The Sweet Spot: ARC Review
My month of advance reviews continues on! Today I’m here sharing my advance review of Adriana Locke’s next small town, single mom, friends to lovers contemporary romance: The Sweet Spot. Having read a decent number of Locke’s backlist through Kindle Unlimited I was excited to get my hands on this one!
As always huge thanks to NetGalley and Montlake for the ARC, thoughts below are my own, enjoy!
Friends, where to begin with this one? I gotta tell you I have sat here for an inordinate amount of time trying to sort out how I feel about this one. First let’s start with things I liked. Palmer’s 12 year old son Ethan was just super freaking cute the entire read. I thoroughly enjoyed how Locke wrote him, and was pleasantly surprised how nuanced he was. So often my groan inducing eye roll, happens when books that feature kids are written either way too young or too old, and in this Locke nails it.
The relationship between Ethan and his mom Palmer again, was a real stand out for me. I loved how much she loved him. And, I loved how much he saw her. So often children are written in romance as these cardboard-eqsue plot devices and I never once felt that Ethan and Palmer were anything but a really solid team of two. Strong us against the world vibes. The small town setting also gave me some lovely cozy vibes, but at times felt a little one dimensional. Lawrence and Casey (Cole’s parents) are a treat too, folks will enjoy being welcomed into their home and table, I’m sure of it.
And the main love story, well ok here’s where I am feeling a little torn. So the meet cute off the top was light-hearted, and full of chemistry, I was admittedly feeling it. It was equal parts earnest, witty and charged with hot guy gets turned down, but respectfully will be persistent. From there Cole and Palmer continue to (thank you small town) bump into each other. While the attraction is instant, Palmer is emotionally intelligent enough to know that this man is a season of her life (he’s JUST stopping by!) and not forever. And Cole is a freshly retired future-hall-of-famer MLB catcher who has abruptly retired from the game. He’s processing, and withholding some pretty big revelations.
And this my sweet babies is where I found myself disconnecting. Spoilers ahead, please proceed with caution.
The entire length of the novel, we are repeatedly fed the verbal and non verbal background that Palmer (god bless her) is a CAREGIVER, she is selfless, she is a nurturer, she is protective, and never ever rests or takes care of herself. Okay cool. And Cole is perfect. He is in-tune with himself, he communicates with her and loves her son. He is never ruffled by anything, he totally accepts her and they are like this low drama low angst couple. Then, at like 87% of the novel, comes the revelation. Cole has MS.
Record scratch. Yes, you read that correctly. He has MS and that is the reason he retired early. I want to be clear, chronic illness is normal its wonderful to write and represent and give voice characters that experience it, but for me this felt like a vehicle for forced conflict and not something that is shaping his character or decision. He also decides to dump her because he overhears her say to her ex (who calls from jail, y’all when I tell you I said OF COURSE out-loud), that she can’t take care of anyone else. And let’s remember this entire novel they have been communicating BRILLIANTLY. I dunno, I was ready to call it, but I had read so much of the book I decided to trudge through.
On top of all this, I found myself deeply uncomfortable with the throw-away lines that included joking about sending and being able to read smoke-signals, and suggesting Cole sage his house to cleanse it.
So where does that leave us? Great question. I like parts of and the idea of this book but, for me there was too much going on, and that revelation at the end didn’t land with me. Not to say it won’t work for you, The Sweet Spot is landing in store and online November 29, 2022