Readers Retreats: The Bartender by Piper Rayne

I completely adored this book. It was so well written and although it was mostly sweet it had the perfect amount of angst, drama and sex to keep me flipping the pages as fast as I could read them. I was hooked from the first page and I couldn’t get enough of the characters.

There was so much going on in this story but the authors wrote it so well that I never felt like I couldn’t keep track of it all. I was so intrigued to find out what had happened to lead them to where they were today that I spent the whole book trying to figure out where each of the little breadcrumbs I was given were going to lead me.

Since this was written in only Whit’s point of view it was hard to tell exactly where Cole was at and what he was thinking making it was easy to understand how Whit could doubt his feelings. Add in their past encounter and Whit’s current life trajectory and I completely understood her lack of confidence. That said she wasn’t at all whiny or self-pitying and her sense of humour and relationship with her two friends made for a very entertaining read.

Cole was a mystery for most of the book. I mean he did sweet things and he seemed to be very open and invested in the relationship with Whit but not being inside his head or him coming straight out and saying what he was thinking and doing made it hard to know for sure. However, he really did step up at the end and make sure everyone knew how he felt and make amends for past mistakes.

And the way that the next story was teased and incorporated into this one has me waiting with bated breath for the next one