Moonlight & Whiskey

by Tricia Lynne

[EBookObsessed]

4 1/2 stars.

A great debut novel by Tricia Lynne. Great characters, some plot issues but a good read.

Avery Barrows and her best friend Kat go on a vacation to New Orleans. As an engineer, Avery has to appear straight-laced and almost non-sexual to compete in the male-centric profession.
Avery has the skills and the experience to be a partner but the boobs which hold her back. So this trip to N.O. is a "let your hair down and go wild" girls vacay. There is an inner Avery who likes to come out now and then who makes up for straight-laced Avery.   I didn't like that this Avery surpassed my usual enjoyable level of snarky heroine and went straight to crude trucker. While our hero liked when feisty Avery came out to play rough, I felt some of it was over the top from feisty to downright bitchy. Playful sniping is enjoyable, but there were a few lines that went overboard and drew blood.

Upon arriving at their hotel, Avery is knocked over by Declan McGinn, a tall, hot tattooed local. Rude Avery makes an appearance but Declan seems to like the fire and he invites her to dinner as an apology. They have a nice dinner and enjoy each others company, but Avery, who is a shapely, plus-sized girl, presumes Declan is just being polite and couldn't possibly be interested in her. When he tells her that he has to leave because he has a gig, Avery believes she has gotten blown off until she and Kat stumble upon the bar that Declan and his band are playing at.

Once Avery comes to realize that Declan does in fact like her curves, as he said, they embark on lots of hot vacation sex but as the week passes and the time comes to say goodbye, are either of them brave enough to confess their feelings and take a chance?

As a plus-sized heroine, Avery has had the usual baggage of user boyfriends. Some of these men just used Avery to get close to her best friend Kat, who is a former model. I liked how both Declan and Kat worked on boosting Avery's confidence during the story. Declan had to work hard to make Avery trust that he truly liked her as she was, curves, foul-mouth and all; and Kat as a former model who put on some weight after retiring (like size 6 vs. size 0) works to make Avery understand that she was the "perfect" size but that didn't make her life perfect.  Kat points out to Avery that she has been happier since she stopped being perfect and started enjoying life.

Some spoilers ahead.

Avery's insecurity over her body was a major blockade to her overall happiness. Dealing with it was a major part of the story. This whole vacation turned from wild weekend into building Avery's confidence in her figure and accepting herself as she was. We even have one of Declan's band mates who keeps declaring that he saw Avery first and if he didn't stop for a shower, she would be with him rather than Declan. So we have two men desperate to put their hands all over Avery's ample curves. That is why I was disappointed that the author added a conflict of Declan being caught in a compromising position with a skinny fan, and her suddenly believing that Declan couldn't really like fat Avery. Of course, it wasn't what it looked like but instead of standing up and confronting them like the newly confident Avery should have, Avery runs away. This is exacerbated by the fact that Avery then puts herself into what looks like a compromising position, now making Declan feel hurt and betrayed. I was a bit angry that Avery didn't use more of her very impressive brain at this point in the story. The amount of eye-rolling started to hurt. There was enough hurtles to Declan and Avery having a HEA that this felt so trite and simply romance trope B.S.

What started out as fun-vacation sex was building into something more. That is a pretty big hurdle since Declan has a life in New Orleans with his band and the club that he owns. He might have hired a manager for the club, but finding the right magic with another band would not be so easy.
Avery lived in Dallas, and while she didn't even like her company, she spent a decade gaining the begrudging respect of the partners and was working to gain her own partnership in the firm. Avery's company had big projects and Avery specialized in sports arenas and those types of large projects. Quitting and uprooting herself to New Orleans to start her own firm or start from the bottom of a new firm, was asking a lot for what might have been a week of hot sex.

Both Avery and Declan had parent issues growing up which screwed with them as adults. Declan's father drank himself to death after his wife left him, so Declan never wanted to be that attached to a woman. So much so that he announced, was too early in the story, that he didn't want a relationship. Since Avery wasn't a new girl in town but a woman on vacation looking for a good time, it seemed a little silly for him to announce at the very beginning that he didn't do relationships. Avery was just looking to use Declan for hot sex, she wasn't looking for a ring first. But his declaration stayed in her head while their relationship built. So we have Declan declaring how much he liked Avery, like her curved, like being with her, but she also knew he didn't do relationships so Avery wasn't thinking long-term and should I quit my job thoughts, and then Declan is hurt that Avery isn't thinking about what happens with them after she leaves. Declan also starts to wonder if Avery is too smart for him and we find Declan has some issues of self-worth himself.

For a first publication, I think this was a great story.   All the characters here--Declan, Avery, Kat, the band members, and everyone they met in New Orleans--were well presented and even secondary characters were fleshed-out enough to make them feel real.  Avery crossed the line a few times from fun and snarky to cruel and bitchy, but not enough to make the reader dislike her. And while Avery and Declan's declarations of their feelings crossed the line into romance-novel flowery, rather than true life, we can forgive that a bit since Declan was also a song writer.

The romance had a nice build and Avery and Declan had good chemistry. The building of Avery's self-confidence grew nicely and wasn't instantaneous. The sex scenes (which were plentiful) where sexy and fun and not awkward or over the top. My only complaint is the ruining of all that great build up with the awkward conflict which screams "publisher guidelines" to me.

I am going to look out for what Tricia Lynne publishes next.

Received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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