Last updated on 08/19/2025
Reese Clark has one goal—save her family’s Oregon vineyard.
Step one: build a new tasting room . . . uh, yesterday.
Step two: dodge PR disasters while wrangling her eccentric family.
Too bad her contractor turns out to be Clay Henderson. Her ex’s best friend. The most forbidden guy in her orbit. The old Clay was a wild blend of bad decisions and bar fights.
But new Clay is sober, serious, and sexier than a cellar-aged cabernet.
Too bad he’s still off-limits.
And Reese has her hands full already. Between her pot-growing grandpa, her parents behaving like smitten teens, and an alpaca with a groin-butting vendetta, Reese needs more drama like she needs bonus holes in her wine barrels.
But Clay’s steady presence—paired with a bad-boy-gone-good vibe—has Reese spiraling faster than a busted corkscrew. One taste proves forbidden fruit only gets better with age.
But the past—just like love—can’t stay bottled up forever. And everything Clay and Reese have built could come crashing down around them.
One-click this hilarious and heartfelt small-town romance featuring forbidden love, chaotic family vibes, and a slow-burn second chance worth savoring.
Review:
Really enjoyed–and it’s the first in a (already fully complete!) series, so bonus 🙂
Reese and Clay’s story is a friends-to-lovers, second chance/redemption romance with a host of fun side characters (family and found family) plus a bonus slightly unhinged alpaca–and I was here for it! Reese’s grandfather and cousin especially had a tendency to make me LOL when they were on the page, and if Leon (the alpaca) was, snort laughing was probably involved too 😉
There are all kinds of complications to their romance: her ex-husband/current winemaker is his best friend, Clay’s the new contractor at her vineyard and though he has been sober for 4+ years, their history includes Reese having to clean up his (literal) messes and bail him out of trouble countless times. She also has trouble believing that marriage and true love are in the cards for her, since her first marriage flamed out so quickly and her eternally lovey-dovey parents made their HEA look so easy.
I loved the chemistry between Reese and Clay, though TBH the lack of faith in his sobriety that both she and Eric (the BFF and winemaker) continued to show through almost the entire book was a bit disappointing. I get where it was coming from, but yikes. The reason behind the sabotage at the vineyard was surprising, and the way their problems were finally resolved was amusing, if a teensy bit…convenient. Can’t argue with the results, though–this one kept me turning pages until the end and will absolutely have me coming back for more from this series!
Rating: 4 stars / A-
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.
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