2.5 stars

It seems all of the stories in this series are shorter than this author’s usual full-length books but longer than a typical novella. In most cases, I love her novellas and her novels. Something about this series is just not connecting with me the way her other stories have through the years.

Cara and Jace do a lot of ruminating. A LOT. The bulk of this story takes place over 3 or 4 days, most of which is spent with them in deep thought. There is dialogue between them, but not very much. And while they are sharing the page through much of this thinking, they are so internally focused it’s almost as if they are not in the same room at all. That leads me to feel like I’m being told they love each other and have feelings for each other instead of being shown these things. It’s a shame since Maisey Yates is usually a master of big emotions with her characters.

The premise of this book is great, but there are holes along the way. The continuity is off; is it Sunday or Thursday or some other day? Was Cara raised by her mom’s dad or her dad’s dad? Little things, but little things that can take you out of the story.

There were so many things that could have been great in this book. Cara’s refusal to back down and to make sure that Jace knew she could see behind his bull, Jace’s surprise at his strong reactions to Cara, and the hope and faith aspect that runs through, are all beautiful things. They just weren’t striking the right chord with how they were being laid out.

I love this author, and I’m not giving up. Not even on this series since I have an extreme FOMO that tells me if I decide to skip a book it’ll be the wonderful tale I keep expecting. This story is sweet and I did find myself wanting to read on to see how things would be resolved, but it fell flat.

**I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely**

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