It’s Tuesday again and I’m back again with another romance book pick – but this time it’s a bit of a weepy one, in a good way though, not in a not-really-a-romance-because-someone-dies way. I previewed Sarah T Dubb’s second book in the lookahead at the start of the year and so it’s probably not a surprise that this would be my pick once I read it.
Penny Becker is a bee keeper, and she’s also trying to keep her family’s farm going. She grew up on the farm with her mother and grandmother – after her grandfather and her father upped and left their relative partners. Penny never stops working – and she never relies on anyone other than herself because it always ends in tears. The last time she did try to let someone in, it resulted in a failed expansion plan, the loan for which is the reason the farm might be about to be foreclosed on. She really needs the annual honey festival to be a success to save the farm. Zander Bouras spent his childhood summers on his grandfather’s farm next door and he really, really hated it. He is not at all happy to be back in town for the summer, but his ex-wife wants to spend summer in town with her parents and where his son goes, Zander goes. And so he’s back in town and he’s taking the summer off from his life as a restauranteur to deal with the property his grandfather left him. As a teen he hated Penny for her perfect life, but his son is really into bees and so he and Penny are forced into each other’s orbit and need to learn to work together.
I was expecting the enemies bit of the enemies to lovers trope to last a bit longer than it did, but actually Zander and Penny get past their issues relatively quickly and this is more of a small town romance where one half of the couple really, really isn’t planning on staying in town and where the other is keeping some pretty big secrets. And I’ll admit I did want Penny to use her words and explain what was going on to someone, anyone other than just her co-worker, but he was encouraging her to let people in and Penny’s reluctance to ask for help felt very logical given the circumstances of her life. And this isn’t always doing what you expect it to do, and there’s one particular thing I was half expecting to occur that didn’t and in the end, I didn’t really mind because I was too invested in how Zander and Penny were going to find their way to a happy ending.
Sarah T Dubb says at the start of the book that this wasn’t the second book that she was planning to release after Birding With Benefits and this did make me a bit teary eyed at times – in a good way, not a miserable one which I don’t remember from Birding, but honestly, like her prior novel this has relatable characters who are imperfect and dealing with it – even if it’s a completely new group of people in a completely different state to Birding – and maybe one day we will see the original second book too. Either way, I’ll be looking for the next book from Dubb whenever it appears.
This one is available in Kindle and Kobo. I pre-ordered the paperback but when it turned up (back in March!) it was definitely an American edition and I don’t think I’ve seen this in a store yet so I don’t know how easy it will be to get a proper copy. If I spot it I’ll try and mention it though.
Happy Reading!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 