Review | Wild Heat by Lucy Monroe

Things I Liked: 

I loved the small-town setting of Cailkirn, Alaska – this is a town that relies on tourism with their wilderness and cruise businesses. Even with the influx of people in and out of town, there remains a small-town feel to it because the core group is close-knit (at least, so says the characters). I loved the nature part of the town the best, and it is very present in the book because of Tack’s job/business – he leads trails and expeditions for travelers, and there are some scenes that occur out in the wild that feel very woodsy and cool. 

I love the secondary characters. My favorites are the people we meet in the first scene with Caitlin: Savannah and her son Joey. They are arriving to town for the first time to meet Nik, Savannah’s husband-by-proxy . (This is something I’m kind of dying to read about in the third book. I don’t recall reading a proxy marriage romance in a contemporary setting yet.) These characters show up quite a bit in the story and I loved all of their scenes – they are a little awkward as they try to learn each other. I think there is potential for a great story with this couple in the third book. I also loved Caitlin’s family and Tack’s family, very present on the pages. 

But there was also this: 

Caitlin is actually a recovering anorexic. Tack, being super-protective, wants to make sure she eats like she should, because she hardly eats at all. He notices that she skips some meals and when she does eat, she always divides her food in half and leaves a good portion on the plate. So Tack comes up with a trade: when Caitlin eats, she gets sex. Or kisses. Or touches. You get the picture. 

This seems like it may not be satisfying to him, but it is because he gets to feel better about her caloric intake (he’s totally paying attention to what he is feeding her) plus, you know, the physical part of it all.

To be honest, I haven’t read anything like this in a romance story before. I suppose, when I think about it, it isn’t all that different from other issues-stories, but it felt a little weird. Or maybe it was just their words and phrases. At any rate, this is in there. I didn’t realize that using sex to help out with eating disorders was a thing, but it is in this book. 

The romance in this story: No triangle. Fans of steamy romance scenes will like this one. Caitlin and Tack definitely have the hots for one another, but it does take them the entire course of the book to work out the emotion behind their attraction and to decide what they’re going to do with these feelings. 

Ultimately, Wild Heat is a bit different than what I was expecting when I picked it up, but there are things in there that I liked and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with these secondary characters. I stuck with this book for the same reasons that I picked it up to begin with + I’m EXTREMELY interested in this proxy-marriage secondary couple.

I recommend Wild Heat by Lucy Monroe for fans of steamy adult contemporary romance and fans of second-chance romance.