Hottie lumberjack gets his girl
4 stars

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m partial to some mountain man, insta-love, obsessive hero goodness - and Hope Ford always delivers for me.

This story doesn’t really come under the insta-love banner as our characters have been dating and in love for a couple of years at the start of the story. They’re both still virgins, however, as our hero, Ethan, wants to wait until they’re married before he and Nikki do the deed. But before the wedding can take place, tragedy strikes that breaks our couple apart, seemingly for good.

Ethan is exactly the kind of hero you would expect a mountain man lumberjack to be. He’s gruff, big, bulky, obsessed and absolutely all-in with Nikki - even when he’s not with her. If you like this kind of hero, you will like Ethan and, as stupid as he is (when it comes to him thinking he knows what’s best for Nikki) also understand his plight.

Nikki was a bit of an oddity for this type of book as she wasn’t a pushover. She pushed and pushed at Ethan, trying to give the pair a second chance as she knew they both loved each other. She didn’t give up and that was fairly admirable. She was also a sweet and likeable character - someone I was happy to root for.

There were a couple of editing mistakes which always annoy me - but it wasn’t enough for me to deduct any stars. There was also a really strange point when a secondary character mentions the auction house and says that it even caters to shifters and aliens. I wondered if I’d stumbled into a different kind of book only to realise later that this is a book in a series about said auction house, the Highest Bidder series. The other stories deal with the aliens and shifters while this book does not. And other than that, it appears each book only has the auction house in common.

The only reason I didn’t give this the full five stars is that there wasn’t nearly enough, well, angst, for me. I’m not someone who longs-for angst in their stories but in this tale there really wasn’t the push and pull of will they, won’t they. There was no drama and no worry that things wouldn’t work out. It was still a quick and enjoyable read - Hope Ford always brings it with the sexy stories - but I wanted a wee bitty more. ( )