Judging from other reviews, I'm out of the mainstream in my dislike for this book. True, it's very easy to read, and the protagonist is smart and capable. But the tone just didn't work for me. There's a kind of saccharine quality to all of the characters, and the women are all so reliably paired up with men who want to take care of them (and even though they push back on this, it's definitely there). When one of the bad guys makes fun of a character's girlfriend for being uninteresting and for her name being cow-like, a part of me couldn't help but wonder if Carlisle wasn't setting him up when she named her Marigold.
What bothered me the most, though, was the hero of the piece, Rafe. He swoops into town with more money than he knows what to do with and has all sorts of grandiose plans to (literally) save the world. He's supposed to be this business genius and inventor. He seems high maintenance to me, but everyone just loves him. We're supposed to believe that all the people at the save the world conference that he hosts on his property (but seems to spend remarkably little time running. Who is actually in charge of that conference? Every conference I've been to or been involved with generally has multiple people running around madly to keep everything going smoothly) are weirdos, but I honestly couldn't see what separated him from the rest. The fact that he had money? That he was devoted to Shannon's friend Marigold (who never really emerges as much of a personality).
I haven't read any other books by Carlisle before this one, but I had heard great things about the bibliophile series. After this one, though, I'm not so sure.
I received an ARC of this book from Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.
