This is a sweet little family, the girl is adorable and it was cute that the boys were the ones who hired Joel, but this just felt a bit too much like the family falling in love with Joel and Joel falling in love with the family and less a romance between the two adults.

For me, there weren’t enough conversations between April and Joel that didn’t involve minding the kids, conversations that were just them getting to know each other. I guess their lack of personal conversations made it pretty easy to throw a certain conflict in there towards the end since the two had barely discussed anything despite the sudden escalation of their relationship, but the lack of personal conversations between them also made it challenging for me to feel chemistry or love develop.

When I read a single parent story, I definitely want to see the newcomer to the family genuinely care for the kids, that’s essential to buying into the happy ever after, this was successful at that, however, when it’s a romance novel, it’s also essential to see the couple falling in love instead of just being told they’re in love and feeling like, well, did I miss something here?

This didn’t quite get the balance of romance mixed in with the family stuff that I was looking for, but if you are in the mood for something that’s mostly a gentle family story, this might work better for you than it did for me. ( )