Tropes: arranged marriage; hate to love; side of romantic suspense; grump/sunshine
Winter Renshaw’s gold lies in the way she crafts her MMCs. There is a common thread to them: alpha in nature, closed off, and stubborn. It takes the tenacity of the FMC to blow through their tremendous emotional walls. Over and over again, Renshaw makes us fall in love with this character construction, no matter the plot points. This is also the case in her newest story, Hate Mail. Slade and Campbell’s parents are life-long friends who decide early in their children’s lives to arrange a marriage, effectively joining their powerful families. Their parents also encourage them early on to become pen pals, and it becomes clear from the start that the two don’t want what their parents have decided.
The first half of Renshaw’s Hate Mail is compelling. Slade is Renshaw’s typical hero, and while Campbell hopes to forgo the arranged marriage, she strives to understand and connect with Slade, who makes that task almost impossible. This first half, their strife and Campbell’s pain, is where the angst of her story resides and where she pulls her reader into Hate Notes.
Unfortunately, the second half falls apart a bit. For one, Slade spends two-thirds of the story pushing Campbell away, and he makes a sudden 180 with very little provocation. His acceptance of Campbell comes too easily given the strife of the first portion of Renshaw’s book. It feels like “a miss” of sorts. Secondly, there are two situations that arise for Slade in the story, one resolves too easily and the second feels thrown into the story. Had I read a draft of Hate Mail, I would recommend removing the second and developing the emotional turmoil of the first so we can better empathize with Slade.
The ending for Slade and Campbell in Hate Mail is sweet, and they earn their happy ending. It’s the latter third of this book that simply needed a bit more work, save for the epilogues.
Tropes: Dead Fiance’s Brother; Forbidden; Forced Proximity; Small-town Romance; family trauma
Stylistically, Winter Renshaw’s Love & Kerosene is interesting. At the start of each chapter, a word is defined. It is probably a new word to most people, but that word sets the tone of the chapter. This action mimics the love for words found in this story. Love & Kerosene is touted as forbidden when really it’s more forced proximity than anything. As her FMC, Anneliese, and her MMC, Lachlan, live together as a means to renovate Lachlan’s childhood home, their attraction becomes undeniable. What begins as an agreement to preserve history evolves into finding each other’s soulmate when it is least expected. The angst you expect from Renshaw is here; the difficulty of Anneliese and Lachlan’s situation is another common characteristic of Renshaw’s romance too. I loved Lachlan’s journey from wanting to burn down his family home due to its representation of his familial trauma to falling madly in love with Anneliese. Even more, Anneliese’s acceptance of the reality of her relationship with her dead fiance, to her evolving attraction and interest in Lachlan draws you into her story. Lastly, Love & Kerosene has secrets throughout it, and Renshaw is careful to draw them out. One area I’d love to see Renshaw work on is her pacing. In her last few romances, I’ve noted a quick resolution to a careful plodding of story arc points. Lachlan and Anneliese’s ready acceptance of their love for each other feels rushed even though it comes late in the story. I think there were other steps that could have been taken before they decide to spend forever together. That aside, from the start of the story to its end, I was captivated by Winter Renshaw’s Love & Kerosene.
When Winter Renshaw’s ARC for The Best Man hit my Kindle, I was salivating for it. Unfortunately, I had other more pressing ARCs to read so as to meet my deadlines for those reviews. Yesterday, when it went LIVE EARLY was the first time I could finally sit back and read it. I was nervous. It’s 50ish chapters. I knew I needed it read by last night, and I worried that I would have to pull an all nighter.
Yet, I needn’t worried BECAUSE in true Winter Renshaw fashion, The Best Man is a book that you simply cannot put down. It’s pacing and story draw you in, and you keep reading until you have gobbled every page.
The story follows Cainan and Brie. Initially, these two meet in a bar where Cainan proceeds to “hit on” Brie, and she spurns his one-night stand intent. He ends their connection with a comment: “Next time we meet, we won’t be strangers.” Unbeknownst to them both, Brie and Cainan meet when she witnesses a horrible crash and saves the life of the man in the crash, not realizing it is Cainan. Worried over him, she stays in the hospital to receive updates on his status and meets Cainan’s best friend, Grant. These two live in the same state and end up engaging in a relationship.
Cainan wakes up from his coma and believes he is married with two kids. His visions/dreams while sleeping are so vivid that he can’t believe he isn’t. For weeks and months after his surgery, he thinks about this woman in his dreams. Eventually, after healing and therapy, he returns to his life where one night he runs into her again at the same bar, only he doesn’t remember their first meeting, but he knows her face. She ends up leaving him again out of duty to life, and he struggles to move on from her. When his friend, Grant, tells him that he is getting married, Cainan eventually sees a photo of Grant’s fiancee, only to realize it’s the woman of his dream and the woman in the bar. Knowing that she is Grant’s, he resolves to move on from her. However, circumstances conspire to make it difficult.
Above all, this story is a slow-burn romance. If you are looking for $exy bedroom scenes, this isn’t the book. The beauty of this book is its story that keeps you suspended in anticipation because Renshaw designs characters that MUST be together. As the reader, you NEED Brie and Cainan to find their happy ending because Renshaw forms them to complete each other. If you’re worried that Brie cheats on Grant, you need not worry. Even more, this romance doesn’t even read as a romance where she must choose between two men. This isn’t the point of Renshaw’s The Best Man. Her purpose is telling a story of two people completely fated for each other that it takes on almost a paranormal feel. I hate using that word as it instantly reduces this story because that isn’t this story. Brie and Cainan are completely made for each other that their story reminds us that love shouldn’t be an obligation, but a source of power, pleasure, and peace.
Renshaw’s style is such that it almost feels quiet at times. I’ve observed this in her other books. Even when the hero (actually, usually the hero) or heroine is raging in the story, the romance whispers across the page. It’s this quietude that allows for the story to flow, so that a reader like me easily crushes the book. Like I said at the beginning of this review, I began it in the early evening hours and finished it before I went to sleep at midnight. As I also mentioned the number of chapters in this book, you should know that many of them are short, so that you breeze easily through them on your way to the ending. Every chapter seemed necessary as it lays out both Brie and Cainan’s point of views. The structure of this story along with her prose offers up The Best Man as an extravagant read.
Winter Renshaw’s The Best Man is a perfect read for our times. It allows you to fall into Cainan and Brie’s journey as you pass your time at home. It will grab your heart and pull you into its charms, as it reminds us all that we should always choose love first.
Professor Romance 