Yvonne Cable grinned at the feature on her latest design. The picture below the headline was the completed home office for her latest client. After clawing her way through Atlanta’s cutthroat interior design community, in Atlanta Life magazine was the coveted crown. She created perfection for her clients, a haven in their hectic lives. She had an organized whiteboard in her office. The board served as a quick reference to where she was and what she needed to do next. Her new project was the the Sandra Covington Project. Sandra Covington was a self help author turned radio personality announced her radio program was going into nationwide syndication. The woman's advice was quoted everywhere. Yvonne arrived. Shed the mistakes of the past and became a household name. Yvonne had gotten engaged over the weekend to Nathan. He proposed via the jumbotron at the Atlanta braves game. She was still getting used to being engaged. For the past six years she’d been a single mom and business owner. Now she was part of a team. Nathan Lange home improvement television star. Boy next store sex symbol and all around good guy was her fiance. Marriage was a big deal. Her six year old son jacob would have a father. She would have a man who loved and supported her. Yvonne had met Nathan on the set of  Celebrity Housewives where he’d worked as a contractor. The disagreements and the attraction between them had sparked instantly, so much so they’d stolen every scene they were in. Their chemistry had given nathan’s publicist the idea they could be the new helm of a home improvement show. She’d once been forced to accept whatever scraps she could get from the person-Richard- who claimed to love her. Not anymore. Neither she or her son would ever be in that position again. No matter what happened. With her and Nathan. Yvonne Cable designs is and always will be her top priority. Nathan had decided he wanted to wait until after marriage to have sex His publicist-Judy and Yvonne’s by default thought it eas a great idea. Judy said you two are the latest couple in the home and garden world. The appeal of your unconventional love means people want to know more about you. Nathan felt their values as a couple would play onto the show. She had expected it to be the focal point of their public relationship. Yvonne tried not to let people see how cynical she was about life. She had lost a lot of her faith. Multiple disappointments early in life tended to do that to people . nathan had enough faith for them both. He was the one person who’d slowly made her feel it was okay to trust again. He believed that good things happen to good people. He loved yvonne and jacob. One proposal and her life was no longer hers. Was she about to lose herself again, in a relationship when she promised herself never again to be swept away by a man? Nathan was the opposite of any guy she’d ever dated before . She’d done that on purpose and she’d been given her happy ending that she’d stopped looking for long ago. 

I couldn’t get into this book. It just didn’t jive for me. First off nathan talks to Judy about hois and Yvonnes sex life or lack of and agrees to let ot play apart in their public relationship and on the proposed show. Than not discussing this with Yvonne first- waiting until marriage. Especially since that wasn’t ewhat Yvonne had wanted after nine months of already no sex.Also Yvonne being willing to let Richard into Jacon life after six yrears of nothing and pating her off to leave as she had been unknowingly the other woman. It just didn’t flow for me. I had problems keeping my attention on this book. Also it didn’t give up much of a back story of Richard and Yvonne. Than you have the book title and publishing house on every couple of pages interrupting you.  This just wasn’t for me. I am sure others will love this book. 

**I voluntarily read and reviewed this book

Please note that I received this book for free via NetGalley. This did not impact my rating or review.

So this book definitely needed a lot more development with the core characters and better writing in general. Yvonne and her "feelings" for the father of her son, Richard, was not believable. Heck her being in a relationship with Nathan didn't feel believable. I also had a hard time believing that Yvonne was supposedly a sought after designer with tv offers. We get one scene where she meets a client and the rest of the book is her obsessing about two men, talking about the two men with her mother and sister, and then worrying about her son. This book was boring and there was zero chemistry between any of the characters. 

Brooks doesn't do a good job of setting up this second chance romance at all. I tend to like some second chance romances more than others and the ones that I like the most is when we don't have a heroine already dating someone else. Or in this case engaged to someone else. Because that usually means that the guy that the the heroine is with is somehow going to have to come out of nowhere and be so reprehensible that you the reader just want her with the other dude. Even if he's problematic as heck. FYI, Richard was not that great, he was just rich. 

Brooks didn't do a good job with Richard at all. The whole backstory to his and Yvonne's "relationship" also made laugh. We have a quick scene showing how they met and all it showed was Yvonne was pressed from the beginning. That was it. I didn't get any connections between the two. Heck, Brooks doesn't even show their last scene together before she moved on and had their son. We just hear about it, repeatedly. Also we know Richard is from money, but once again it's not developed. He has enough money to develop a show? And of course readers know he is doing this to get back with Yvonne, but oh boy this was so dumb to me.

The writing was so-so. We had to hear about Yvonne's issues with her real father wanting nothing to do with her and why and from that take why she's so focused on making sure that her son gets to know his father even though it may destroy her relationship. I maybe laughed at one point when Richard after just meeting his son tells him he can call him dad. I mean....woosa. This book had so much that made me want to yell that I had to move on from things in order to finish this. I cannot with the Nathan story-line. That's all I am saying about that. 

The flow was awful. There's a lot of talking happening and not much else. Brooks throws out some ridiculous stuff with Richard's ex and I maybe Kanye laughed.

The book takes place in Atlanta, and I didn't get any sense of the city or once again that Yvonne was some new hot designer in the city. 

The ending left things as a HFN instead of a HEA. We know that Richard has drama and the book seems to be setting up a sequel following Yvonne's sister. I will be skipping that. 

I am so disappointed this wasn’t better. Brooks tries for a second chance romance and just flubs it in my opinion. 

Yvonne is newly engaged to Nathan a man she met on the set of a show where she did design work and he did contracting/building. The two have become really popular and there are discussions of them getting their own design show. Yvonne is grateful for Nathan and sees him as a perfect guy and wonderful father for her 5 year old son whose name I forget.

Things come to a head when Yvonne's ex and father of her son, Richard, returns offering to finance her show and demands to meet and know his son.

There are a lot of accusations about who did what to who and lied and it was exhausting. The main issue was that’s Brooks never had me care about anyone. She also didn’t do a good job showing why Richard of Nathan was great. Every character is a blank slate and Yvonne is a mess with having feelings for Richard and denying it. Her trying to force everyone together got old quick. 

Yvonne rarely interacts with Nathan due to him traveling to do work and she’s constantly describing how Richard makes her feel. Eyeroll. 

Brooks also doesn’t do a great job with having me believe that Yvonne is a designer. She goes to a client’s house once and that’s about it. She has zero personality so I don’t get why anyone wants to give her a design show. 

The flow was off off from beginning to end and the writing just felt flat. Brooks isn’t able to make what she’s writing to read a story believable. This felt like a very rough draft that needed a lot more context and nuance. 

The ending was weird and I cannot get into it without spoilers. 

This is not good. Just a boilerplate romance which wouldn’t be bad if the writing and characters drew me in. They are not.