Goodreads|Amazon

Release date: August 20, 2019

Publisher: Gallery

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Blurb:

What’s a campaign manager’s worst nightmare? A smooth-talking charmer who’s never met a scandal that he didn’t like.

When Emmanuelle Peroni’s father—and mayor of her town—asks her to help rehab Cooper Endicott’s image, she’s horrified. Cooper drives her crazy in every way possible. But he’s also her father’s protégé, and she can’t say no to him without him finding out the reason why: Cooper and her have a messy past. So Emmanuelle reluctantly launches her father’s grand plan to get this Casanova someone to settle down with and help him lose his lothario reputation.

Cooper Endicott wanted to run for Mayor, but he never wanted the drama that went with it. Now that he’s on the political hamster wheel, the other candidates are digging up everything from his past. Even though he’s doing all the right things, his colorful love life is the sticking point for many of the conservative voters. He wants to win, badly, and he knows that if he wants any chance of getting a vote from the female population, he needs to change his image. The only problem? He might just be falling in love with the one person he promised not to pursue: the Mayor’s off-limits daughter.

Review:

The first time this one caught my eye was when I saw it being compared to one of my favorite author duos, Christina Lauren. I was obviously excited to see that comparison because I seriously can’t get enough of rom coms lately, especially theirs, but this was really nothing like a CL book. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t bad at all, it definitely had its own redeeming qualities, but anyone expecting a similar book will be disappointed.

One of the aspects that worked really well for me here was the setting, I absolutely love a small town romance and as this is the first in a new series, there were plenty of lovable characters that could definitely appear in future books. Hope Lake is a tight knit community and I love nothing more than a small town united. This focuses mainly on the towns mayoral race and while I’m pretty sick a real life politics, the author did a really good job of keeping things fairly light. There was definitely no apparent political agenda on behalf of the authors personal beliefs, it centered solely on the towns own political race. I wanted to make that clear in case anyone was hesitant at even the mention of politics, it was handled very well.

Before I wrap this up I think the main thing that missed this mark for me here was my lack of connection to both main characters. I found Emma to be a little annoying and Cooper was just ok for me. Neither of them wowed me and I didn’t feel any real chemistry between them until the very end. I think if you went into this expecting more of a Women’s Fiction read that’s very light on the romance you’ll enjoy this one a bit more than I did.

Overall rating: 3/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy