Finding Home (Bluestones Lake #1) by Jenn McMahon

This #Romanceoplopy prompt was to read a new to you author or debut novel. I was excited to come across a small town romance by a new to me author so I was all over this!

Unfortunately Jenn McMahon might not be the author for me. I loved the premise for this book and I should have loved everything about it, cowboys, baking, tiny homes, and a CORGI, but I just couldn’t get on with her writing.

I’m going to chalk this up to it being a me problem and not an author problem.

I just felt like some things were constantly being repeated, like Griffin’s fear of Blair leaving, we are given a vague reason about Griffin’s ex but there is never any real insight into that whole situation. Just like there was never any backstory around Blair’s relationship with her parents. It was all so vague.

There was a lot of that, too much surface information and no real depth to the characters. Actually, I think that’s the problem I have with it the writing actually. The characters all felt very one dimensional and I just didn’t enjoy them.

I appreciated that there wasn’t a big third act miscommunication but the drama with Blair’s ex was the stupidest third act conflict I’ve read in a while. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever, given the information we gleaned from the breakup and divorce, it was so forced and really very cringe!

There was a lot of cringe. Why did they all talk so formally?

I’d also like to point out that I do enjoy a broody alpha-douche but Griffin just hating everyone, including his parents for some inexplicable reason, was so off putting.

Being a total asshole just because an ex-girlfriend left a small town to live in a city seems way too over the top and a little silly.

So this one was a bit of a fail but they can’t all be winners!

Synopsis:

Blair Andrews has spent the better part of her adulthood playing trophy wife to her politician husband in San Francisco. All she knows is her pampered, polished, perfect life.

Until it all comes crashing down around her.

After hiding out in her sister’s spare bedroom for months to avoid pitying looks on the streets, she decides it’s time to escape city life and learn to stand on her own.

On a whim, Blair buys a tiny home in a small Wyoming town where she is certain her new neighbor, Griffin Barlow, can’t stand her. He owns the local bar, is constantly covered in dirt from working on his family’s ranch, and never smiles.

Is he grumpy because she infiltrated his privacy when she moved onto the once quiet street? Or is there more to it than that?

Blair has sworn off relationships, leaving the city behind to start fresh and find her independence.

But in Bluestone Lakes, Wyoming, she’s finding more than that.
Maybe…she’s finding home.