Overall Grade: A-/B+
Tropes: small town; surrogate/baby daddy; mountain man MMC; found family; age gap; grumpy/sunshine; breeding kink; curvy FMC
If you’ve ever met Amy Daws, her self-effacing, almost humble, humorous vibe is her charm. You can’t help but like Amy Daws on meeting her, and I’ve only done so at a book signing, not the best place to get to know someone. Yet, after reading Nine Month Contract, her newest book after a bit of a break, you can’t help but feel that charm threaded through her pages. Daws’s voice is likable and connective. As you read Nine Month Contract, she draws you in with the same humor she exudes in person, but she wallops you emotionally with the sentimentality of her characters.
I found myself charmed by Nine Month Contract because her characters, Wyatt and Trista, are consumable. That’s a strange word to use for her characters, but Daws has drawn them so that you can’t help but want to know them. Trista is the heart of this book. She’s alone in the world, having never had a family to love her unconditionally. She loves animals who’ve lost their home because she recognizes herself in them. Daws has crafted her foil in Wyatt, a grumpy, gruff mountain man, ready to become a single dad and live out his days building sustainable houses and raising a child. Where Trista is sunny, Wyatt is the opposite, and it creates a pool of deliciousness that you’d love to bathe in. From their meeting, it’s clear that Daws has written rom-com gold. The sharp banter, the inciting chemistry, and the push and pull of their ethical dilemma draw you into the book. The silliness of their situation, coupled with Wyatt’s need to protect and care for Trista from almost a caveman-like place, adds more layers of romance heaven to this story.
Add to all of this Wyatt’s supportive, but emotionally complicated family. The Fletchers do not have easy relationships per se, but they love each other. Daws uses them to bind Trista and Wyatt’s story together. One of my favorite tropes is the found family especially when a main character lacks that for themselves. The emotional tether of Trista finding a family to love her without any measure is my favorite part of this book, and Amy Daws, who can write humor and banter well, writes Trista’s journey to finding a family to love her unconditionally calls to your emotions. In using the point of view of Wyatt’s niece, Everly, Daws underscores that task even more.
As I said before, I was charmed by Amy Daws’s Nine Month Contract. I had loved Last on the List, book 5 of her Wait with Me series and the launcher for this new series, but a protective Wyatt falling in love with a beautiful, but lonely Trista was exactly what I needed to be reminded that 1) Amy Daws is a heck of a romance author and 2) her rom-coms are pure heaven.
In love and romance,
Professor A
Professor Romance 