Guest Reviewer: Kini Allen. Follow her on Twitter for fun romance book talk.

Blurb: Madison Foley is determined to stand on her own two feet, no matter how wobbly her circumstances. Fate, however, keeps throwing her off balance, and then sending heroically hot paramedic Hunter Knox to save her.

I am sucker for a book with a single mother or single father and I thought this book had a very interesting meet-cute. Madison goes into labor on the highway and Hunter is the EMT that shows up and delivers her baby. Madison’s baby daddy has left her high and dry in Atlanta, he’s a shady character addicted to drugs and recently broke into her apartment to steal money. Because of that Madison is in the middle of relocating and ends up living in a motel. A month after delivering her baby, she ends up in the hospital again and Hunter finds out and goes to visit her.

Hunter has a serious hero complex. He is kind and considerate and has a desire to help people. He is trying to get into medical school after a failed attempt right out of college. When he finds out that Madison is living in a crappy hotel, he is having no parts of that and insists she take his spare room for the night. It turns into a more permanent, yet temporary solution.

They have an attraction to each other and Hunter likes to shame himself as he frequently stares at her post-pregnancy boobs. A lot. They fall into a routine of a family and Hunter helps to care for the baby. Hunter doesn’t know how to not take care of her. Madison doesn’t know how to accept help. It’s a vicious cycle for them.

Madison has another run in with her baby daddy and he’s in a bad way. There is this weird part where the baby daddy comes back and is causing trouble, it felt super forced and out of place.

Spoiler:

The ex was clearly a loser, but the author took it to a really low and weird level of loser. I guess to show the differences in the men in Madison’s life.

They succumb to their physical attraction and have sex. I was a little put off by the way their first time was handled. Madison has some insecurities about her postpartum body and in my opinion Hunter did not do a very good job of attempting to put her at ease. I felt like consent was not addressed and he just went for it.

“She drew her thighs together. “You shouldn’t-” “Madison, I’m going to touch you now, and you’re going to let me.” He said the words against her lips as he eased into her panties. She gripped his wrist but didn’t stop him. Fair enough.”

I felt like that as caring and considerate as Hunter had been leading up to this point, it was odd that he wouldn’t be more considerate of her body insecurities as a new mom and try to alleviate her fears. Instead he just powered through and didn’t look back. Hunter had spent time researching the proper ways to engage in sex after having given birth, it made me uncomfortable how he would be willing to do that yet not take the time to reassure Madison and help her feel more comfortable with the sex. This was an issue for me and I felt like there could have been more there.

Overall, it was a quick read. I do really enjoy the single parent trope where the new person steps up to the plate and the fact that she had a child with someone else was never brought up as a downside. The issues they faced came from their previous life experiences and their struggles were not too over the top or angsty. This book is second in a series and there are appearances from characters from previous stories but can be read as a stand alone.

I would give it a C-.

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