Review: Falling in Love on Willow Creek

Falling in Love on Willow Creek by Debbie Mason
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

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

She'd been bailing her baby brother out of trouble for years. 

Third in the series, I had no problem jumping in with this small town romance even though I haven't read the others. We start off with a very pregnant Sadie Gray working in her grandmother's I Believe in Unicorns store and trying to suss out if her brother on the run from the law is squeezing her grandmother for money. Her brother got mixed up transporting drugs with the local gang and now is wanted by them and the police. She's got that to deal with while she's pregnant and deciding that it is finally time to kick her baby's father to the curb. 

The pov then jumps to FBI agent Chase Roberts, who happens to be watching the store and catches Sadie in an embarrassing moment but receives a phone call before they can meet. Their meet-cute then ends up with Sadie getting into a minor car accident and Chase, with his new undercover partner Nate Black, delivering Sadie's baby because she goes into labor on the side of the road. 

And for the first time in his career, he thought he might be in over his head. 

This started with a lot of different elements thrown at the reader, I had a hard time keeping up with everything. The undercover case Chase is working with Nate Black, who he isn't sure he can fully trust, as they try to find Sadie's brother and see if he really was a criminal informant for Nate's buddy that was killed and if the local sheriff's department is dirty and working to ship drugs with the gang is the main plot but there were so many intangibles added that it started to feel kitchen sink and not cobbled together quite right. Around the 20% mark, I started to feel like I was settling into the story more. Sadie's grandmother's second sight, Sadie's friend Abby and her YouTube channel ideas, and Sadie's baby preferring Chase all the time, were seemingly small additives but they were all thrown in, in such a way, that it disrupted the flow and took away from the romance. 

“Thank you.” he said, then held her gaze. “I meant what I said, Sadie. I care about Michaela, and I care about you.” 

The romance was fairly mild, with the baby almost always between them, Sadie and Chase felt like an already married couple and with more of a dulled spark. This was also a kisses only, the sex scene is completely off screen. Both characters were raised by their grandparents and I thought that was sweet commonality but because Sadie and Chase had to share the focus in so many directions, I felt we never got to see them sit and deepen together. I had that problem with a lot of the characters, they went beyond cardboard individually but their relationships with each other were lacking and I missed more emotion. About 40% Sadie learns that Chase is undercover and a little bit of fake relationship trope happens as he pretends to be her boyfriend so he can stay with her at her house. I thought we would get more spark but these two just settled into the comfortable couple even more, with Sadie getting naps in and Chase doing the laundry. 

If you've read the other books in the series, you'll enjoy the appearances of past and future couples as they have some important roles in this. I felt the execution wasn't quite right on this as the beginning had me feeling scattered and pulled in a lot of different ways, Chase and Nate never felt like they were searching intensely enough for Sadie's brother, and Sadie's baby got in the middle a lot. The story ends fairly abruptly but with the bonus story edition, you get a novella of Sadie and Chase's wedding, which helps give an epilogue feel. This would be a comfortable read for some, though, if you like a little detective work and wanting to visit the small town of Highland Falls again.

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