Knock on Wood (The Ash Brothers, #2)

by Jenika Snow

[llamareads]

I liked the previous novella in the Ash Brothers series, Hard Wood, so I was looking forward to reading the next story featuring Johnny and Flora, who were both introduced in that book. Unfortunately, this one didn’t work as well for me.

Johnny is the second Ash brother, and he’s the definition of the strong silent type. Flora, who’s seven years younger, also grew up in the small mountain town of Rockbridge, but left to go to college. She’s been in love with Johnny for as long as she can remember, and Johnny’s been in love with her since her eighteenth birthday. They’ve been back in the same town for almost a year, but neither has been able to confess their feelings for each other.

It’s a undeniably sweet story, but I felt like too much time was spent on each character moping and yearning for the other, and not as much on the two actually communicating. For such a short story, a lot of the internal monologue felt much too repetitive – each character is too old/young for the other, or too pretty or too whatever. Once they actually start communicating – by a blurted out “I love you,” which was absolutely adorable – they move quickly to having rampant bunny sex, which, given that they were both virgins, seemed a bit varied to me.

Overall, while this one missed the mark for me, I’ll be picking up the third one for sure!

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.