All cattleman Adam Kincaid wants is for Billie and her son to leave town. Adam and Billie are on an inevitable collision course, but will love prove the perfect solution? The obstacles seem insurmountable. Adam doubts his ability to protect and love, after failing to prevent a family tragedy a few years earlier. Billie can't trust anyone but herself – and she's done a damn good job at looking after her son without help. Who needs a man?
Comment: This is a novella I knew about years ago in Nath's blog. Although I only got it a lot of time after that, only recently I actually decided to read it. Unfortunately, this happens a lot with my TBR list books...
This is the story of Billie Temple, a single mother who accepted new job in a pub and traveled there with her son. She is renting a cottage that belongs to Adam Kincaid but when they meet he seems surprised to see her and thought she would be a man. It's obvious the two won't get a long easily...
Adam is man suffering guilt over the death of his wife and son. Billie and her child bring him back memories but not for the reasons most people would think.
Can the two of them have an agreement of cordial conversations at least?
This being a novella means two important things:
a) the story happens quickly and
b) the romance develops rather fast as well.
I think novellas are always harder to accomplish because of the space limit. Authors have to include elements and devices well enough to explain things properly but at the same time they have to make the plot move along convincingly.
The problem is that many times one thing is better done than the other, or the author chooses to explain things or the focus is on one thing and the others gets lost.
In this novella, I think ms Hunter did well. She presented her story, made it move along and there are some passages where we can see the change of time, or time passing by too.
My issue is the following: The author did try to show how time was passing by in order to make the plot seem longer and things happening through a longer period of time. However, it was too obvious how this was being done. I couldn't avoid noticing that which meant I was aware of how some things happened quite quickly. I'm thinking specifically about the romance.
Nowadays many romances show characters creating a bond or a relationship that0s supposed to be light, not strings attached and so on but of course it will evolve for a romantic loving relationship. But the premise of the superficial connection based mostly on sex - as a means to quicken the bond between them - seems very unappealing and just an easy tool to make things move along. In this case, my biggest issue was precisely how Billie and Adam got together, the reasons why that happened that way. I'm sure it's very contemporary, easy, common, whatever, but for me it said nothing.
Apart from this disappointment, the rest of the story seemed more balanced. I liked many elements (like the little mystery and the pub's way of working and its costumers) but truthfully, I'd have preferred the author to focus on other things, maybe letting us know the romance would happen but not that way.
I also feel sorry the main couple's relationship with Billie's son wasn't better developed. I think that had the potential to make this story sweeter.
All things considered, the story wasn't bad. I understand the limits of pages where many ideas have to develop a certain way or not be included but in this case some subjects weren't done in the most interesting way, in my opinion.
I enjoyed many passages and scenes but the main character's interactions really let me down for the most part.
Grade: 7/10
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