That's What She Said – Romance Reviewed

Things We Hide From the Light is out Tuesday! Thank you to the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Things We Never Got Over was easily one of my top reads of the past year so to say I was excited for Things We Hide From The Light is an understatement. And thankfully, Nash and Lina’s story did not disappoint! TWHFL picks up right after TWNGO, and I do recommend reading TWNGO first – I had to skim over the last couple chapters of TWNGO to remind myself what happened.

Nash is the nicer, kinder, more upstanding Morgan brother who is still recovering from the events of TWNGO, both physically and mentally. He meets his match in Lina, his brother’s badass ex-girlfriend who becomes his new neighbor while she’s in town for reasons unknown. The chemistry between them was immediate and I loved their flirtations even as they tried to fight it – but once they gave in, boy was it molten hot.

The magic of the author’s writing is not only in her humor, which is guaranteed to make me laugh out loud, but also in her ability to write such realistic characters and settings that you feel like you might actually stumble across this rough-around-the-edges town and hang out with these characters that feel like friends. Her characters are wonderfully flawed and make mistakes and I love how realistic that is.

Along with the laughs, steam, and emotions, this story also had a good bit of danger and mystery that I loved watching unravel. Despite its length, I tore through the pages of this and was never bored for one second. It has all the excellent characters from TWNGO, plus we pick up a few more new friends as well and it was a delight to read them all interacting. There is not much I love more than small town shenanigans and Knockemout has those in spades.

I was left with a smile on my face and a blush on my cheeks and I just really enjoyed the ride from start to finish. There’s a reason Lucy Score is one of my all time favorite authors and this story just cements that even more.

At a very high level, this is a book about Naomi (the good twin), who finds herself stranded in a small town after her sister (the bad twin) steals her car, her money, and leaves her with an 11 year old niece she never knew about. Grumpy and emotionally shut off Knox, the tattooed local business owner who finds out and helps her, can’t stay away from his new neighbor despite his better instincts.

This is a romance of course, but it’s also a story of family (found and blood), a story of finding yourself when life doesn’t turn out as expected, a story of community and letting new people in.

The author has a way of creating these believable characters and realistic settings that it feels like you could really wander into Knockemout and get a coffee at Cafe Rev from Justice. Is Knox the perfect man? No. Of course not, because he’s wonderfully flawed as all humans are and I appreciate that.

I was sucked in from the very beginning and read it in less than 24 hours. This was a read while you’re cooking dinner, stay up too late reading, cancel your Sunday plans ‘cause you’ve got a book to binge kind of read for me. Rock Bottom Girl will always have a very special place in my heart, but objectively I think this is the best book Lucy Score has ever written.

It made me laugh, it made me cry, but most importantly it left me feeling happy and hopeful. I highly, highly recommend this one, I read it nine days into the year and it’s already on track to be my 2022 favorite.