Rating: ★★★ | 384 Pages | Sourcebooks Casablanca | Contemporary | 9/6/2016
When business owner Cynthia Nichols stomps into Webster’s Garage to tell the mechanics off for parking cars in her parking lot, she immediately catches the attention of all of the body shop “bad boy” mechanics. Foley Hamilton immediately calls dibs and what starts out as a casual game of cat and mouse between Foley and Cyn might just be the real thing…that is if their friends and family don’t get in the way first.
Cynthia Nichols is that unconventional romance heroine they warned you about. She’s in her mid-thirties, independent, running her business and at 6 feet tall and size 24 doesn’t have the body of your typical coquettish romance heroine. She’s dealing with a traditional Italian mother who wants her to start a family and “blue collar badass” Foley isn’t exactly what her mother has in mind. I thought it was great how Harte doesn’t play the I Want Grankids lightly, it shines a light on how Cyn’s mother’s comments about weight and her relationships are starting to become verbal abuse.
I’m not sure if I really believed the chemistry between Cyn and Foley though. They start to implicitly trust each other and I’m not sure why especially since Foley makes some weird comments about her weight in the beginning that really upset her. Also the ending gave me whiplash, we go from the Foley in an intense emotional situation to Cyn in an intense emotional situation and then a smash cut to a light hearted party that seemed to only exist to introduce the characters of Harte’s new series.
That said I’m still in for the next book, which about Foley’s roommate / best friend Sam. I think what draws me to this series is the sense of community, it’s subtle but this Seattle metro area is so well developed. I love seeing how all the past characters interact with each other.
SIDENOTE
I really hate this cover…