Andrea Blake’s life has order. Everything is meticulously laid out and planned, from her house in its quiet neighborhood to her career path at Hagan’s, the largest supermarket chain in the Northeast. Andrea knows what she wants.
Enter Kendall Foster, the distractingly attractive woman in charge of sales for her family’s local microbrewery, and somebody who wants very much to get her beer onto Hagan’s shelves. A decision that happens to be Andrea’s.
The physical attraction is immediate and hard to resist, but Andrea doesn’t need a complication like Kendall in her life, not when she’s rocketing toward predictable security. But Kendall is fun. And smart. And oh-so-sexy. Can she convince Andrea that her rather flat, flavorless life could be way better with just a little bit of spice?
I’m a big fan of Georgia Beers, she consistently writes interesting and entertaining stories with characters that are well drawn and engaging. This book, a little less so. I spent the first quarter of the book trying to remember which character was which. One works for her family’s brewery, check; the other works for a grocery store chain, check. Which one was the bitch at the volleyball game? Huh? Eventually I just let it go and followed the story. I’m glad I did.
I liked both Andrea and Kendall, they both had a fair depth to their character, we got a peek at who they are and their family and friends. The interaction between the characters was okay, the awkwardness felt a little forced, each jumping to the worst possible conclusion about the other. This stemmed from some bad history between the two which never really was explained very well, but once they got past all the baggage and started interacting the story improved greatly.
I absolutely loved the beer 101 course the book provided. I’m a big fan of craft beer and was pleasantly surprised with the discussion of beer and beer making. It was very well written, interesting but not boring, enough information to leave the reader feeling they now knew a little something, but kept short and too the point. It fit into the story beautifully, it felt neither forced or contrived.
I think the ‘crisis’ of the story felt a little shallow, the fact that neither character felt comfortable enough to discuss their feelings was disappointing but I suppose it needed some obstacle to overcome to have a happy ending; and they did.
Overall a 3.5 out of 5 stars. Worth the time spent.
