Review: The Bright Spot: A Novel

The Bright Spot: A Novel by Jill Shalvis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

Silas Wittman had left her 50 percent ownership of the farm. 

Fifth in the Sunrise Cove series, stand-alone stories set in the same town, The Bright Spot had the sweet, sexy, and ease of readability and tone of a typical Shalvis. The owner of the Apple Ridge Farm has just passed away and the farm's manager, Luna, is worried what the future holds for the farm. The owner, Silas was nicknamed “The Grinch” by the workers but while the farm is near Lake Tahoe, Silas has the good manners to live in California. It's not until Luna has a meeting with the lawyer to read the will that she learns she's now fifty percent owner of the farm, a balloon payment is due in sixy days, and, oh, yeah, Silas was her biological grandfather. Adopted when she was baby, Luna has always fought feeling like an outsider but has managed to create a family with the farm workers, her ex-boyfriend works at the cafe, her grandma runs the knickknack shop, and her bestfriend since childhood runs the botanical gardens. She doesn't want to lose the farm and her family and so she keeps what the lawyer said to herself for a while. Until the other fifty percent owner shows up, the man she tried to go home with after a few drinks at the bar the night before. 

Probably it was the margaritas, but he was everything she'd just said she wanted to be: smart, witty, charismatic, and...something she could seem to manage nearly as easily---sexy. 

After his father left when he was five and his mother died when he was fourteen, Jameson spent a year on the streets before Silas took him under his wing. Now an investment manager, Jameson has security but no real personal connections, especially now that Silas has died. Before his death, Silas made Jameson promise to help Luna either sell the farm or pay off the loan payment, helping her for at least two months but not tell her he promised Silas. When Jameson gets to Sunrise Cove, things get even more complicated when he finds himself attracted to Luna and the farm needs a whole lot of help. 

He wasn't sure what it said about him that he liked her grumpy side. As I mentioned, this was sweet with the found family aspects and the attraction between Luna and Jameson and had some sexy with open door scenes. There was also a little secondary second chance romance between Luna's bestfriend Willow and her estranged husband. There wasn't a lot to it, so Willow came off a little moody temperamental dramatic, but there was also just enough emotion to get you to care about the couple. The other secondary characters get enough time to shine and add to the fulfillment of created family emotions, Luna's grandmother was the kooky outrageous older woman that I'm personally kind of done reading about in these types of stories but, all-in-all still fun and added to the story characters. 

At that, her eyes glittered with both affection and, if he wasn't mistaken, a fierce sort of protectiveness. 

The romance between Luna and Jameson gave them enough time together to get the reader to develop some connection to them and feel some of the sweetness between them. It's obvious what their issues are from the beginning, Luna guards her heart because of her feelings of abandonment and won't fully trust Jameson to open herself up to him and Jameson has some of the abandonment feelings too and feeling like an outside, having a harder time connecting with people. There's also the looming issue that Jameson is holding back information from Luna about Silas asking him to help her. As the reader, I didn't actually think it felt like a big deal and when it's used in the third act breakup, it ended up feeling forced in at the ending 15%. We do get some grovel from both with pretty good speeches about their feelings but Luna having to forgive Jameson for what she saw as lying to her ended up feeling rushed because of how little page count was left and there was also the dealing with a festival to save the farm by making enough money to pay off the loan. 

His eyes closed for a quick beat, then opened again, revealing surprise, affection, and...a much deeper emotion. 

The romance was the focal point but there still a giving more time to the found family feelings, ensemble piece aspects that I wish had went more to the development between Luna and Jameson. I also felt like Jameson maybe got less character boosting in favor of those ensemble aspects and the secondary romance; I kind of wish the secondary romance had got it's own book and longer page count as the second chance aspect and characters did draw me in. However, that typical enjoyable Shalvis flare is there and if you're looking for a sedate contemporary romance that has an adorable goat, this would tick that box.