Cruz Zaffino leaves prison after a serving a decade for a crime he didn’t commit. With his life all over the internet, there’s nowhere he can go to avoid his illicit past. Involved with one of Chicago’s toughest gangs, he made enemies bent on ruining everything he has. Nowhere is beyond their reach.

Every day, Rosie Marlow lives with the scars from the worst mistake of her life. It’s the one secret she has in her tiny, gossip-fueled town. When Cruz walks into her bar, covered in tattoos and dangerous attitude, she’s captivated. His rough sexuality makes her melt, and his harsh experience calls to her own broken soul. But her story is private and buried so deep, she’s never had the strength to share it.

She’s the unexpected light to his darkness, yet he knows she’s hiding something. Sultry summer nights in each other’s arms weaken her resistance and taunt her with the idea of forever. But as his adversaries draw close, can she love him enough to let him go?

I have to be quite honest with you … “sweet country romance” is not really my “thing” … I am more the “Broken and tortured bad boy romance” kind of girl.

So when I came across this book blurb I was wondering how the author would manage to close the gap between those two genre’s.

Because lets be blunt – those two do not really work together.. right ?

Well wrong actually. I am not quite sure how she did it but the leading lady was written in a way that managed to close the gap. She was everything that I would imagine a country girl would be like and yet she wasn’t. With all the sweetness she had a witty and clever attitude that gained my attention and made me like her.

And our leading guy with all that he endured – again I have to be honest – he could have been a touch more tortured by his past if you had asked me but he was ok to balance the story.

But at times it seemed that he was almost to “Zen” about his past

Strangely – if you are looking for the judging crowed of people amongst the secondary characters – well you won’t find any. This was an interesting experience and so not what I would have expected.

I liked them together even if I would have expected that they would face more resistance in their surrounding. But again all of those feelings I have might be just because I usually have “darker” book boyfriends, so I am not used to those sweet ones. So I assume if I would ask lovers of this genre they would tell me this guy is to dark for their liking. Really I guess it is only a point of view.

Anyway… in total this is a well balanced and well written sweet romance that I imagine is a great read for a summer evening. I can really recommend it and hope you will like it.