Where There's a Will by Stacy Gail

The Basics:
Where There's a Will by Stacy Gail
Carina Press
Book Four in the Bitterthorn, Texas series
Romance
Published November 17, 2014
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Why I picked up this book:

I love Carina Press and the opportunity to review one of their titles was a no-brainer!


Blurb:

Miranda Brookhaven returned to Bitterthorn, Texas to fix the past. Years ago, her father used her teenage romance with Coe Rodas to steal the prototype for a groundbreaking new automotive invention. Now her father's dead, and thanks to the convoluted will he left behind, she's stuck in town until she rights the wrong that lost her the man she loved.

Coe learned early on that life never goes according to plan. His dreams of hitting it big vanished when Miranda all but invited her father to take the only thing of value he ever had. But now the once-pampered princess is holed up in a condemned trailer on the edge of town...and everything he thought he knew about her—and about what happened between them back then—seems completely wrong.

Miranda's determined to give back to Coe all that he lost. If she can do that, maybe she can move on from the past. But Coe seems to be more interested in their rekindled passion than claiming what she thinks he deserves. She's got sixty days to convince him to cough up evidence that he's the original inventor—after that, the only way to transfer the patent rights over to him would be to make him part of the family, and she's not sure her heart can take another hit.

My thoughts:

I absolutely loved Where There's a Will. 

It is quick to read, and completely enjoyable. Miranda's been living under this cloud since the two men she loved most in the world - her father, and her boyfriend Coe - threw her under the bus because of some business around an invention of Coe's. When her father dies and she's given the opportunity to right wrongs and return what she believes Coe is owed to him, she finds her ex is every bit intractable now as he was when they were teenagers.

Normally I don't love these books where there's so much anger flying around, nor do I go in for second chance romances but this one really go under my skin. Possibly because Coe realizes fairly quickly that he's been a jerk and he steps up to fix that. No one's in denial about the part that they played in the original break-up, and that goes a long way. I also appreciated that the hurts do keep coming, particularly around some tattoos that Miranda and Coe sport, and the fact that they've so clearly got unfinished business between them of the sexual tension variety makes this a pleasure to read.

I do wish we'd gotten a sense of what Miranda's life away from Bitterthorn was really like. Her quirky neighbour aside, there's not a real sense of what things are like for her in her regular life. Given that so much time has passed, I find it hard to believe that she hasn't settled into a new group of friends and so on, particularly as she is quite likeable and not the stuck-up princess the folks of Bitterthorn seem to want to label her as.

The only note that was a little off for me is Miranda's over-the-top sister who was so far gone that she was more caricature than character. Still, entertaining stuff!

This book really goes for the feels, particularly in the last chapter or so, and I definitely teared up as everything came to a close. I've not read other books in the Bitterthorn, Texas series but I'll definitely take a look at them.

Bottom line:

Where There's a Will satisfies that craving for a sweetly conflicted romance, drawing on mistakes in the past to amp up the conflict in the present. I absolutely recommend this one for a rainy day. 

5 stars
For fans of contemporary romance, hot mechanics