Love Tools (Bluestone Series Book 1) by Isobel Reed – Review by Tara Johnson Barnes

Love Tools by Isobel Reed
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Love Tools is Book One in the Bluestone Series. Lily has recently moved from London to the small town of Bluestone County after inheriting her father’s hardware store. Although Lily was estranged from her father and had not since him since she was a small child, she took the move as a fresh start. She needed to escape from the life she had in London. The city was too busy, her apartment was cramped, and she felt like she was going nowhere in her job. Plus, she found her mother to be too overbearing, and she found herself in one bad relationship after another. The excuse to run her estranged father’s hardware store clear across the country came as a welcome excuse to flee from the life she was hating and start over.

When Lilly arrives in Bluestone, she throws herself into cleaning the hardware store and preparing for it to reopen. Lily is wrapped up in cleaning the store when a drop-dead gorgeous cowboy walks into the store. She finds it hard to take her eyes off of him, but as soon as he opens his mouth the attraction rating drops drastically. Lily refuses to get into any sort of a relationship, especially with a man as annoying as Jake. Besides, she figures that nobody that good looking would be interested in her anyhow. Jake cannot seem to help messing up every time he opens his mouth but finds he is intentionally saying things to get a rise out of Lily. Although he has all but sworn off relationships, he finds Lily not only sexy as all get go, but he loves her sassy attitude.

Lily finds that she cannot seem to escape Jake who seems to be everywhere, including at her new friend, Sam’s, place. The two begin to spend time together as Jake helps her with prepping the hardware store for the reopening. As they spend time together Lily lets her guard down a bit and opens up to Jake about her relationship with her father. She is seeking answers about why her father abandoned her and what type of person he was. Why did he move across the country to run a hardware store in the middle of nowhere? Jake and her father were close so he may be able to give her some answers. As they spend more time together the chemistry between Lily and Jake intensifies and the attraction becomes undeniable.

This book was well written, and the characters were lovable and relatable. Lily and Jake both have trauma from their pasts that have left them feeling a bit broken. Both have all but sworn off relationships and have chosen to focus on other projects. For Lily it was the hardware store and for Jake it was the ranch. Jake did not know what love was and had only wanted casual relationships until he met Lily. No woman had ever made Jake feel like he could not live without her until Lily came along. Now he needs to convince Lily that he is serious about her and will not treat her like her exes had in the past. Lily has had one bad relationship after another and is scared to let her guard down for fear that Jake will also end up hurting her. The hurt, drama, angst, and betrayals from their pasts must all be worked through before either can be fully capable of having a healthy relationship. This was a wholesome love story with sexy cowboys in a small-town setting with a bit of sass, humor, and witty banter sprinkled throughout. A fantastic read that immediately made me want to read other books in the series.

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