I wanted to read this book because I love Lucy Score. I love the knockemout series, so when I saw she was doing another small-town series, with brothers, I was all for it. The first one annoyed the crap out of me as the main characters pissed me off, I was kind of hoping we wouldn’t see them as much anymore and they do kind of ruin this book still, but it was better than the first book.

This book has two points of view. The first is Zoey Moody and she is a literary agent who doesn’t like small town life, but here she is: exiled from Manhattan’s publishing scene and trapped in a tiny Pennsylvania town with her BFF and only remaining client, Hazel. The problem? She's totally broke. All she needs is for Hazel’s next romance novel to become a gigantic hit, and Zoey will be back in New York. Nothing will stand in her way. Nothing except her six-foot-two-inch landlord, Gage Bishop. He's smart, serious, and sexy. Worst of all, he’s ready to settle down. The second point of view is Gage Bishop, and he is the oldest Bishop sibling, and he thinks Zoey is the most beautiful woman he has ever met, but it’s clear they’re all wrong for each other. She is allergic to commitment and can’t work a calendar app; he’s looking for a wife and has the next five years of his life planned out. She's afraid of animals and he lives in a literal barn. But when Gage’s world is rocked by a family secret, he turns to Zoey for one night to forget everything. That one night just might change everything or ruin it.

I love Zoey and Gage. I love the individual character journeys they went on and how they went on separate journeys but also how the relationship unfolded. I preferred Zoey’s character development especially with the storyline of her having ADHD. I love that it was some grumpy, old, retired psychologist who had one conversation with Zoey and managed to diagnose her straight away. Could you imagine if everything was that easy when it came to medical care? I still love the side characters in this book – Levi, Laura, Felicity, the Bishop parents, the nieces and nephews we saw more of in this book. I was giggling at Levi and just how sick he was of his brothers, to be fair I was getting sick of Cam’s bullshit still in this book and it wasn’t even his story. I love the brothers togethers and their banter and how they do stupid shit like trying to hunt for a badger that they stayed up all night because Cam was getting sick of it. I still love Laura and I was hoping to see more of her in this book, and I am hoping she gets her own book with Manny. THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN. I still enjoy Story Lake and how Zoey managed to love the small town and then didn’t want to leave and the town had her back. I love that they were so pissed off at Gage he got the hint from the minute he acted stupid. I loved that Gage realised there was more to life than planning it to the second but was also dealing with trauma from his brother in law’s death.

Hazel and Cam still piss me off, I know we were expecting to see them during this book because of Hazel being Zoey’s best friend and Cam being the middle brother. But they didn’t need to feature in this book as much. I hated that this storyline relied on the fact that Hazel was pushing for Zoey’s happy ever after and was pushing her just so she could write another book. She was being selfish so that Zoey would stay in town and even though it worked well in the end, Hazel knew that Zoey wanted to be a big city girl and she shouldn’t been pushing her to stay in town. Cam was also more concerned about Gage ruining his wedding or fucking things up FOR HIM. He didn’t care if his brother was happy or not. I understand being like you know, my wedding is round the corner, can you not make it awkward but to keep making it a big deal and then basically rubbing it in his face afterwards was just piss poor. The third-act breakup wasn’t necessary but we knew it was going to happen and for it to be fixed within three chapters still drives me nuts, like this could have been done so much better. I feel like the children conversation could have been done so much better, if it was a case that Zoey was adamant that she didn’t want children, not that the choice was taken away from her. I would have loved for that to have been a dealbreaker and to see if Gage has changed his mind. Whether it was the fact that Zoey had trauma from her shitty parents or being absolutely terrified of giving birth or anything else. I hated that the child-free aspect was just quickly resolved with let’s adopt and could have been so much more of a conversation around being career-focused and child-free for the both of them. I think it could have been a much better side of the story and I felt like her trauma from Sam was passed on too quickly.

I am hoping Levi’s book is next, but I am wanting Laura to have her own book as well with Manny and Felicity to have her own book. Unless Levi and Felicity are the couple for book three? I want to see less of Hazel and Cam and more of Laura, Levi, Felicity, Manny, hell even the nieces and nephews.

I wanted to read this book because I missed these characters and I wanted more. These were four short stories, and I loved them, but I wanted more, which usually the problem I have with short stories and novellas.

This book has four short stories. The first one is called Overdue and this is about the business of writing, the relationship between the writer and the text, the writer and the task, and the writer and the reader. They also look at how the Library relates to bookshops, how commerce enters the pictures and we get to see the characters we’ve come to love with a few personal stories. The second book is called Returns and they explore ideas around the way that one book can move through the hands and lives of so many people. A single book can tell radically different stories from one reader to the next, even though they are looking at the same pages. And then the Library gets involved there is always a return. This is about the idea of books going out into the world and having a journey, as well as being a journey for each reader. The third book is called About Pain and it looks at the idea of how a great book changes as we as a person grows and changes and how each visit to it can offer something surprising that they can be blind to on the previous encounters. A favourite book can be a companion throughout our lives. The last book is called Tabula Rasa which is Latin for clean slate. This takes a look at both the horror and potential of the blank page. It also manages to wrap in some pontifications on immortality and death.

I loved each other these stories individually. I loved how they are thought provoking and it’s a different pace from the trilogy. I liked that we saw different characters, like we still saw Livira and some of the other characters from the trilogy, but they weren’t the main focus on the story. My favourite book is About Pain and a guy's journey reading the same book throughout the years and going back to the Library to discuss it with Livira. I feel like this is the book like the third story of you could read this book in five years' time, and it would be different if you read in ten years' time.

I would have loved for it to have been one full story or they all link together. I wanted them to be longer. I wanted more from them every time. That's always my issue with novella.

Overall, I adored this book, I just wanted more of it and will always want more from Mark’s work and now I'm just trying to decide which series of his to read next.