Rating: 3.75 stars out of 5
Is he in love with an old hotel—or its new owner?
Professional snowboarder Cullen Patrick is successful and kinda famous. So when he inherits an old Colorado hotel from an unknown relative, he really should leave well enough alone.
Matt Nathanson has been managing the Treeline Estates since college. He loved the elderly former owner, and he stands to inherit the place if no one claims it in the next week. Of course, Cullen shows up, and Matt thinks it’s time to move on. He doesn’t want to like Cullen, no matter how engaging the guy is, or how hunky.
Cullen has grand ideas for the Treeline, but he doesn’t want to implement them without Matt, and he’s not sure he’s ready to give up snowboarding. Can Matt convince Cullen that putting down roots is worth it… and maybe catch his heir at the same time?
I throughly enjoyed Julia Talbot’s Catching Heir, another contemporary romance in Dreamspinner Press’ Dreamspun Desires series. It follows a storyline of the lost inheritance and the found heir. Someone is about to inherit a …fill in person’s heart’s desire…home, ranch, palace estate…you name it and then up pop’s the long lost heir to take it back. In this case its a beautiful old hotel, a grand dame of hotels that Matt Nathanson stands to inherit in 24 hours if no heir arrives to claim it. But of course, one does in the person of Cullen Patrick, grandson of who owned and loved Treeline Estates dearly and who recently died.
Part of this review is hard to write because as much as I adored the story, its what’s missing about it that nags at me and makes me wonder about those parts I feel are left out. I really like these characters, Matt especially. You get the feeling he’s been caught in a time warp of his making and that of Ben Patrick, Cullen’s grandfather. Ben plucked Matt right out of college and brought him to the Treeline as a young man, a hotel filled with 60 somethings and a owner who dwelled in the past. You certainly get a wonderful feel for this character immediately.
Cullen too fits that snowboarder image and extreme sports athlete although I wish he had a bit more layering to him. He needed more a past to match that of Matt, although they make a great couple. I like how the author moves him from immediate jerk status to one to comes to appreciate Matt and the hotel. That’s lovely. Plus its great to watch the slow process of Cullen easing Matt out of the closed in life he’s lead all these years at the hotel as their romance deepens.
But you know who’s missing? Ben Patrick..the dead man at the heart of the hotel, staff and who was Matt’s best friend and mentor. I really needed to get a feel for him and that hole haunts this story, much like his empty room Matt refuses to enter. We don’t know anything about their relationship all those years, not even a memory. He’s a ghost that pulls this story down by his absence.
Talbot has given Matt and Cullen a wonderful secondary cast with the hotel staff. We get a feel of what it is to run something like that as well as set up a snowboard run, all of which was interesting and well folded into the story. It also helped to authenticate both men and made them believable. There was a side thread that was less so but it was a flash and then it was dropped.
All in all, a sweet, contemporary romance and another terrific addition in this series.
I recommend it, let that cover pull you in. Its a perfect representation of Cullen, perfectly adorable.
Cover art by Paul Richmond does a wonderful job once more.
Sales Links
Book Details:
ebook, 250 pages
Expected publication: December 1st 2016 by Dreamspinner Press
ISBN 163477678X (ISBN13: 9781634776783)
Edition LanguageEnglish
URL
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 