Title: Take Me Home
Author: Inez Kelley
Series: Country Roads #1
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Contemporary, Contemporary romance
Dates read: 12th – 15th August 2021
Pace: Slow
Format: eBook, Novel
Publisher: Carina Press
Year: 2013
5th sentence, 74th page: Outside his office, phones rang.

Logging manager Matt Shaw is wary when Kayla Edwards, the owner of Mountain Specialty Spices, hires his firm to harvest timber on her Appalachian property. It’s a place he knows better than the back of his calloused hand—it’s his family’s old homestead, lost years ago in a painful foreclosure. He’s hauled himself up from dirt-floor poor since then, and resolves to stay professional… But Kayla’s vivacious beauty makes it hard to focus on his job.

Home. That’s how army-brat-turned-foodie Kayla feels about her new mountain hideaway. What’s more, the hottest lumberjack ever to swing an axe has agreed to manage her timber crop and get the old maple syrup operations back on tap. Matt’s ruggedly sexy ways and passion for the land have her falling hard.

The heat between them grows wild…until Kayla discovers that Matt hasn’t been upfront with her. She feels devastated, and worst of all, used. How can Matt prove it’s her he wants and not her land?

This is an incredibly easy read. The kind of simple, happy romance that makes you feel comfortable and content. It’s the perfect story to read on your ereader when you’re working and have to split your concentration a little. Fun, easy and light. The perfect contemporary romance.

I love that the biggest hurdle for this couple was their pasts. Kayla is caught up in a lack of “home” and feeling betrayed when she wants to trust. Matt is caught up on his pride and the tearing apart of his childhood. Its a nice little reminder that we all have ties to the past that can be difficult to move on from. But that sometimes, we need to at least get them in the open if we have any chance at a future.

I know bits about forestry from my own environmental science background, and I liked how Kelley weaved some interesting forestry facts throughout this story. Even though I don’t know anything about this ecological region, I loved the descriptions of the setting and the economic / ecological benefits for sustainable forestry. Then, there’s the creation of maple syrup… something I’d never even thought about. And now want to know SO much more about!!!

This was a great story. It was cute and sweet with just the right amount of heartbreak. There was a beautiful mountainous setting and a good score of secondary cast members. And at its core a gorgeous and sweet romance that will leave you smiling.

<- More Inez Kelley

The Place I Belong ->

Image source: Goodreads