cover image Risky

Risky

Aurora Rose Reynolds. Montlake, $12.95 trade paper (226p) ISBN 978-1-5420-3483-8

Bestseller Reynolds pairs a plucky single mom with a hometown boy with a heart of gold in her charming second Adventures in Love contemporary (after Rushed). Everly Standler moves back into her parents’ house in Montana with her baby, Sampson, after Sampson’s father, Lex, abruptly leaves them. She lands an office manager position at Live Life Adventures, a local outdoor tour company, and falls for Blake, one of the company’s owners. Blake is immediately attracted to Everly as well and adores her son, but he’s struggling under the weight of a big secret: his father is dying of cancer, and Blake’s the only one in his family who knows. The guilt at keeping the news from the rest of his family at his father’s request is eating him up inside. Things get more complicated when Lex’s horrible parents hire a lawyer to sue for grandparents’ rights, and Everly must do whatever she can to keep Sampson safe. Reynolds’s first-rate characters—Blake especially will melt readers’ hearts with his sweet interactions with baby Sampson—and perfect pacing, paired with lively prose, will keep readers hooked to the very end. This is a winner. (May)