Good book. Rachel has come back to Destiny to help her grandmother with this year's apple harvest. When she arrives she finds out that Mike Romo wants to buy the orchard from her grandmother. The same Mike Romo whose family claims that the Farrises stole the orchard from them years ago. Also the same Mike Romo who gave Rachel a ticket for speeding on her way into town. There is a lot of antagonism between the two of them, but not all the sparks are angry.

I really enjoyed both Rachel and Mike. Rachel has taken a leave of absence from her job to go help Edna, even though her job is in jeopardy from downsizing. She loves her job and living in Chicago, but she feels it's her turn to pitch in. She's not really looking forward to spending a couple weeks in Destiny as she'd been only too happy to get out of the small town years before. Getting pulled over for speeding on the way into town did not make it any better, even worse when she found out he was a member of the Romo family. It didn't stop her from noticing how hot he was, but she sure wasn't going to do anything about it.

Mike is known as something of a hard ass around town because he is intent on upholding the law. He really hates speeders and pulling Rachel over for doing considerably more than the speed limit felt good. Finding out she was a member of the family that had stolen his family's land was just icing on the cake. He didn't like the fact that his body didn't seem to care about that.

I loved the interactions between these two. They started out completely antagonistic, seeming to delight in giving each other a hard time, though never in a hateful way. It isn't too long before they admit to themselves that while they may not like each other, there is something going on. When they get stuck working together at a community event, those sparks suddenly burst into flame, surprising both of them. The next thing they know they're spending time together and discovering that maybe they don't dislike each other as much as they'd thought. But Rachel has no plans to stay in Destiny and Mike doesn't do any kind of emotional commitment, so they decide that perhaps just enjoying some strings free sex would be fine.

Rachel has some issues stemming from her family's fiscal irresponsibility, causing her to be pretty intent on making sure that she has a good job that pays well. She does this partly to make sure that she can be there for family members who may need her help. But the more time she spends in Destiny, the more she starts to enjoy herself. It surprises her when the occasional thought of staying crosses her mind, but her fears won't let her consider it for long, not even when she starts to develop feelings for Mike. I really enjoyed seeing her start to relax and get into her time on the farm. I also loved the way that her relationships with her friends get stronger and she realizes how much she'll miss them when she leaves. But the biggest thing is how much she comes to care for Mike. I loved seeing the way that she doesn't let him get away with grumpiness around her, but she is also sensitive to the reasons he is the way he is.

Mike's issues with getting people to obey the law stem from a tragedy in his past that changed his entire life. That same tragedy has caused him to be completely resistant to letting anyone get emotionally close to him. Staying in complete control of his emotions means he doesn't put his heart at risk. It frustrates him that he can't seem to retain that control around Rachel. He is surprised when he finds himself opening up to her about what had happened to change him, because he doesn't talk about it with anyone. It also scares him because he can see that he's starting to care far more than he is comfortable with. He would like her stay in Destiny, but since she has made it clear that she's leaving he doesn't want to open himself up to the pain of being rejected.

There was a lot of humor throughout the book that made it fun to read. Rachel's grandmother Edna was a whole lot of fun. She doesn't pull any punches when she talks to Rachel and some of the things she says are hysterical. I love some of her comments about Mike's physical attributes and the advice she gives to Rachel. I also enjoyed the story of her relationship with Mike's grandfather and the cause of the feud between the two families. ( )

I overall enjoyed the first book in this series -- One Reckless Summer -- but there was a lot about it that frustrated me, largely that the male protagonist was not a character I liked very much. I also had an issue with the dialogue in the previous book -- internal dialogue was fine, but when the words were actually spoken, well, it was hard to believe anyone would actually talk like that. I therefore picked this one up with a little bit of hesitation. Happily, none of those issues existed with this installment.

Although I found Rachel Farris a little annoying in the beginning, I could understand her concerns about coming back home and why it would make her react in some of the ways she did. And Mike Romo seemed a bit too much of a hard-ass at first, but that also became explainable. The chemistry between them was good, and even though their first, um, encounter was beyond predictable (SPOILER ALERT: a concession stand that locks in such a way that only someone from the outside can let you out?), once you got past that, it was more than ok. And the ongoing attraction and tension was written well. In fact, of the romances I've read recently, I thought this was one of the better ones in terms of building a relationship in a slow and believable way, even with the family feud dynamic. (Which I liked quite a bit, I have to say.)

One of my problems with the male lead in the previous book was that he seemed so, well, simple, that I halfway expected to read about some kind of traumatic injury in his past. For the most part that didn't come into play here, but I have to admit, there were a few times in the flashback scenes in the Edna story that brought me right back to that. Thankfully, though, it was only a few times.

All in all, I was a lot happier with this book than with the first one -- and am looking forward to #3 even more. ( )

I found this to be miles better than the first Destiny book. Rachel and Mike have a lot more depth, and the sex scenes were smoking. At first, I did find myself getting really annoyed with Rachel's flippant remarks about speeding, and her dismissive remarks about small towns, but she does grow as a character, and I loved Mike. At first, I did think he was a bore, but it doesn't take long for his wicked side to appear. His past was heartbreaking, and I totally understood why he acted the way he did by being a stickler for the rules.

Mike and Rachel do butt heads, but their connection was very strong emotionally, and sexually. Their first encounter was *fans face* freaking hot, and a condom was used! What I disliked so much about the first Destiny book was the total disregard for protection.

I'm really looking forward to the next book featuring Tessa and Mike's estranged brother, Lucky. And I do hope that Amy and Logan get a book of their own. Hopefully as a couple :D. ( )

Love the Destiny series! ( )

I enjoyed this one far more than the first book in the series, and am a bit perplexed as to why everybody seems to think this one wasn’t quite as good. The characters are far more relatable and far more engaging, and the plot didn’t take a hundred and fifty pages to get going.

Rachel was mentioned in the first book but did not make an appearance. Of all the women in the group of friends in this series, Rachel is the one who most wanted to escape small town life and go out and see the world and have a career. She returns home to help out her lonely grandmother with the family orchard. Her lack of twin sets and baking escapades for the biddies made me like her a whole lot more than any of the other women in the book. I’ve read other people complaining about her, but boy do I ever prefer a vibrant, ambitious woman over all the ninnies who seem to think they’re living early least century!
Town cop Mike has a strong family claim to the orchard, and his friendship/relationship/whatever with Rachel gets off to a terrible start. But they have some great sex - and this author can write pretty incredible sex scenes! Each chapter starts off with a quote from Romeo and Juliet, and there is a bit of that theme going on. Of course the two characters are about as far from typical romantic leads as imaginable, and the feud is more between the two of them than the people around them.

I wasn’t expecting to like the family feud story involving Rachel’s grandmother Edna, but it turns out I really enjoyed that part.

This book was much better at introducing information as we needed it, rather than dumping it all on us at the beginning. That was a big grumble I had about the first book and was glad to it things were different here. The humour was much better too. The characters had life in them and were entertaining. I did not hate Jenny and Mick from book one, but I also did not believe they had any connection outside of the bedroom (or forest, or rain, or kitchen counter).

Sometimes the story became a bit too womens-ficitony. A bit too much time spent on gossiping with friends and grandparents for me to enjoy. On top of that, I’m quite perplexed by the way everybody in this series seems to happily sit around discussing every single little detail of their sex lives with anybody who will listen. Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but I never come across such frank discussions about sex. In fact, it’s a little on the insulting side for the poor characters.

One thing this author does I don’t like is she tends to over-explain everything. One of the characters will make a clever comment and another will react to it. We’ve all got the joke, but the author then feels the need to give us a paragraph-long description of what they meant and why it’s funny - which makes it no longer funny.

I cannot understand why the author called the hero of book one Mick, and the hero of this book Mike! Not only that, but both characters appear in both books. There’s such thing as making your characters too similar for readers to tell them apart!

This was an enjoyable contemporary romance. Though it was set in a small town, it didn’t annoy me the way this genre sometimes can. Though the characters spent a great deal of time bickering, I found I really enjoyed their relationship - and boy were the steamy parts good! Though there was perhaps a bit too much of a focus on secondary characters, this was an entertaining read. ( )