Hot in Hellcat Canyon, Julie Anne Long

I think my least favorite recurring character trope in any romance novel might be the super hot ex-girlfriend, who is unbelievably beautiful and confident, and floats back into Our Hero's life just as he's happy with his new girlfriend. She inevitably is naked or nearly-naked in a scene to give Our Heroine the wrong idea. She usually declares that she and the hero are getting back together, and no matter how many times he says no, she won't hear it. The hero stands around helplessly telling her damn it, NO, he doesn't want her anymore! but the plot conspires against him and he HAS to let her stay at his house. This usually facilitates a fight with the heroine who doesn't understand why he won't kick her out. And at the end, this super hot ex is usually embarrassed or humiliated, although sometimes she just sails off into the sunset with a new man-slash-victim.

I don't know. It doesn't do it for me. It's not a person I've ever met in real life, for one thing, and I don't think it's an interesting conflict to introduce. Either the heroine ought to believe the hero when he says nothing is going on (especially since The Ex is usually so blatantly horrible), or the hero really ought to just kick her out and take his new girlfriend's feelings into account. Either way it feels like manufactured drama, and I don't find it compelling.

This is a long intro to say that while I enjoyed the characters and the set up in this book, I got to 66%, realized there was no obvious Big Problem looming, and then sighed so hard when his ex showed up. Basically: J.T. is an actor, who used to be on a big hit show, but times have been rough lately. Now he's driving through gold rush country, getting ready for the show he hopes will be his big comeback. He also has a beautiful, terrifying ex. Britt is a waitress in Hellcat Canyon, who loves to bring dying plants back to life, and has a past she is running from. When J.T. shows up he hits on her immediately and she turns him down, because her ex has made her afraid of relationships. Then she decides she can sleep with him as long as it's just that. Then they basically move in together, having great sex and enjoying her adorable small-town life, even though they both know he'll go back to Hollywood shortly.

One thing that bugged me was Britt's constantly changing problems: first she can't be with anyone, she has to hide because of her ex. Then she can do sleeping with him, but not a relationship. Then, when his ex shows up, she's furious that he's with someone else, and won't admit that she needs him, but somehow the real problem is that since she left her abusive husband she's running from relationships. That's like... four different book's worth of reasons for a relationship not to work, and I found it to be just a little bit too much. J.T. meanwhile, is handsome and charming and wonderful, and his only real problem is that he can't say "love." That's it.

Anyway, then his beautiful ex shows up, and first it seems like Britt is mad that he's sleeping with her, and then she seems mad because his ex is so beautiful, and then she's mad that the paparazzi show them looking like they might canoodle. When he says he's tired of apologizing and he's not going to do it anymore, and then leaves, I couldn't figure out what Britt was still waiting for. (She was waiting for a Big Moment, that was kind of too cutesy for me.)

Okay, I didn't mean to recap the whole book. A lot of it's fun! It's very charming! I like the small town and I liked Britt and J.T. in the first half. It just... seemed like they could basically have been happy together, and drama had to be included, and it made them both seem kind of dumb and unlikable. "He's famous and she's not" is plenty of drama for a relationship, in my opinion, and the rest of it made me tired.

Grade: C
#50 in 2015