⭐⭐☆
Kellan Cobb, a vet in San Francisco needs some me-time to
get a handle on herself. She was in a relationship with Keira which didn’t
quite work out because she thought they were serious and Keira felt they made
better friends. Keira is now in a relationship with Emma and since Kellan and
Keira belong to the same group of friends, they end up hanging out together and
Kellan cannot handle her ex’s relationship. So Kellan goes off by herself to
Tahoe for a couple of weeks. Reese Lee, a kindergarten teacher in Tahoe
volunteers at the visitor’s centre and has a penchant for picking up tourists
for brief flings, and that is exactly her intention when she first sees Kellan.
Initially we loved that the two MCs could really talk to
each other. They were self-aware and willing to talk about stuff instead of
bottling things up. But then as the book progressed, we vigorously disliked
Reese so much that we couldn’t appreciate the romance or chemistry in the book
at all. We found Reese a user and worse, feeling an emotional entitlement to
her bad behaviour being excused and indulged in because she happens to have a
medical condition. We disliked her behaviour with her twin sister, Remy. We
hated her treatment of Morgan. We found her mostly only taking from Kellan; so
much so that when the two discuss about making a long distance relationship
between them work, it was mostly centred around Kellan coming to Tahoe with
minimal effort from Reese.
In fact, at one point in the book, Reese’s life is in
danger. We knew we were reading a romance and knew how it was going to turn out
but we were actively wishing that Reese would die and let the nicer characters –
people who were able and willing to love beyond themselves – find each other
and get together.
So clearly, this book didn’t work for us. However, we can
understand the appeal it can hold for most readers of romance because it does
have good pacing, a character who knows to love (Kellan) and sweet moments in
addition to building chemistry and good sex scenes.
⭐⭐☆
