Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5
When long hours and crushing stress push Bellamy Alexander to his breaking point, he walks away from his consulting job and drives until he runs out of gas. Fortune deposits him in front of Antonio’s, a place with decent pizza and an opening for a delivery boy. Even better, he finds an apartment right across the street from his new job. And best of all, Chris McGregor, the property manager who runs the custom furniture shop below Bell’s new digs, is super hot—and super into Bell.
It seems too good to be true—and maybe it is. Things aren’t exactly going smoothly. Bell avoids telling his mother the truth about his new job because he doesn’t want to hear how he should go back to the corporate world. On the other hand, he doesn’t think he wants to deliver pizza forever either. He’d like to think about settling down, but Chris runs hot and cold. Between Bell’s uncertainty and the hang-ups Chris refuses to talk about, they have their work cut out for them. Fortune may have caused their paths to dovetail, but it will take more than wood glue to hold them together.
Babe in the Woodshop by Ashlyn Kane, Claudia Mayrant and C.J. Burke is an all-around romantic feel good charmer. I’m familiar only with author’s Ashlyn Kane’s stories, so I was a little apprehensive about a novel that had not one but three authors pooling their talents to come up with one cohesive plot and characters I could enjoy and connect with.
The end result was as heartwarming and wonderful as that cover by Alexandria Corza. It just sort of glows with happiness as do the men and the people around them as the story comes to a close. Its angst free and darn near close to perfect.
Bell Alexander has had it with his full tilt stressed to the max life. So he opts out when his car dies in the parking lot of this pizza place in this small town he’s passing through. Turns out life has just handed him exactly what he needs and he runs with it. He gets a job as a pizza delivery boy (the last one just retired..its that sort of town). He finds the place to live comes with an unusual feline tenant upstairs and a handsome owner downstairs.
The pace of the story is as slow and marvelously true to the character and small town charm of the place. It lets you get a grasp of life as its lived there and on Bell as he slows down, unwinds, and starts to heal.
While we are learning about Bell, the author is busy giving us insight into Chris McGregor, our carpenter and property manager. There is no verbal dump of information. A conversation here, hints there from someone else, and little by little we get the full portrait of a man whose been very hurt in the past and can’t figure out how to get over that. Never does either man come across as anything less than believable.
Nor do they jump immediately into bed. Nope. The buildup is slow and steady. I liked that too.
The only thing I wanted more of was the ending. Perhaps I’m greedy. Maybe I didn’t want to let go of that small town or this couple but it felt a little too abrupt for me. That was the only thing that kept this was being perfect.
But the rest of this? Unless you want a lot of angst in your story, because really this didn’t have a lot of that here, this heartwarming romance is the perfect thing for lovers of contemporary romance or just romance. I absolutely recommend it. And now I’m going to have to look up those other two authors to see what they have written. I’ll let you know what I find.
Cover by Alexandria Corza is one of my favorites. Heartwarming and pertinent to the story. Loved it.
Sales Links
Book Details:
ebook, 200 pages
Expected publication: September 30th 2016 by Dreamspinner Press
ISBN 1634777069 (ISBN13: 9781634777063)
Edition LanguageEnglish
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 