Heartbeats and Roses: A Small Town Valentine’s Day Romance (A Hartwood Holiday Romance) by Jae Dawson – Review by Roxsanne Lesieur

Heartbeats and Roses: A Small Town Valentine’s Day Romance by Jae Dawson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a second chance romance based in a small town which rivals Hallmark as a haven for the holidays and Valentines is no exception. Rose McDaniels is a florist with a wild and romantic imagination who organises a secret valentine event every year where she takes orders for special valentines and creates a special message with flowers for the recipient to find at a Candlelight Ball on Valentines night and who owns a cat called Sophie. Liam Bradley is a cardiac surgeon having a string of bad luck, he is being investigated over the death of a patient, his relationship is just going through the motions and his girlfriend is not happy that he isn’t going on holiday with her and instead for some unknown reason, has decided to take up the offer of an old school friend to stay in his AirBNB for a couple of weeks in the hometown which he left twenty years ago without looking back.

Rose is in her shop preparing for an upcoming wedding she has in a couple of days when her landlord comes in to ask her to give a key to the person who is coming to stay in the AirBNB that afternoon, Rose agrees amid her deliveries coming in. Unbeknownst to either Liam or Rose, they are about to meet again when it turns out that he is the one who she has to hand the key over to and she is still affected by him the same way she was at sixteen, but she is torn as he doesn’t seem to be the same person, he is all lines and edges now and cold at the same time.

As Liam settles into the apartment, he agrees to see his friend at eight and then heads out to walk his dog Hunter before the snow really started to fall, he was also reminiscing about the town and how much had and hadn’t changed since he had been here last, then his thoughts turned to Rose and how she hadn’t changed much either and how he regretted how he had left things the last time he had seen her and as he and his friend talk about old times and his family drama over a beer, the subject of Rose comes up again, as does the fact she is still single.The next morning, Rose is busy and has another delivery of some more flowers, but as she is sorting it all out, that is until Liam is woken up and challenges Rose about the time and why she organises them this early and it is at that moment that Hunter decides to get out of the apartment, into the shop and chase Sophie around while destroying the floral arrangements and breaking the glassware inside. As Liam takes Hunter back upstairs and Rose is panicking about the damage and how she doesn’t have time to think, never mind clean up the mess, but when Liam comes back down to help she demands that he leaves and as she is about to go towards him, she slips on the leaf slime covering the floor and land on her wrists and hits her head, there is an audible crack, followed by immense pain and Liam insists on locking up and taking her to the hospital. Unfortunately, it is the same hospital where his dad works and they bump into each other there, the reception is as cold as the weather outside, but as he takes Rose inside to fix her arm, Liam calls her family in to help.

This is a complete disaster for Rose, what with the wedding and Valentines coming up in less that two weeks and with her two assistants unable to help out, she call on them all to help her, Liam included and this is where they start to reconnect, but will they both come to the realisation of what they have, or will Rose be left heartbroken again? Can she muster up the courage to go through with the Valentines events knowing that romance is dead and that she can’t do the things she loves most with her broken wrist? The only way to find out is to read along and find out in the romance filled to the brim with hearts, flowers and love.

Reviewed by @roxsannel

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