Naomi was also an interesting character, and I loved the contrasts between the two. It’s his compelling character that makes the slow build worth it I really wanted to find out what made him tick. He’s a major jerk in the first half, and a total teddy bear by the end.

The pacing is also necessary to make Knox’s transformation feel authentic. After awhile, it became clear that all of those quieter moments were necessary, and those other characters will likely have stories of their own down the road.

It took awhile for me to settle into the laidback, small town feel, and there’s a lot of time devoted to characters other than Naomi and Knox – which is not usually something that I’m looking for in a romance. I will openly admit that I found the length of this book to be really frustrating at times. And with every interaction, it becomes more difficult to stay away. He wants nothing to do with a needy, high maintenance woman – or her adorable niece – but Knox can’t seem to help himself.

Everything about the surly man’s words and attitude tell Naomi to stay far away, but the devastatingly sexy jerk keeps coming to her rescue. As Naomi struggles to make ends meet, there’s one man who becomes her unlikely ally: Knox (43). It’s a lot to handle all at once, even for someone who has spent most of her life cleaning up everyone else’s messes. Naomi is now single, jobless, broke, homeless, and the 11-year-old niece she just found out about is suddenly in her care. The story follows Naomi (36), a runaway bride who finds herself in a small town she’s unfamiliar with while her life falls apart.

These two opposites attract in the best of ways, and their chemistry was both smokin’ hot and seriously swoony. I loved the subtlety and the transformation of the broken hero – and broken heroine – and the growth in intimacy was so very satisfying. Our hero is a growly jerk who pushes our heroine away with his words while holding her close with his actions, and their tense interactions slowly simmer into something sweeter. I loved it! While I think the story might be too slow-paced at the beginning and there’s a LOT of focus on the small town feel, it’s those quieter moments that make this sparkle in the back half. This is one of those books that feels entirely too long at the start, just right in the middle, and not long enough by the end.

Synopsis of things we never got over