TITLE: Close Enough To Touch
AUTHOR: Victoria Dahl
PUBLICATION DATE: 8/28/12
| BOOK SYNOPSIS: For makeup artist Grace Barrett, Hollywood isn’t the land of golden opportunity. It’s the land of difficult divas, cheating boyfriends and unemployment. So when her great-aunt offers her a free place to stay in Jackson Hole, Grace thinks she’ll spend a little time in the sticks to figure out her life, and then move somewhere exciting to live out her dreams. But it turns out that there are a few more thrills in this small town than Grace was expecting….
Cole Rawlins is a rugged Wyoming cowboy born and bred. Yet he can’t help but be drawn to the fascinating big-city girl who moves in across from him. He wants to get close enough to Grace to see past her tough facade, but if he does, she might get to see the real Cole. The one with a Hollywood history gone bad. As they discover a sizzling attraction, it becomes harder for him to keep his demons at bay–and those fires from long ago may burn them both.
They’ll need more than scorching-hot passion to make this opposites-attract affair work. But if they can learn to trust one another enough to reveal their secrets, they just might have a chance at forever.
REVIEW: I adore Victoria Dahl’s books because she always seem to write these great romances in small towns with interesting characters. I thought this book was good, but for me, it wasn’t as light-hearted as her previous novels. Grace is a character that has a lot of emotional baggage to deal with when she first arrives at Jackson Hole. She has no money, no job and no direction but is trying to find her place in life without depending on a man like her mother. She acted very tough by not letting anyone get close to her and found it easier to lash out at people instead of letting her guards down because she was afraid of being hurt. I liked her but I wanted her to open up more to people than just pretending to be this tough city chick.
Cole was dealing with emotional issues as well during the course of this novel. He was slowly recovering from an injury that shattered his pelvis and he was scared that he wouldn’t be able to ride a horse again. If he couldn’t ride a horse then he would be unable to run the ranch that he was hoping to buy from his boss when he retired. To him, that was everything and he was guilty of lashing out at others as well. Grace and Cole were so much alike even though from the outside they looked like exact opposites. The chemistry and sexual tension was extremely hot but that isn’t all there is to a relationship and it took some time for these characters to get past their own issues to try to build that relationship.
I liked this novel but I want others to be aware that this isn’t a light-hearted romance. These characters have some real emotional issues from mistakes of their past and the romance between the two doesn’t start off easy. I’m looking forward to reading Victoria’s next novel in the series “Too Hot to Handle” which stars Grace’s best friend, Merry. Hopefully, her love story will go smoother than Grace’s did.
Disclaimer:
The following review is my opinion and not a paid review.
4 Hearts
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