Dean Kinsella has three rules:
Keep your head down
Don’t talk about the past
Never trust reporters
Then Scarlett Crawford walks onto his dock in designer heels and ruins everything. She’s everything he hates: persistent, nosy, and way too good at uncovering buried secrets.
Scarlett doesn’t do fluff pieces. But after her career imploded in LA, covering a quaint island treasure hunt is all she’s got left. The assignment should be easy—until she discovers she’s been hired as a weapon. Her story is supposed to expose the Haven family’s darkest secrets, starting with the damaged ferry captain.
The problem? Dean Kinsella isn’t the villain they promised.
But when the treasure hunt turns dangerous, and someone starts targeting Scarlett, Dean will do whatever it takes to keep her safe—even if it means exposing the tragedy he’s spent twelve years running from.
Because the thing he hates most isn’t reporters or questions or her designer heels. It’s the idea of her leaving.
Author’s Note: This is a grumpy/sunshine, enemies-to-lovers romance with forced proximity, meddling family and animals (including a judgmental bulldog and a profane parrot), high heat, and a guaranteed HEA. First in the Port Haven series but can be read as a standalone.
Review:
“I decided you were a shallow influencer before I knew you,” he says. “The day you got on my ferry, I looked at you and saw everything I hate about outsiders, and I made up my mind.”
I can’t help the sad laugh that escapes me. “And I decided you were exactly what I hate about small towns. The closed-off local. The guy who judges people before they open their mouths. Too stubborn to ask questions once he’s made up his mind.”
“We were both wrong.” He sets me down. His hands frame my face. His thumbs trace my cheekbones, and the calluses catch on my skin. “I was wrong about you, Scarlett. You’re brilliant and difficult, and you fight dirty, and you look at me like I’m worth looking at even when I’m being the world’s biggest pain in the ass.”
Another laugh bubbles out of me, but this one sounds dangerously close to a sob. “You are a pain in the ass.”
Yeah, well, so re you, Hollywood. We’re well matched.”
I give you Dean Kinsella and Scarlett Crawford, ladies and gentlemen. Swoon!
Everything You Hate is the first book in Ms Burrows’s Port Haven series, and OMG does it have me looking forward to the next book! (and the one after that, and the one after that, and… ;)) The Haven family is made up of complicated characters who clearly care about each other as much as they enjoy getting all up into each other’s business, and I was so glad we got to start with “Great-Uncle Dean’s” story (“he’s the greatest uncle…Uncle Knox is a good uncle, but he’s not here like [Dean is], so that makes [him] greater,” according to five-year-old Hazel) even if he’s going to be a hard act to follow.
And not just because he’s the “greatest uncle” 😉
Dean’s grumpy and wounded and hiding hurts behind his grunty exterior, and even though on the surface it might seem that a former morning show host who went viral for all the wrong reasons and has hidden wounds of her own couldn’t possibly be his forever person, it doesn’t take long for Ms Burrows to show us all how that’s exactly who Scarlett is to him. Dean and Scarlett need a little more convincing, of course, which is why this book needed to be 300+ pages long and not just a chapter or two.
Everything You Hate made me laugh, swoon, and even tear up a time or two before giving these two crazy kids their HEAs. If you enjoy small town romances with all kinds of quirky characters, a historical mystery that may or may not involve buried treasure, and an opposites attract romance that will make you melt, give this one a try!
Rating: 5 stars / A+
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.
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