Yours to Keep

Really enjoyed this one. Overall really likable characters and lots of fun banter.

Olive Dunn is tasked with planning her 10-year high school reunion and unexpectedly ends up co-chairing the event with her old lab partner turned baseball star Carter Ramsey. Olive and Carter, while not close in high school, fall into an easy friendship that seems like they've been close for years. As their relationship grows into something more, they're both torn over the fact that, logistically, their relationship couldn't work outside of their tiny home town.

I'd definitely recommend this, especially if you're a fan of high school reunion stories.

I like slow-burn romances, they may in fact be my favourite trope. This book, however, was not a very good slow-burn romance (in my opinion). I love slow-burn romances because I love to see a relationship develop slowly between two characters who were otherwise not expecting it. Unfortunately, slow-burn isn't just about the slow development of the romance for me, it's also about the copious amounts of sexual tension and chemistry between the two main characters. This is what I felt was missing in this book.

Carter is an injured baseball player who temporarily returns to his hometown and in the meantime rents a house next to his former chem lab partner, Olive. He is initially returning home to rekindle a romance with his recently divorced ex Felicity, in an attempt to recapture the good old days before his fame got out of control. Carter spends a good portion of the book still pining after a not-yet present Felicity while developing a relationship with Olive. While Carter and Olive had great banter, they struck me as very good friends. I did not feel they had much chemistry and there seemed to be very few moments of tension between them. Thus, by the time the romance finally developed (about 75% into the book), I felt they would have been better off as platonic best friends, rather than romantic partners.