Book Review: Shortcake by Lucy Watson

Rating: ☆☆☆
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 413 pages
Author: Lucy Watson
Publisher: Self-published
Release Date: September 19th, 2019
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Things Emelia Anderson would rather do than share a house with Benjamin Crawford:

1) Get strapped to a chair in a restaurant full of loud-chewers.

2) Parachute into the Australian Outback armed with only a blowdart.

3) Live her best life as an ice road trucker in the Alaskan Tundra.

Benjamin Crawford thinks Emelia conned his dying grandmother into leaving her half of an estate worth millions, so let’s just say he’s not her biggest fan either. Not even close.

Now they have to live together for the next thirty days while renovating the family home. Or the estate will transfer to the one person Ben hates more than Emelia, and she’ll have to move back to the one place she wants to forget more than Ben.

Did I mention Ben look likes man-candy and smells like testosterone? Not that Emelia notices. She spends a lot of time not noticing things about Ben.

TOOK SOME TURNS.

What started out pretty well, dropped significantly as the book went on.

I LOVE enemies to lovers. Will read it all day, every day. The way this was portrayed was a lot more intense than I appreciated. Some dialogue crossed lines that I was uncomfortable with and wow do you really feel the hate between them.

As things progressed, some scenes were sweet and I felt myself more invested in their story. I snort-laughed through some of the antics and found the whole plot neat! I love some forced proximity and there was plenty of that around.

Towards the end, things took an oddly dark turn? I’m fine with heavier subject matter in a romance when it’s interspersed throughout and works with the story. The conversations seemed thrown in to maybe create some kind of dynamic that I’m still not fully understanding.

Overall audience notes:

Contemporary romance
Language: strong, often
Romance: kisses to open door scenes
Trigger/Content Warnings: mentions of substance abuse, mentions of suicide, mentions of drunk driving, a loved one with a terminal illness