Grace never thought she’d be starting her life over from scratch. Losing everything has landed her in Lucky Harbor, working as a dog walker for overwhelmed ER doctor Josh Scott. But the day his nanny fails to show up, Grace goes from caring for Josh’s loveable mutt to caring for his rambunctious kids. Soon Grace is playing house with the sexy single dad…
With so many people depending on him, Josh has no time for anything outside of his clinic and family–until Grace arrives in town. Now this brainy blonde is turning his life inside out and giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “good bedside manner.” Josh and Grace don’t know if what they have can last. But in a town like Lucky Harbor, a lifetime of love starts with just one day…
Grace has lived a life of fulfilling expectations – and those aren’t her expectations, but her parents’. They want her to be the best she can be – as long as she becomes a career woman like they want her to. Well, she’s not exactly walking down that road at the moment. She landed in Lucky Harbor quite by chance and while looking for a position as an investment banker in Portland and Seattle she’s doing odd jobs around the small town. She delivers flowers, she models at the art gallery – she just does a little of everything to try to make ends meet. When she gets a call from someone who obviously has the wrong number but wants her to walk their dog for $40.00 she decides to do it. Who cares if she’s never done it before, right? Well, it doesn’t exactly go as planned and ends up losing the dog – so she thinks. She ends up calling the dogs owner who happens to be the town McHottie, Dr. Josh Scott, pulling him out of his job at the ER to help her.
Josh isn’t thrilled with Grace’s dog-walking services and fires her but he’s overworked and exhausted and when his nanny bails on him he manages to get Grace to take the position temporarily. Not only that but he offers her his guest house free of charge. He tries to ignore the electricity that sizzles between him and Grace each time they even look at each other but he can’t quite manage it.
Grace doesn’t know much about dogs, or kids, or paraplegic 21 year olds (Josh’s sister that lives with him) but she does a fair impression of a nanny and as the days go by she finds that not only can she do the job, she actually likes it. She knows that she should keep her hands off of Josh when they’re alone together but she just can’t. She still plans on meeting her parents’ expectations by getting that high-powered job and is still going on interviews but while she’s at it she realizes that what her parents want and what she wants are two totally different things. Josh also makes some drastic changes in his life but he’s not sure how to handle how he starts feeling for Grace when he knows she’ll be leaving town soon.
Grace and Josh are beyond adorable together. When I mentioned electricity between the couple I wasn’t kidding. These two light up the page like a 4th of July display. It’s hot and sexy but fun and funny at the same time. I love how Shalvis managed to make this an emotionally charged story with so many ins and outs and characters and still have her stock humor stuck in there.
I loved so many things about this book that I just don’t know where to begin:
**Toby, Josh’s son is so crazy cute that I just wanted to jump into the book and give him a great big hug.
**The pug, Tank, well I could just imagine his smashed in face and still wanted to hug him too.
**Anna, Josh’s sister was so lost and confused and angry and written so well I couldn’t help but like her tough girl attitude. Yes, she was a brat at times but it was completely understandable.
**Grace’s fellow Chocoholics, Mallory and Amy, were present and accounted for as were their men from the previous books. They were always there with their friendship and advice and I loved seeing them try to take care of Grace in their own way.
**The Chocoholics’ men…Ty and Matt? Totally hilarious. Them trying to coerce Josh into anything just made me laugh. One of my favorite lines in the book was when the three men were together eating and Ty and Matt were trying to get Josh to realize that it didn’t matter that he and Grace had said they were in it for fun, they weren’t any longer. Only Josh wouldn’t capitulate and I loved Ty’s thought on the subject:
Ty pointed his beer at Josh. “Want to know what I think?”“No,” Josh said.“I think you have a case of being a little girl. Maybe you should prescribe yourself a heavy does of man-the-fuck-up.”
OMG – so great to have friends that will tell you exactly what’s on their mind. lol
In the end I have to say that this is my favorite Lucky Harbor book. While I loved books 1-3 and books 4 & 5 were even better this one definitely takes the cake. It has humor, friendship, emotional upheaval, a great sense of family and an out of this world romance all wrapped up in a wonderfully written package. I loved the book and I definitely recommend it.
Rating: 5 out of 5
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