Everyone can see what is really going on between them but Clara herself...simply because she does not want to see it. Feigning ignorance and avoidance is easier than accepting the truth. Staying in her own head and not sharing how she really feels keeps her safer. Because otherwise it becomes real, complicated, and messy. Then she has to put her heart on the line and risk being hurt...and risk hurting someone else. 

Clara Morgan is known for her work with struggling hotels, finding solutions to turn around landmark businesses. Though she appreciates the traditions of the locations she works in, she doesn’t keep personal traditions and isn’t tied to many people or things. She is attracted to the history and beauty of Bryant Mountain House, but finds the owner’s son hard-headed and against every change she suggests.

Archie Bryant lives and breathes his family’s historic hotel. His father has hired a branding expert to turn things around, but he is tied to the traditions and doesn’t think they need outside help to keep their hotel running.

Neither character is what one would consider open, or even particularly warm towards the other. They each have pasts that have kept them closed off. In Clara’s case, her detachment keeps her on the outside, even among her longtime friends. Archie’s hesitancy only applies to Clara, though. For the guests at Bryant Mountain House he has nothing but smiles and stories to share.

Because of the way they keep themselves reserved, Archie and Clara were at times difficult to love. Knowing Roxie and Natalie loved Clara made it a little easier to let her get away with being cold, but it took a little while to get used to it from both main characters until their backstories became fleshed out a little deeper.

But as they discovered more about each other, and found walls tumbling and secrets revealed, these two characters who kept themselves so isolated began feeling warmth and trust in another for the first time in a long time. I loved watching these two people carrying so much of their pasts as they let go of the pain and tried something new. These two may have started out as enemies, but quickly find they have more in common than it first appeared.
 

Returning to Bailey Falls with Clara to see Roxie & Leo, Natalie & Oscar, and all our favorite characters made for a fun, sexy read and made up for the cold moments between the characters. As Clara and Archie open up, we see more of the established characters interacting with our couple here. I loved watching as they embraced Archie as if he had always been part of the group, despite having spent most of his adulthood up on his mountain. In addition to the Bailey Falls group from earlier books, readers also meet an entirely new cast built around the hotel. Archie’s staff is as much his family as his father is, and their interactions in the book say the same.

I was gifted a copy in exchange for an honest review.

From New York Times bestselling author Alice Clayton, the first in a brand-new romance series telling the humorously sexy tale of Roxie, a private chef who gets a taste of love—but is it to stay, or to go?

After losing almost all of her clients in one fell swoop following an accident involving whipped cream, private chef to Hollywood’s elite Roxie Callahan gets a call from her flighty mother, saying she’s needed home in upstate New York to run the family diner. Once she's back in the Hudson Valley, local organic farmer Leo delivers Roxie a lovely bunch of walnuts, and soon sparks—and clothing—begin to fly. Leo believes that everything worth doing is worth doing slowly…and how! But will Roxie stay upstate, or will the lure of West Coast redemption tempt her back to Tinseltown?
Cream of the Crop (Hudson Valley #2)

Alice Clayton
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ALICE CLAYTON worked in the cosmetics industry for over a decade before picking up a pen (read laptop). She enjoys gardening but not weeding, baking but not cleaning up, and finally convinced her long-time boyfriend to marry her. Now, about that Bernese Mountain dog.