Score: 4/5 Bookmarks

Steam rating: 🍆🍆🍆 /5

Thank you to Harlequin for gifting me a copy of The Rose Bend by Naima Simone.

Oh this book tugged at my heart. Both of the main characters are struggling to overcome, or even just to live with, the tremendous losses they’ve each suffered and find their way back to life and love again.

Sydney lost her sister to cancer when she was young, and Cole’s wife and son died in childbirth just a couple of years before. When Sydney surprisingly finds herself pregnant after a drunken one-night rendezvous with her ex-husband she decides to move back to her childhood hometown and try to give her baby a sense of community and small-town life.

As soon as she gets into town she runs into the older brother of her childhood best friend, Cole. Sparks start to fly almost immediately, despite neither of them looking for love. I don’t want to give any spoilers, so I’ll just say that Cole steps up to help Sydney in more ways than one, and the book took a turn I didn’t see coming, towards the end!

I loved the relationship between Sydney and Cole, and their chemistry was sizzling. There was some definite steam later in the book! Plus Rose Bend sounded like the most idyllic little town. I want to visit!

So if you’re a fan of small-town romances I would pick this one up for sure! You can grab a copy via the button below.

Synopsis:

If it was only about her, she might never have come back to Rose Bend.

But it’s not only about her anymore.

Sydney Collins left the small Berkshires town of Rose Bend eight years ago, grieving her sister’s death—and heartbroken over her parents’ rejection. But now the rebel is back—newly divorced and pregnant—ready to face her fears and make a home for her child in the caring community she once knew. The last thing she needs is trouble. But trouble just set her body on fire with one hot, hot smile.

Widower and Rose Bend mayor Coltrane Dennison hasn’t smiled in ages. Until a chance run-in with Sydney Collins, who’s all grown-up and making him want what he knows he can’t have. Grief is his only connection to the wife and son he lost, and he won’t give it up. Not for Sydney, not for her child, not for his heart. But when Sydney’s ex threatens to upend everything she’s rebuilt in Rose Bend, Cole and Sydney may find that a little trouble will take them where they never expected to go.