Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsNice and sweet
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 25, 2013
We jump right into the middle of this story with Griffin and Kate because they meet right away and already have a long-ago shared history. Every story set in Sunshine, Idaho is interconnected but they release so slowly that I never remember who's who right when I start the book. The last book, Rescue My Heart, is about Adam and Holly. Griffin is Holly's brother and Kate is Holly's best friend. They've known each other for ages but they're being thrown together now for Holly and Adam's wedding.
Kate is a caretaker for everyone. She's a school teacher, surrogate mother to her siblings, housekeeper to her father. She even takes care of her ex-boyfriend/best male friend. I honestly had no idea where she found the time for all these things, but that's pretty typical of Jill Shalvis characters – they're so busy, they must not sleep or something.
Kate doesn't really take care of herself; the best she can manage is an occasional run or something to work off all the ice cream she eats. She's been offered a full scholarship for a master's program, but she can't convince herself to accept it when she's so “needed” where she is. She's so very scared of losing her place in life. She shows she cares by doing for people and what will happen to her heart if she's not there to take care of everyone. It ends up being rather unhealthy, the way Kate enables everyone to depend on her. I got really frustrated sometimes with her family, not just for relying on her, but really they used her and dumped a lot of grief on her too. Ok, so it was mostly her teenage sister, but sometimes I really wanted to smack her and I got irritated that no one did.
Between Holly and Kate's ex (Ryan), she had some nice caring friends. They don't take advantage of her, but they do let her express her love by taking care of them. I loved that Kate was able to have a good male friend without any added weirdness from Griffin or others. It was really nice to see that kind of confidence and security between all the characters that no one started looking sideways at them because they were friends.
Holly warns Griffin to stay away from Kate because (obviously) he's a love-'em-and-leave-'em type. But especially with a little wedding related alcohol in her system, Kate really wants Griffin even if it's only for a night. It's something Kate's started convincing herself that she should do just because she wants it. Some way of taking care of herself, fulfilling her needs, taking some part of life by the horns and not letting opportunity pass her by.
Griffin is trying to find a place where he belongs after being injured in the military. He ran as fast as he could from Sunshine, Idaho as a teenager, but now thinks that maybe he could belong there. He's hurting inside and out and Kate is a great panacea for his pain. She adds him to her list of people she cares for and tries everything she can to help him. Griffin seems like the first person that actually tries to give something back to her. I loved that about him. He let her express her own caring, but also turned it around on her and took care of her too. Even when they're not sure where things are going between them, they both reflect affection very clearly.
Most of the time, I thought that Griffin and Kate were really alike. They were both so good at taking care of people and effortlessly showed people they cared. They also didn't get upset when the other person was caring for them. No hurt feeling or saying “don't baby me” and stuff. It was like they really understood each other.
I found it so amusing that Griffin ends up second guessing himself and being the insecure one. Kate seems totally ok with her decisions in regards to Griffin, but Griffin always seems confused. Kate's too busy with life to let herself wait around and pine for a guy, but Griffin's always wondering if she's upset about something. It was a nice switch to have the guy be a little insecure instead of putting that onto the female character.
They did have their times of messing up, which were frustrating and upsetting to see. In trying to deal with his pain, Griffin ends up being a bit nasty towards the end, but they were able to work things out eventually.
I usually have a couple good laughs from these books, but I think this one was more of a smile with a couple surprising tearful moments too. The caring in this book was so well written that you really felt for these characters. It was another good comfort read. Definitely nicest if you have a long afternoon to just sit and read all day, but still good when you only have small snatches of time.
