This was my first Kate Clayborn, something I’ve been meaning to rectify for a while. I couldn’t resist this cover and a Paris setting. Its been a perfect read for beautiful Spring weather.

I now get why people love her books. The writing style is so easy to sync into and her dialogue and character interactions feel so natural. I loved all the Paris details, just enough to fulfill the promise of the synopsis and Paris romance, without being overly gratuitous or forced.

But more then that, I loved the family drama in this one. Layla and Griffin both have a lot of well earned baggage. The people around them, the ones who love them, are maybe a little toxic. This story is as much about them finding the strength to be honest about boundaries and their complex histories as it was about them falling in love. At first I was a little frustrated by their unexplained insecurities and how the author kept the truth about their pasts secret from the reader. But eventually I really loved that your are discovering and opening up right along with Layla and Griffin.

I can honestly say I can’t remember reading a contemporary romance so healthy, that also maintained the swoon factor. I loved that they maintained a sense of openess and honesty even when the drama around them could have made it all fall apart. A weaker author would have taken the easy road towards conflict and manufactured drama.

But my favorite parts of this book where the beautifully detailed intimate interactions between Layla and Griffin. Paragraphs dedicated to how they hold hands, press close, make eye contact. It made you feel like you where right their in that quiet intensity with them as they fall into one another. The way they realize that this is a person who will accept them just as they are. Again, each time there was a moment the author could have been lazy and used a secret reveal to create rifts and miscommunication, she had this couple double down and commit to being open. It was so refreshing. The last 10% of this book was just like a deep exhalation. I was so happy on that last page.

Great book!