Friday Favorites: A Flashback – 9/9/22

In hindsight, I realize I should have just done an appreciation post for this whole series for one of my Friday Favorites posts. But since I’ve already did a Flashback post on book one from this series, I’ll continue on this way…for now anyway.

If you’re a regular around here, you probably heard me raving about the Whiskeys before. It’s really one of my favorite contemporary romance families. They all seem rough and even a bit scary on the outside, but each and everyone in the bunch has a gooey center. They’re fiercely protective and highly moral. While they love having fun, family and friends come before all else no matter what.

Even if you’re not interested in reading the vast Love in Bloom series, I cannot recommend The Whiskeys offshoot of the series enough.

You can find my original post from April 17, 2017, here. My updated version, edited only for grammar, spelling, and formatting, is below. I’d also like to note that it’s been too long for me to add any accurate content warnings, yet I do remember that the MFC had a lot of past trauma so please proceed with caution.

Truly, Madly, Whiskey
by Melissa Foster
Release Date:  April 10, 2017
Publisher:  World Literary Press
Book #2 in The Whiskeys: Dark Knights at Peaceful Harbor
Part of the larger Love in Bloom series
Number of Pages: 345
Contemporary Romance
Ages 16 and up
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Eight months is a long damn time to have the hots for a woman who keeps a guy at arm’s length. But Crystal Moon is no ordinary woman. She’s a sinfully sexy, sass-mouthed badass, and the subject of Bear Whiskey’s midnight fantasies. She’s also one of his closest friends.

Just when Crystal thinks she has her life under control, scorching-hot, possessive, aggressive, and fiercely loyal Bear pushes all her sexual buttons, relentless in his pursuit to make her his.

The more Bear pushes, the hotter their passion burns, unearthing memories for Crystal that are best kept buried. But there’s no stopping the collision of her past and present, catapulting the two lovers down an emotionally charged road that has them questioning all they thought they knew about themselves.

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First, I want to note that this book is listed as a standalone but I feel you would get so much more out of it if you read Tru Blue first.  In my mind, these two books are part of a series.  And, to a lesser extent, they’re attached to Peaceful Harbor branch of the Braden family from the Love in Bloom series.  Though you can absolutely read this book without having read that particular series.  Now that I have that out of the way…

This book blew me away.  I already mentioned it in my review of Tru Blue, but I love the Whiskey family.  Still, Bear Whiskey’s story far exceeded my expectations.  So often we have a hero who is the oldest sibling and took on too much responsibility for his family in order to make sure everyone else can live their dreams.  I liked having that flipped a bit with Bear filling that role while being the youngest boy and second youngest sibling.

Crystal was a lot of fun in Tru Blue, but here we get so see what she’s hiding with her snarky attitude and devil-may-care attitude.  My heart just broke for her and the scenes when she’s opening up to Bear are amazing.  I swear, my stomach was in a constant state of butterflies throughout this book.  Sometimes for the things Crystal went through growing up, sometimes for the palpable love coming off the pages between Bear and Crystal.

Once Crystal made up her mind to let Bear in, their relationship progressed at warp speed.  I do not consider this an insta-romance though since Bear had been pursuing her for 8 months.  I love that they were friends, even while he was trying to get a date from her.  He never really pushed any further than she would be comfortable with.  As much as they set each other on fire before they really started their relationship, they were also comfortable with each other.  It added a sweetness to this smoking hot story.

Bear’s understanding of his sister, Dixie, is also a wonderful element in this story.  Again, he’s not the oldest but takes on that role when sticking up for his baby sister…even when it means standing up to his father and his older brothers.  Bear will do what he feels is right, no matter what.  I love that about him.

I couldn’t find information on when the next book about the Whiskey family will be published, but I am eagerly looking for to it regardless of which sibling it focuses on.  Melissa Foster is in top writing form with these stories.

5 stars