Well done.

The wounded hero is wounded throughout, no falseness or convenient forgetfulness. The characters are well rounded and believable. I did struggle with him climbing a tree, and Iraq wasn’t a state until 1932, well past this time period. Those hiccups aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the story.

This book is very slow and methodical, but then the characters are slow and methodical. The plot unfolds slowly, the backstory piecemeal. Since we are within the characters’ points of view, I wanted to know more sooner. Withholding some of the information felt like cheating the reader and slowed my reading pace considerably. At the end of the day, the “chess game” was interesting, if you’re willing to invest the time.

I almost didn’t pick this up because of the title, but the blurb won me over. And even though it says its a fake boyfriend book, there’s nothing fake about Josh Landry!

A woman meets a flirty bartender in New Orleans and the chemistry is instant. They don’t do any more than kiss, and despite the instant attraction, they agree to meet next year at Mardi Gras, sort of An Affair to Remember style. All sorts of things go wrong, get in the way, but one thing hasn’t changed. The boy from the bayou with the unusual, fun family has been waiting patiently, and the Iowa girl who comes back has never met anyone who so thoroughly understood her for who she is.

A fun read, a tad raunchy, some colorful language, some questionable word choices. If those offend you, reader, take a pass, but I absolutely enjoyed this book.

What happened to the animals? Did the cat get along with the dogs? And all the obsessing over kisses. I struggled. On the plus side, the setting is extremely well done, and the holiday atmosphere. That's the star of the book.

fun holiday novella

Very festive second chance love story. Small town shenanigans that hearken to other characters and other stories. Fun enough to look into the rest of the stories.