Wilde for You
by Jennifer Ryan
Release Date: March 26, 2024
Publisher: Avon
Book #2 in the Dark Horse Dive Bar series
Number of Pages: 367
Source: ARC from NetGalley
Romantic Suspense
Ages 15 and up
CW: stalking, cheating, mentions of suicide
There is a lot of discussion of pregnancy,
miscarriage, abortions, etc. None of which
happen on the page.
———————-
Landscape artist, Layla Brock, knows what it feels like to love someone so completely you’d do anything for them—even take their secrets to the grave. Widowed after her husband’s betrayals and tragic death, Layla is searching for a new scene to paint, a new life to live. And Wyoming feels like the perfect place to get lost and find herself again.
Jax Wilde runs the family ranch but has a few side hustles: wrangling his sisters, covering shifts at the Dark Horse Dive Bar, and renting out cabins to tourists looking for the ranch experience. His busy schedule, plus a bad breakup, equals no personal life. And then she showed up. And the woman he thought he had nothing in common with turned out to be his perfect match.
Layla knows what it feels like to lose everything. Jax is a man who wants it all—a wife, children, a life filled with happy memories. It’s a beautiful picture of a life Layla thought she’d had but turned out to be a lie. This could be her second chance…
Until her secrets begin to unravel and a new threat is revealed. There’s one difference this time: she has Jax Wilde on her side…
I fell in love with how hard Jax and Layla fell for each other. This story is very instalove, yet the characters held back at first. Both have had bad experiences in the past, especially Layla, so they don’t exactly trust these intense feelings at first. Whether they’re doing things as friends or later when they delve into a romantic relationship, they’re so in tune with each other.
While there is a bit of a mystery/suspense when it comes to strange things happening to Layla, it doesn’t take over the story. This book is very much about love and the different ways love can present itself. Even different romantic love. Layla is a widow and deeply loved her husband, but he broke her trust and, even with their love, it felt different from her love with Jax. I appreciate that, although Layla’s husband did something terrible, the love from Layla’s marriage is not discounted.
Some inconsistencies popped up at times that really annoyed me…enough for me to change my star rating. Quite honestly, it’s not something that affects the story and a lot of people won’t notice. But these type of things jump out at me and it came up multiple times so I cannot ignore it.
Even so, I was all-in with this story and find myself looking forward to more HEAs for Jax’s family and friends.
4 stars
**I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely**
All In Good Time 
I like the sound of this one with the instant love but also holding back. I don’t tend to reach for a full-on romantic suspense, but I don’t mind a little bit of it in a contemporary romance. It is a bummer about those inconsistencies, though. I can imagine that is a good reason to drop the rating. Thanks for putting this author on my radar!