Carl is a millionaire living in Chance Creek renting a cottage from the Cooper clan, while searching for a ranch to buy to settle there permanently, because that's where Camila operates her Afghan-Mexican fusion restaurant with her Afghani partner, and she won't marry him if he won't settle in Chance Creek, and that means buy property here. Carl was drawn into the Cooper vs Turner feud when the Cooper matriarch, Virginia, promised Carl first dibs at the PERFECT ranch for him... If he will help Coopers clan do a major project to help them win the war between the clans... // Camila is renting a place from the Turner clan. And while she loves Carl, she can't love someone who's not living in Chance Creek permanently. And poor Carl has been searching for a ranch for THREE YEARS. Then Camila got a bit of shock from her mother... Camila needs to go back to Mexico to reclaim an ancestral mask, the symbol of her clan, for her papa from a side of family she only heard about, but never knew. And Carl just offered to go with her for the mission impossible... And on this trip. Camila will learn a lot more about herself, her family, her clan... and Carl than she ever expected to...
While I like this intro to the series, and the setup was quite good for subsequent shenanigans from other members of the Turners and Coopers, some of which are already in this novel, this novel also managed to go in too many different directions that got a bit... confusing. Carl ended up fighting multiple fires on multiple fronts (doing the project for the Coopers, going with Camila to Mexico, fixing the Mexican problem, solving his best friend Sven's problem, hiding his romance with Camila from the Coopers) that it was getting a bit messy. Similar thing with Camila: hiding her romance with Carl (who's an honorary Cooper) from the Turners, deal with her papa's misogyny (woman can't be head of his restaurant, even when his son doesn't really want to run one, and Camila does), with mama's demand to bring the mask back (which is mission impossible) and learn the REAL reason mask is where it is, and deal with her relatives in Mexico, some hostile, some enigmatic. While EVERYTHING was resolved at the end, it took a while for the various subplots to resolve itself. Even at only 260 pages, it just felt the book has "one subplot too many". On the other hand, the various little details about Mexican cooking, history of Chance Creek, and so on are good touches, and previous characters from her older Chance Creek series makes guest appearances. I like it well enough, I'll just call the extra sub-plot "minor" problem. 4.5/5
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