anything I’ve experienced, so I found it super interesting.

I liked the relationship between Jack and his grandma. It was so sweet and funny.

The student emails that Elsie received throughout the book had me cracking up so much.

My biggest issue with this book was the main character. Elsie kept making me mad throughout the whole story. I understand being a people pleaser to some extent, but she was on the extreme side of it and didn’t see anything wrong with it. She was also super judgmental of Jack and made so many negative assumptions about him.

My other issue with this book was the mentor/mentee relationship. It was so frustrating.

While it wasn’t a deal breaker, this book was quite a bit spicier than I enjoy. 

Thank you to Bethany House Publishers and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. 

This book was an absolute delight! 

Snow White has never been one of my favorite fairytales, but I loved this Snow White retelling. 

Fairest of Heart takes places in Texas during the 1890s and follows a maid named Penelope Snow who works for the famous and cunning Narcissa LaBelle.  

While Penelope may be a bit too perfect most of the time, I still liked her as a character especially since the other characters had obvious flaws. 

I loved the author’s take on the seven dwarfs with the seven old men that had varying personalities and a love for Penelope. They were so fun and wholesome. I love how they took care of Penelope and were so protective of her. 

Titus was such a great male lead in this story. I loved that he played such a big role in both the romance and the plot of this story. He had such a great connection with Penelope, and I enjoyed watching him slowly let her get to know him. 

The plot of this story was also very interesting with Titus being a Texas ranger and Narcissa causing trouble. I loved the adventure and danger of the story. 

I would recommend this book if you like fairytale retellings, fun old grandpas, adventure, and lovable characters. I will definitely read more books by Karen Witemeyer. 

 Thank you to Bethany House Publishers and NetGalley for this ARC. All opinions are my own. 

Rocky Mountain Rendezvous reminded me a lot of Forged in Love by Mary Connealy. While the stories are very different, the feel of the book was very much the same. They both included slow burn romances, exploring new places, and danger. If you like one, I think you would enjoy the other as well. 

One of the things I appreciated in this story was the relationships between Juniper and her sisters. I liked that she was close to all of them and was protective of them as well. 

Riley was such an honorable man, and I love how he took it upon himself to help out the Collins sisters to guide and protect them. I liked that compared to most of the men that were living around the rendezvous, he was completely different and didn’t take on their attributes. 

While I enjoyed these aspects, I did find this story quite slow for the first 60% of the book. The action and the romance really picked up near the end, and I found those parts quite enjoyable. I’m hoping that the sequel to this book will keep my attention more. 

I’m curious where this story is going, and I would recommend it to readers who enjoy learning about 1830s history in the US, slow paced stories, and determined characters.