Review: Hooked by Ev Bishop

08 February of 2016 by ButtonsMom2003

Reviewer's Rating: 5

5.0Overall score

Another wonderful trip to River’s Sigh B&B.

Hooked By Ev Bishop

Women’s Fiction / Contemporary Romance

Released June 16, 2015

Winding Path Books

Series: River’s Sigh B & B, Book 2

Reviewed by ButtonsMom2003

Knocked around by life—and then knocked up by a man she won’t speak of—Sam Kendall gives her baby for adoption.

Envisioning herself a lone cowboy, she avoids any relationships that might risk her heart or cause pain. There’s wonderful fun to be had if you don’t fall prey to the ludicrous notion of true love!

Lately, however, Sam is niggled by doubts. She’s not as content as she was. Plus her daughter Aisha has tracked her down—seventeen-years-old and pregnant. Despite misgivings, Sam checks into River’s Sigh Bed-and-Breakfast to meet her.

Then widower Charles Bailey, Aisha’s adoptive father, shows up, and Sam can’t control her outrage. What was her sacrifice for? She could’ve raised the kid to follow her stupid footsteps all on her own. And topping it off? Charlie’s a neurotic, stodgy jerk—even if he is ridiculously hot.

The longer Sam stays at River’s Sigh, exploring the wild outdoors—and her own inner desires—the more her terror grows. Maybe Charlie isn’t so terrible after all. Maybe his approach to life is actually refreshing. Maybe all this family stuff is something she could get hooked on.

Yet they’re opposites in every way, and worse: he’s her biological child’s adoptive dad. A romance between them would be too weird, wouldn’t it? Every part of Sam screams play it safe, run.

But what if, in spurning Charlie and Aisha, she’s turning her back on everything she never knew she wanted?

Another wonderful trip to River’s Sigh B&B.

This is book 2 in the River’s Sigh B&B series but it can be read as a stand-alone; there is no cliffhanger and there is an HEA. For maximum enjoyment, though, you might want to read Wedding Bands first as it will give you some background on the secondary characters in this story. I loved Wedding Bands and couldn’t wait to read this story but I had to wait because writers just can’t write as fast as I can read. LOL I wasn’t disappointed and this story was worth the wait.

As the book opens, Samantha (Sam) is struggling to come to terms with meeting the daughter given up for adoption 17 years ago so that she could have a better life than Sam was in a position to provide. Now Aisha is in the same boat that Sam was, pregnant with the baby’s father nowhere around. And Aisha has questions that she wants Sam to answer.

Charles (Charlie) is Aisha’s adoptive father; his wife, Maureen (Mo), died a few years ago. He’s a writer who has lost his muse and hasn’t written anything new since his wife died. He’s been given one final extension on his publishing contract; he must finish a new book within 6 months.

More of Sam and Charlie’s backstory unfolds throughout the book. Their first meeting isn’t really a good one. This is definitely not a case of love at first sight. Both Sam and Charlie have demons that haunt them. Charlie is afraid that Sam is trying to take his only remaining family from him. Sam just doesn’t want to get involved with anyone; the daughter she gave birth to or a man.

Ev Bishop weaves a moving and complex story. Her writing is wonderfully descriptive; you can see and feel what the characters see and feel. The path to Sam and Charlie’s HEA is a rocky one and the relationship that both of them have with Aisha encounters rough water.

Once again, Ev has written a book that contains a minimal amount of strong language. In real life there is cursing; a book completely free of it would be a bit unrealistic to me. She also manages to tell a wonderful love story without any graphic love scenes. I don’t mention these things because I object to them in books, but because I know some readers do. I love alpha males, billionaire stories, military heroes and erotic romance. Still, it’s a nice change to read a book that doesn’t need any of that to tell a great story. Ev’s characters seem like REAL people to me and I loved getting lost in in her writing.

This review was written and previously posted on Amazon.com when the book was first published in June 2015