GRR Reviews Where You Least Expect (Thornehill Springs) by Kaye Blue

Where You Least Expect is a divisive book for me. The FMC seems to have split personality, meek in public but with a wild side waiting to be unleashed... with the right person, yet has a fragile ego. The MMC was the prototypical gruff navy SEAL. The pair's romance was sweet, but the personality clash just didn't feel right, and worked more as a fantasy fulfillment, i.e. a go-nowhere-girl caught attention of gorgeous SEAL.

Navy SEAL Joe MacDermid settled down in Thornehill Springs, NC hoping for a break from his hectic life. He's getting old, and he's seriously thinking about transitioning into training instead of active duty. But his next door neighbor Verna always needles him when he went to the family cafe for breakfast... where Verna helps out her father. Verna can't help it but get under Joe's skin. It's just so much fun, even though she's a thoroughly nice person elsewhere. But she's feeling really a loser in life because she didn't graduate college, she's still a virgin with no BF in sight, and she was always helping out at the family cafe that went nowhere, not with her dad yelling at her for something or another despite she gave great service. When her substitution of flour for a better brand resulting in her dad firing her from the family cafe, Verna realized she really has to stop taking CRAP even from her family, and decided to launch her custom clothing boutique as she already got a client... and Joe was there to listen to her lament. When a snowstorm stranded her miles from her house, Joe rescued her. They fell in love, but when Joe didn't quite react properly in front of his own group of friends, Verna saw it as a rejection of her and broke things off. How can Joe set things right?

Fortunately, there is no SEAL abuse (as in having SEALs do stuff like bodyguard, law enforcement, and so on), but the SEAL background was not used effectively except as deep background (should he retire and muster out... or give it another go?) As mentioned before, Verna's personality seems to be just... weird. She constantly takes crap from everybody, esp. her family. I mean, getting fired from the family cafe for making a decision that is mostly inconsequential... So why pick on Joe for her "flirting"? Nobody else to talk to? She was working in a cafe, where she meets dozens or more people per day, perhaps hundreds! The part about where they get a bit of forced proximity and fell for each other is okay, but that's really late in the book. There is a character arc, and it's supposed to be one of self-discovery, but if she's daring enough to start her own clothing boutique, can her ego be that fragile with Joe didn't say the right thing at the right time is enough to shatter her ego?

The whole thing just feels a bit of fantasy fulfillment, i.e. the spinster virgin landed gorgeous SEAL with her sarcastic wit. If you like this sort of Cinderella fairy tale, I guess it'd be average, but the more I think about it, the lower I'll have to rate this book. Overall, 2/5.

Category: Contemporary

Primary Plot: SEAL thinking about slowing down fell for neighbor woman with sharp wit (but fragile ego)

Tropes: SEAL, small town, cafe owner, clothing designer, neighbor, friends to lovers

Overall Rating: 2/5