Bourbon Bliss by Claire Kingsley & Lucy ScoreMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Genius and The Football Player
I’d probably give this book 4.5 ⭐️ if I could.
This is the fourth book in a continuing series and you need to read the previous books in order to understand the overarching plotlines, even if each book covers one couple’s story. The previous books will also give a deeper insight into the characters, who all know each other or are related, their shared history and the history of the very quirky town in which they live. The couple gets their HEA by the end of the book, but the overarching plot continues in future books.
June Tucker is a genius. She works as an actuarial consultant and finds numbers so much easier to understand than people and their emotions. Her father is the town sheriff and her sister is a sheriff’s deputy. June is seen as ‘odd’ in a town of quite strange people. Though it doesn’t explicitly state it, there are very strong hints that June is neurodivergent. She comes across as cold and analytical and though the latter part of that statement is true, the former part is not. June feels things deeply but doesn’t know how to process those feelings or understand other people’s feelings. She asks questions when she doesn’t understand and that emphasises her ‘odd’-ness.
In a town filled with unusual characters, she is more widely accepted than she would be elsewhere, especially as her sister loves her and Cass and Scarlett, Cass’ best friend, have always included June in their social activities to the extent if she was invited, they wouldn’t go. Their loyalty has led to a widespread acceptance of June and her unusual ways amongst the townspeople. June is incredibly grateful for her acceptance and has invested heavily in Bootleg Springs, using her logical and analytical mind and high earnings to bring small businesses to the town, and help them grow.
One of June’s obsessions is sports statistics, especially football stats and has run a fantasy football league for years, alway winning because of her in depth understanding of statistics. One of her favourite players has always been George Thompson, a wide receiver. When he hurts his knee and is forced to retire she doesn’t win the league for the first time. When he walks into Bootleg Springs she is stunned and very very attracted to him, which takes her by surprise. What surprises her, even more, is that he seems to feel the same way about her.
George has had a very successful career until his knee injury and has earned enough to retire comfortably, so when his sister visits an unusual town called Bootleg Springs and tells him about it and the healing reputation of their hot springs he decides to go and visit her there and try out the benefits of the springs. When he meets June is he knocked for six by the unusual and intriguing woman and he can’t decide if he finds her intelligence or her bluntness more fascinating. As a successful and popular football player most of his life he has been targeted by the kind of women who like to have expensive things and are willing to do anything, including pretend to have feelings they don’t, to get them. He has never truly trusted a girlfriend but knows that June won’t lie about her feelings right from their initial meeting.
If you’ve read my reviews before you will know that I enjoy reading about neurodivergent people, especially those in romance novels because I know and love several people who think in this way. I really enjoyed that George accepted June exactly as she was straight away. He never believed that she should change who she was or how she saw things unless it made her unhappy. He was able to help her understand herself and her experience of life in a way no one else ever had because he accepted her and cared about her. The scene where he explained why dancing is one of his favourite activities and got her to appreciate it too is a particularly good example of why I loved his character.
George is by no means perfect and messes up a couple of times, but the people of Bootleg Springs like him enough to help him out when he’s a bit lost. He is accepted by the town really quickly because they know he appreciates the way things are in Bootleg Springs. He is embraced by the Bodine and Tucker families very quickly because of June.
As well as the romance the overarching plot regarding the missing girl from 12 years ago has a few major twists in this book. By the end of the book, you are scratching your head much more than at the start of it. It’s this aspect of the series that keeps me reading each book because I really want to know what happens next.
I really do enjoy this series and each book I read emphasises why.
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