Holly’s review of First Comes Love (Hot Water, CA, Book 1) by Christie Ridgway
There’s a saying around the town of Hot Water, California: “Wilder women don’t wed.” When the town was founded, the Wilders ran the local house of ill repute…nowadays they’re still known for there naughty ways.
But Kitty Wilder has decided that it’s time for all that to change!
Kitty Wilder longed for a little respectability, so eight years ago she finagled an “I do” out of local hero Dylan Matthews. The ceremony was only supposed to be a tourist attraction sham, but a loophole made it legal … a little fact she’d “conveniently” neglected to share until Dylan came storming back into her life.
How could he be married and not even know it? As an FBI agent, Dylan thought he’d seen it all, but this was outrageous. Kitty is still gorgeous, appealing, and even she deserves more than the toughened man he had become. But before Dylan can accept the powerful emotions he has for this unexpected wife he has to first face down the demons of his past…
Ridgway really has become a go-to for me for excellent contemporary romances. This book is another fabulous read. One of the things I like best about her novels is the slow pace of the relationship. She really takes the time to show her characters falling in love.
Here’s the thing about Christie Ridgway, her books are dressed up like light, fluffy romances..but they aren’t. Each book deals with deeper issues and has a darker tone. That isn’t to say there isn’t humor to balance them out – because there is. But her novels aren’t silly, wacky fluff balls (which, as an aside, I actually tend to enjoy).
Ridgway really nails the small town politics in this book. You could really see how hard it was for Kitty to live under the weight of her ancestor’s reputations and why Dylan fought so hard to stay away. Parts of it were kind of stereotypical, but Ridgway made it work.
Dylan and Kitty have obvious chemistry, but that isn’t the big draw with them. It’s the underlying emotional pull. They understand each other. Partly because they both have a sort of love/hate relationship with their hometown and the people who live there, and partly because they both feel somewhat displaced within themselves.
It might seem kind of silly that Kitty craves respectability, but since her ancestors founded the local cat house and have been scandalizing the citizens of Hot Water for generations, up to and including her own mother, it makes sense. She’d love to stay in Hot Water for the rest of her life, but she knows she’ll never be able to. Especially not now that her mother has come back to town. and the whispers and innuendos have started up again. Some people – some of the worst – even refuse to associate with Kitty now that her mother is back and reminding them how bad those Wilders really are. My heart broke for her, because she really just wanted to feel at home, yet she couldn’t.
Dylan’s been running from his demons a long time. The town of Hot Water lauds him as a hero, but he knows he really isn’t. Guilt and shame keep him from coming home and push him into doing heroic things in the FBI, which only makes the town people feel they’re right in calling him a hero. Which only drives him farther away. Being in Hot Water is hell for Dylan, because it’s the place he really most wants to be..and yet can’t stand to live. While I appreciate the sentiment behind Dylan’s pain and guilt, it didn’t quite ring true for me. His guilt stems from a tragedy that happens years ago that he really wasn’t in control of. While I understand you can’t always help how you feel, it seemed his guilt was greatly exaggerated. In the beginning I understood why, but as the novel progressed I found myself getting impatient with him.
Together Dylan and Kitty are wonderful. There’s heat between them, but as I said above the pull comes from their emotional connection. I loved that Dylan understood Kitty’s mini-van loving soul, while Kitty soothed something inside Dylan he didn’t even realize needed soothing. They were able to lean on each other. As the reader, I really felt them falling in love, as opposed to just reading about it.
The secondary romance between Kitty’s mother and Dylan’s father didn’t work as well for me. Generally Ridgway’s secondary romances are fabulously done, but I couldn’t connect with either of these two. Especially not Kitty’s mother. She was a woman who made no apologies for the life she’d lived, which is something I normally would have admired. But because that life came at the cost of her daughter’s happiness, I had a hard time understanding.
Especially since Naomi didn’t really make an effort to reconnect with Kitty. There was no tearful scene where she claimed to have kept tabs on Kitty all along, or regretted her actions so much. If I’m being fair, the way it’s written is much more realistic than what I wanted to happen, which I suppose is kind of the point. Still, in the end I was left unsatisfied over that aspect. Which then means I was left unsatisfied about the rest of the romance. Because I couldn’t connect with either character, I wasn’t really interested in how things would play out for them.
Beyond that, the novel is well written and emotionally engaging. I have the second book sitting in my TBR pile (I recently went on a Ridgway glom and bought as many novels from her backlist as I could find) and I’m anxious to start it.
4.25 out of 5
The series:
This book is OOP from Avon. You can buy it here.
Another good one, especially coming from you. I’m going to have to up this on my TBR list. This looks good.