Books

Book 933: Hope on the Rocks (Rainbow Cove #4) – Annabeth Albert

Book cover of "Hope on the Rocks" with Amazon Affiliate linkWhenever I get a chance to throw in something from Annabeth Albert’s back catalog, I usually do. I’m slowly making my way through it and this was the last book in her Rainbow Cove series.

I like to think that this series and her Portland Heat series are in a shared universe, I mean they’re only so far apart on the Oregon coast. Rainbow Cove is definitely kinkier than Portland Heat, but they both have their moments.

In Hope on the Rocks, we get Adam’s story. He’s the third owner of the local tavern along with Mason from Trust with a Chaser and Curtis from Tender with a Twist. He grew up in the town and his family is all still nearby and he spends all of his time divided between the tavern and helping his mom’s B&B/rental business. When he meets Quinn, the new town doctor who comes into the bar for a one-off bender, they hit it off.

“Without you, none of the rest of it means as much.” I’d thought about that the whole drive over to his place. My life had had meaning prior to him, but he made it better. Richer. Made me like everything about my life more. I struggled for the words to explain. “I like working my shifts knowing I get to see you after. I like taking more time off because I get to spend it with you. And I like being around my family, knowing I get to go home with you. I want you in my life and not as an afterthought or something to squeeze in between other commitments.” (Loc. 3059)

For the most part, this was a run-of-the-mill slightly kinky novel. I’m not sure if there is a scale of kink from like least to most, but this featured a Dad/son slight Dom/sub kink that wasn’t taken as far as a few of the other books I’ve read. It falls somewhere between Chaser and Twist on my imaginary scale.

This was probably my least favorite of the series. There wasn’t any single thing about it, it just fell a little flat. It may be the two characters who seemed to have a lot of extra things going on off-page, but it could also have been Albert’s writing (SHOCK AND HORROR). For some reason things didn’t seem to quite click in the order they were supposed to or in the way they were supposed to for me.

Recommendation: Definitely worth the read, but not one of Albert’s best or strongest. It was my least favorite in the series, which is a little odd for me since it’s less kinky than Tender with a Twist and has a super loving and adorable main couple with pretty minimal angst. Maybe it’s just the timing of when I read it.

Opening Line: “‘You picked the wrong night to be bad at drinking,’ I teased the sole patron sitting at my bar on the sleepiest of Monday nights.”

Closing Line: “Forever wasn’t too much to hope for.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

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