I’ve been open about my growing dissatisfaction with this author lately. But this book is an example of why I can’t just up and quit her. It’s not perfect, but it’s really good. I used to be able to rely on her books to be 4 stars or above and that is just not the case anymore. I’ve discussed before how wordy things have gotten and how in the head of the characters she gets, to the detriment of the connections between characters. Yet there’s often a lot of great stuff between that lengthy prose.

This is a brother’s best-friend romance as well as a sort of enemies to lovers. Though Elsie and Hunter aren’t ever enemies, they have always razzed each other and wouldn’t necessarily be considered friends…until now. Elsie is on a mission to get some real-life experience with flirting, dating, and even having sex. She sets her sights on a temporary ranch hand who Hunter knows is trouble. When he catches onto Elsie’s intentions he intervenes and it turns into him giving her lessons which, of course, turns into them realizing they have feeling for each other.

Elsie’s decision-making skills aren’t always the best. She’s mostly a likable character, but she hurts someone very close to her with her secrets and lies when she could have easily avoided the blow-up that would eventually happen. While her reasoning makes sense to a point, she went beyond that point and made it so I wasn’t thrilled with how things played out.

A great thing about this story is Hunter’s and Elsie’s ability to talk to each other. A lot of the stuff the author generally has going on in the heads of her characters was being verbalized between the couple. It helped me to see their relationship grow in a more understandable way. There is still a bit too much repetition of their inner reflections, but it was barely a blip. I enjoyed their chemistry and the reactions of their families as things were playing out.

There is something I feel I must bring up that, although I am not going to change my rating because of it, significantly affected my reading pleasure. This story is poorly edited when it comes to punctuation and continuity. Some sentences just don’t make sense. I try not to hold things that are obviously editing mistakes against the author or the book, but it was prevalent enough in this book I felt it was worth a mention for the sake of those who are going to spend money on the book.

You can find more of my reviews at All In Good Time.