This series starter takes place in the same world, the same small town, as the Careys of Cowboy Point series. While I really enjoyed the characters and the setting of that series, I had a problem with the premise. That made it hard to sink into the stories. I decided to give the new series a try, given that the problematic premise had been wrapped up. Thankfully, although the matriarchs of the families are on hand, they are not conniving. All of the conniving happened in the past, with the father who is not in the picture. That means I was able to fully immerse myself in the world of Cowboy Point.

Tennessee and Matilda are known from that other series, but you absolutely do not have to read those books. This can be read as a complete standalone. The overall premise of the series is that Tennessee and his siblings find out their father had a whole other family. Their moms bring the adult children together and become friends themselves. The moms just want to see their kids shake off the stink of their awful father, thrive in what they enjoy, and find love. It’s great!

There is a ton of character growth, especially for Tennessee, which I love to see. He took so much on his shoulders when his dad disappeared, and he has always taken the burdens of his family as his own. He doesn’t resent his family; in his mind, that is just how it is. He’s the head of the family and has been since he was a teenager. He takes his sense of duty a step further with his feelings of responsibility to the town. That doesn’t mean he’s friendly, because he’s not. He does what needs doing. That doesn’t require him to socialize, and that’s okay with him.

Matilda crashes into Tennessee’s well-ordered life like a hurricane. A hurricane he’s been trying to skirt for years. But Matilda is sick of waiting for Tennessee to notice her, so she takes things into her own hands. It’s delightful. She does what she wants, ignores the naysayers in town, but it’s all for good. Once she makes befriending Tennessee her mission, he’s doomed.

I loved the sweet interactions that left Tennessee befuddled. I especially loved when that sweetness exploded, and these two gave in to their obvious chemistry. Coming from seemingly disparate lifestyles, these two are actually a lot alike and slot into each other’s lives with natural ease.

Now that I know there aren’t any weird backhanded shenanigans going on, I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of this series will play out.

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

This book made a splash when it came out, at least in my little corner of the internet. It was a book I stored in the back of my brain to read when the hype calmed down, so my expectations wouldn’t be too high. Every time this author releases another book, which is a noticeable thing since they have such great titles, I remember I still have to read her books. A few months back, I read a short story by the author without realizing she was the author of these books, and fell in love with how fun, smart, and sassy the MFC was. It was finally time to stop putting off reading this series.

First off, the narrator is fantastic. She got Cinn’s mix of sassy and vulnerable down perfectly. With each addition to the cast of characters, I was more and more impressed. And a fun cast of characters it is! While Cinn and Fallon get a lot of alone time at first, once they start adding helpers to their quest, their numbers grow quickly.

When it comes to relationship building and fleshing out the characters overall, the book falls a bit short. Yet that didn’t matter to me. I was having too much fun. I was intrigued by the world Cinn lives in, and how much she doesn’t know about her own world. Her community has blindly followed the generation before, who followed the generation before, so on and so forth, for hundreds of years. Now, Cinn is forced to question those ways and sets out to rectify the situation, although she never wanted adventure. She’s a homebody through and through.

With the light character development, not much is known about Fallon or the rest of the demons. Again, I was okay with that. Fallon was a “touch her and die” hero that I fully understood, even without his background. I was excited when the different types of demons were revealed, and I look forward to maybe learning more in subsequent stories.

This story is a delight. Harriet is a delight. Even Gideon turns out to be a delight. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with these characters. I cannot believe I haven’t read this author before. Especially since she is Jayne Ann Krentz.

Harriet wants nothing to do with the ton, the season, marriage, or titles. As far as she’s concerned, the sooner she’s thought of as a spinster, the better. She figures once she gets her younger sister married to comfortable, she’ll be home free. Able to dig for fossils to her heart’s content. Until someone threatens her beloved caves. It’s time to bring in the big guns.

Although Gideon is in line for the title, he is also averse to the ton and all that comes with that life. While he is caring and great with the rest of the lands his father put under his care, he does all he can to avoid Upper Biddleton. There is too much baggage in the place he used to call home. He comes to town after an urgent missive from Harriet, and the two are instantly enamored with one another.

The way Harriet sees Gideon for who he is, instead of what’s been said about who he is, and Gideon enjoys the way Harriet speaks her mind, is phenomenal. Gideon is so used to being unfairly judged, for perceived past actions and his scarred face, that he doesn’t trust how open and honest Harriet is with him. He especially doesn’t trust that she’s not trying to get something from him.

Although Gideon’s parents get better as the story progresses, they are not great. I had so much fun when Gideon and Harriet were with them, and she called out their bad behavior. The easy, teasing way the couple interacted with each other showed his parents that their son is not only lovable but also deeply loved.

This story broke my heart over and over. Gideon is such a good person, and he was treated so poorly for most of his adult life. It was beautiful to see him blossom with the love and understanding of Harriet and her family.

For the most part, I loved the pairing of Grayson and Charlie. They understood one another while also knowing nothing about each other. They just clicked. Charlie is a great addition to the other residents of Smile and the Get Lost Lodge. She’s kind, perceptive, loving, and empathetic. It’s no wonder they take her under their umbrella so quickly. Even if she didn’t have a connection to her Uncle Bernie, whom she had never met, I think the connection to all the other characters would still be strong.

When it comes to the budding relationship between Charlie and Grayson, I was all in. Yet, the foreshadowing of what was to come got to be tedious. I felt like it was being shoved down my throat. I don’t mind knowing, in an abstract way, what is to come in a book. You can even say that’s one of the reasons I love the Romance genre. I want to know there will be an HEA. For me, it’s about the journey. Sure, I like a surprise about the roadblocks the romance faces once in a while, but I don’t need it to be a big reveal. I also don’t want to be reminded over and over and over…and over again…what will most likely cause a rift between the couple.

If what was foreshadowed so prominently had been executed in a way that made sense to the characters and what was actually happening in the moment, I may have forgotten all about my annoyance. Instead, I found myself shaking my head. The third act doesn’t always need a breakup. I’m not saying it doesn’t need conflict, but that conflict doesn’t have to be a huge blow-up between the love interests. Especially when it’s out of character. Then, after all of that, the character who was in the wrong didn’t even grovel.

My experience with this author is up and down. I love her characters and have enjoyed many of her books. But there are always some that fall flat for me. Which is frustrating when the story contains such wonderful characters. Plus, when writing about certain aspects of Michigan, where this series takes place and my home state, she gets things very wrong, which takes me out of the story. That always makes me feel the author didn’t do their homework and doesn’t care about the world-building of their books.

I feel like I’m bashing this author and this book. I don’t mean to come across that way. I did enjoy a lot of the aspects of this story. In fact, I’m still giving it 3 stars because the romance between Grayson and Charlie was great. I just wanted to explain why I wasn’t able to rate this book higher.

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

I cannot tell you how happy I am that Piper Rayne are continuing with the full cast narration for this series. Ever since listening to their series, The Nest, I want all my audiobooks to have a full cast. Especially when it’s such a fantastic cast.

Since The Nest series were my first books by these authors, I did go back to read some of their earlier stuff. I haven’t gotten to the books that took place right before The Nest, and this new one comes right after. The hockey players who used to live at The Nest passed the apartments to some of the single guys from the professional baseball team. You don’t have to have read any of those previous books; this can be read as a standalone with no problem. If you have read those books, you’ll recognize many of the characters here.

This story, while heartwarming and swoony, had some heavy elements. Leighton was named guardian of her cousin’s three young children after her cousin and her cousin’s husband had an accident. There is fear of her not being able to keep the kids due to a family member contesting her guardianship, the natural self-doubt about being up for the job of instant-parent, and her internal hangups from the way her parents’ divorce went down.

Hayes is Leighton’s best friend’s brother. They’ve known each other most of their lives and harbored crushes on each other since they were teens. Both have kept that close to the vest. Leighton, because she didn’t want to ruin her friendship, and Hayes, because he thought Leighton wasn’t interested. And Hayes is not one to do anything to make a woman, especially Leighton, uncomfortable. When Hayes steps in to help with the kids, the warmth and respect they have for each other is obvious. I love their chemistry and how Hayes gets past Leighton’s walls without coming across as overbearing.

Getting to know the other single Colts better was almost as good as the romance storyline of this book. I adore how good they were with the kids. Their support of Leighton while still giving Hayes a friendly hard time perfectly displayed their friendship. I cannot wait to read all of their stories.

I received an ARC of this book courtesy of Hambright PR. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely

I like a mystery every now and again, but it’s not usually my thing. But this story sucked me in and had me fully invested in Lord Julian. Oddly enough, the main mystery wasn’t what drew me in. It was Julian’s past, his thoughts (and missing thoughts) about himself, and the way he handled himself in situations where he was snubbed and/or looked down upon. He’s such a smart, witty, and good guy. I was so glad he at least had a couple of people on his side.

One of Julian’s biggest believers is Hyperia, the woman he had “an understanding” with before the war, but whom he broke up with before they were officially engaged. It’s clear they still adore each other, and it’s clear Julian set her free so as not to burden her with his stained reputation and his physical ailments. Their relationship is tender yet fierce. I wouldn’t call this a Romance, but it has romantic elements between these two. I’m hoping they meet again in the future.

The world-building is fantastic. I also feel the narrator of the audiobook did a lot to lend to my enjoyment of this story. I would still have loved my time in this world had I read it with my eyes, but the narration added a lot of depth for me, and I didn’t want to stop listening to James Langdon’s voice.

There are so many interesting characters in this tale. Some I know we’ll see again, and some I’m keeping my fingers crossed they’ll cross paths with Julian in the future. I thought I had read this author before, but I cannot find anything. So I’m glad I finally did, and look forward to more. Especially in this series.

I received an ARC of this book courtesy of Hambright PR. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely