True North series by Sarina Bowen

I read the True North series by Sarina Bowen almost by accident. I read the first book because I got it for free on my Kindle and then I just kept hitting the "Buy Next Book in Series" button on my Kindle after that. I didn't realize at the end just how many books I'd read.

Bittersweet is the first book. It tells the story of a gruff farmer, Griff, and our plucky heroine, Audrey, who slept with this guy in college and accidentally runs into him when she's doing a job she's super unqualified for.  Look, Griff's kind of a dick and Audrey needs to get herself a backbone, but the reason I kept hitting "buy" again is because the cast of characters in this book is absolutely riveting.  I didn't care much about Griff and Audrey, although I was happy they got their HEA, but I wanted to know more about other people.

So enter Steadfast. Jude was a farmhand on Griff's farm (Griff from the previous book). He had been working at the farm after he got released from prison after he drove his car into a tree while he was high, killing his passenger. Now he's a recovering addict ex-con who's working in his father's shop and living above his garage. He's so angsty.  Meanwhile, his ex-girlfriend just happens to be the sister of the guy who was killed in his car accident. She, too, is angsty.  They are so angsty and in their heads and I love them both. I want to be a third in their doomed Romeo and Juliet relationship.

I think I would have a lot beef with this book if I actually was someone in recovery. There seems to be a bit of hand-waving over some of the harder aspects of it. However, for what's essentially a three hundred page romance, I thought it handled it delicately and honestly.  This book really forced me to accept that I wanted to hang out in Bowen's world for as long as I could.

The third book, Keepsake, gets even a little bit darker. Lark, our heroine, has had a traumatic event while she was working abroad. She comes to the farm to try and recover. Meanwhile, Zachariah, our dreamy, dreamy farmhand, also has some trauma in his background, since he grew up in a polygamous cult and he was kicked out of the cult as a young teenager. Somehow they get together, but sometimes getting together is easier than staying together.  I thought this book was haunting and unexpected from what I imaged would be a breezy romantic series.

Bountiful is easily the most forgettable book of the series. Local bartender gets pregnant and the father is a summer tourist. Two years later, he's back in town and he wants to get to know his child. I don't care much for romance novels about single parents and how someone swoops in to save the day. I don't care much for romance novels in which safe sex is laughed off. I didn't care much for Zara, our prickly heroine. I didn't care much for Dave, the most boring professional athlete in fictional romance today.

I get why this is a popular genre within a genre because single parenting must really suck, but it's super uninteresting to me.  Zara had choices and didn't have to be a single mother. She made her decisions and now she has to face the consequences. The drudgery of parenting isn't fun to read and being a parent isn't actually a character trait that inherently makes someone intriguing to read about.

The next book, Speakeasy, tells the story of Griff's (remember our book one hero?) alcoholic sister who falls for the proprietor of a local tavern.  They clearly are not meant to be. She's a hot mess. He's a party boy. Somehow...it works. This book was the most realistic to me because I'm always shocked when pairings that seem strange somehow work out. I found this book riveting and it was a strong addition to the series.

The final book in the series (as of right now) is Fireworks, which tells the story of a local cop (the brother of the annoying single mother from Bountiful) and his long-lost teenage love who shows up to help her stepsister out of a tight spot. This definitely violates my pet peeve about how the book would be twenty pages long if people just talked to one another, but I forgive it because the writing is hilarious. I was just chuckling and chuckling as I read it.

Overall, I thought books two and three were my highlights of the series, but I thought they were all fun reads. The writing was good, especially for the genre, and it definitely made me want to read more Sarina Bowen. If this series has additional books, I'll probably read those and I might even start in on the Brooklyn Bruisers series from this same author.