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My Review:Title: Wildflower
Author: Mae Wood
Series: Speakeasy Taproom #5
Published by: Heart Eyes Press
Release Date: August 2, 2021
Format: eARC
Pages: 237
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Source: Heart Eyes Press
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2021 COYER Summer, Lenoreo's 2021 Diversity Reading Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks
My rating:
Blurb:When the prize is love, sometimes you get stung. But if you’re lucky, you just might hit the sweet spot…
Juliana Burton needs a medal at Speakeasy's beer festival to push her brand-new brewery into the spotlight. She thinks she knows how to do it, too--with a beer made exclusively from Vermont hops, barley and the best honey in the state. Too bad the only thing standing in her way is a six feet tall, smokin’ sexy, and her secret high school crush.
After a very public disaster in Boston, Riggs Lyon is home with his teenage son in tow. Riggs is taking over the family
beekeeping business with an eye to offload it and start life over somewhere where "Lyin' Lyon" isn't a joke. Selling honey to Juliana doesn't make business sense. She can't afford the high prices Lyon honey fetches in specialty shops and farmer's markets. But somehow, he’s having trouble saying no to anything she asks for, whether it’s in the hive or in the bedroom.
I received a free copy through Heart Eyes Press in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.
3.5 stars — I had a hard time connecting with this one right from the start…it just didn’t feel like a good match for me personally. Now, it did pick up in the last 1/3, hence the extra half star, but in the end I think it just wasn’t a Lenore book.
The main reason it wasn’t working for me in the beginning is that Juliana and Riggs have a bit of an antagonistic relationship, especially at the beginning, and that’s not my bag. I know there’s a big component of romance readers who enjoy that push and pull, the fights and the making up, it’s just not my thing. And that was a pretty big component to the first half of the book. What can I say, I’m a sensitive fucking butterfly, and this kind of thing makes my tummy hurt in a not good way.
Now, their relationship did totally pick up, mellow out, and settle in…I just had to hold on. But it took a bit.
Both characters were a bit more difficult than I’m used to. Ambitious, determined, bold. I admired Juliana’s passion for brewmaking for sure, but didn’t always connect with her personality in other ways. Riggs had a bigger journey in some ways, trying to figure out what he wanted out of life. And I appreciated the journey, even if I didn’t always see all the steps.
So yeah, the other major misstep for me is that I had a hard time connecting with the writing. Maybe it was just me, but I felt confused a lot. I don’t know how to describe it, it was like I couldn’t follow the thought processes and transitions all the time. *shrugs* I don’t know, I seem to be in the minority, so take that with a grain of salt my friends.
This one had some pretty fun secondary characters, from the brewery ladies to the families to Juliana’s BFF Mercy. I also appreciated all I learned about both brewing beer and beekeeping in this one — that kind of stuff always adds to a story for me.
Ah well, they can’t all be complete matches!
I’ll skip this one. Thanks for reading and reviewing!