Put a Ring on It (Black Dog Bay, #3)

by Beth Kendrick

[girlinthepages]

The Black Dog Bay series is proving to be a bit of a roller coaster ride rating wise for me, because I love love loved book three! Put a Ring On It was so fun, so quick, I literally inhaled it in two sittings (and may have suffered a bit of sleep deprivation because of it). I almost don’t want to read the last book in the series because I don’t want to ruin the perfection that was this installment.

I had mixed feelings going into this book because 1) The cover is sort of cheesy, 2) The title name is even cheesier, and 3) I didn’t love New Uses for Old Boyfriends. HOWEVER I should not have worried because Jake Sorenson made up for alllll of that. I loved seeing a previously mentioned secondary character get to be the main love interest in one of the books in the series, and man did it pay off.

So in typical Black Dog Bay fashion, we have a likeable but somewhat hapless protagonist who is ~lost in life and love~ who finds herself in the idyllic seaside down after a recent heartbreak. Brighton is the star of this novel, and I actually really liked her- responsible and practical to a fault, I identified with her constant striving for stability and perfection, even if it didn’t make her the most fun or exciting human being (the rent doesn’t pay itself, y’all). She and Jake enter into a whirlwind romance (and by romance I mean getting revenge married mere hours after meeting each other) and the rest of the book is them dealing with the ramifications of their actions (and let’s be real, falling in love with someone AFTER you’ve married them).

I really loved getting to know Jake on a deeper level in this book, since he’s such an infamous and mysterious figure in the town. Readers get to learn about his past, see what he does for a living and where he lives, and why he’s allowed himself to get the reputation as the town rebound guy (although I’d just like to say I think there was a lot of male slut shaming- ironic, I know- in this book and some distasteful terminology used and I thought it was pretty rude toward Jake). It was hilarious to see people’s interactions to the news of Jake and Brighton’s marriage, and it was fun to get to see the town’s reactions through the eyes of an outsider, while the reader has a lot of knowledge of the townies through previous books. Brighton’s inner dialogue was actually pretty funny (despite being an actuary) and I found myself laughing out loud several times while reading this book- always a good sign! I also loved that Lila, the protagonist from the previous book, played such a large role in this one and how Brighton’s skill for making jewelry paired seamlessly with Lila’s business, The Naked Finger. Sure, these books may fall into the romance genre, but they’re also about women helping other women uplift each other, start businesses, and develop skills and find themselves, which is totally awesome and adds another great layer to these stories.

Overall: Brighton and Jake are my Black Dog Bay OTP, and I want to read follow up books about them having babies and running their million dollar sand and gravel empire and taking in stray dogs. 3 Black Dog Bay books down, 1 to go!