Sarina Bowen’s True North series is one of my favorites. It has my combination of a few amazing qualities – heart, humor, well developed characters, and a solid world that I can get lost in quite easily. The previous three books were ones that I’ve adored for individual reasons. Each book had things that I either connected with or was so well written that I immediately needed to tell other to read so I could discuss. Bountiful is the latest addition to the True North family and it’s really no different – in a great way.

So kids in books…NOT my favorite trope. It’s not like I dislike kids but they’re usually just a prop and I’m not a fan of that. But I also don’t like when a book is ALL about the kid. I read romance to get away not to feel stress all the time. But this is Sarina so I put my trust in her. We’d already been introduced to Zara in the other True North books and she was…prickly so I was not sure I’d love her. But she turned out to be my favorite kind of Sarina heroine – FIERCE and independent and ready to take on the world. Combine that with new-ish character Dave who was alpha combined with soft in all the right ways and they were pretty much ready to combust from word go. Which is how Zara wound up pregnant and alone unfortunately. Which was the OTHER thing I was worried about – the surprise baby trope. Let me clear the air here – this is not really that. She is not keeping a secret, she is not springing this on Dave, nothing like that. But Dave is also not a deadbeat dad. Sarina managed to do this trope in such a way that I was completely okay with it and like ohhhh okay, that could happen! Now that is a good writer right there.

I’d spent a long time feeling like the girl who had less than everyone else. I hadn’t known it would ache just as much to feel blessed.

As the book goes on Zara gets softer and more relatable in the best way – which is another great thing Sarina did here. Motherhood softened her world view and made her realize she needed help from people. I loved that about her because she did not lose her edge at all, is was just dulled a little so as not to cut everyone in it’s path. Meanwhile, Dave always had the best alpha and beta combination already and kind of had his heart wrapped in gauze so that he wasn’t hurt by anyone. He’d had enough of that in his past.

But our past had left me wondering if there was such a thing as a happy family. And if chasing the illusion only made you into a sucker.

This is a very straight-forward book. And I gobbled it up. I loved the romance and the chemistry. I loved the daughter and how much they love her. I enjoyed watching Dave and his sister with the daughter. I loved getting to revisit old True North friends. I can’t get enough of this series and it sounds like there is more to come so thankfully I don’t have to stop here!

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Reviewer: Melinda

Title: Bountiful

Author: Sarina Bowen

Release Date: October 20,2017

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