Both homes and hearts can be restored.
Mitch, a rigid and emotionally reserved attorney, has a passion for restoring old buildings. By himself. He doesn’t believe in intimacy or happily-ever-after. His parents’ marriage showed him it didn’t exist.
Tierney’s a gregarious and talented stained glass artist who needs to heal from her broken her engagement while completing the biggest commission of her life, a church. She needs a studio and finds the perfect space in a dilapidated mansion on the bluffs of the Mississippi.
Unfortunately, the mansion comes with strings. The Historical Society grant requires a couple to restore the house. Mitch and Tierney team up through Tierney’s Realtor cousin and convince the Society they are a loving couple and win the grant. But a year is a long time to keep up the act. Especially when the line between acting and reality starts to fade.
Review:
Stained Glass Hearts is a fake relationship/relationship of convenience/opposites attract/close proximity romance. (Yes, that’s a lot of tropes–but it works ;))
At first glance, Tierney does not appear to be the woman for Mitch–though to be fair, his toxic home life has predisposed him to think that there *is* no woman for him, that love is a lie and HEAs are the worst kind of fiction. He hopes his friends Sienna and Tanner (of INVEST IN ME: Enemies to Lovers ) will have a happy life together forever, but he’s not going to count on it.
Yep, he really thinks that to himself. More than once.
But of course it’s the people who are least like us that can help to fill in the empty spaces of our own lives–and that’s the case here, though OMG it takes Mitch about 97% of the book to figure it out. Honestly, just when you’re about to despair of him ever manning up and admitting to (gasp!) feelings, he pulls off a grand gesture that is a sight to behold.
Sean, the last single friend of the Big Sky Dreamers friend group, has his work cut out for him if he’s going to top it 🙂
Stained Glass Hearts is the second Big Sky Dreamers book, but could work as a standalone–though I did enjoy seeing Sienna and Tanner here, working on their own HEA. 🙂
Rating: 4 stars / B+
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.