Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review.
This was a teeny bit of a disappointment for me after having loved Delilah Green Doesn’t Care so much, but it was still good! Just not a favorite.
We’re following Delilah’s Type-A sister, Astrid, and another character named Jordan as they fall in lurve. Astrid has been hired as the designer for the renovation of the Everwood Inn, a locally famous inn that is supposedly haunted. They are televising the renovation on Innside America and Astrid feels like this is the last chance she has to save her dying business. Jordan has just been fired from her carpenter job in Savannah and has come home to lick her wounds, and get a sort of second chance herself by being the lead carpenter on the reno. They clash immediately.
Something about this just didn’t gel perfectly for me. It felt a little bit labored. I’m not sure how else to explain it. Plus, there was so much going on in each character’s head, I feel like their time together getting to know each other got short shrift. I wanted more from it. I also thought Jordan’s arc worked much better than Astrid’s did, unfortunately, since she’s the title character. It did all work and I liked it, but it also didn’t have the magic for me that the first book did. Maybe because Delilah wasn’t the main character (her scenes in this one were highlights of the book).
[3.5 stars]