Something Sweeter by Candis Terry

Narrated by Xe Sands

Something Sweeter is Book 3 in the Sweet, Texas, series, featuring the Wilder brothers who live on a Texas ranch with their widowed mother. It’s another entry in the vast array of small town romance, where (like Cheers) everybody knows your name and your business, and the lovable but quirky seniors manage to step in and save the day. Mind you – although it comes across as snarky when I write it – I genuinely like Candis Terry’s voice and her writing. In today’s world of often poorly edited self-pubbed books, her writing is clear, her characters well thought out and interestingly drawn, her stories entertaining.

Seattle event planner Allison Lane travels to Sweet to find out what would make her father move there and propose marriage to a woman he’s just met. Sure she’ll find something nefarious going on, she runs into Jesse Wilder – the town playboy who is also the son of the her future stepmother. Jesse’s reputation, however, is mostly manufactured by the small town gossips, if tacitly encouraged by Jesse himself. He does believe in true love, but hasn’t found The One. Allison, on the other hand, is a cynic – her own parents have shown her that true love doesn’t exist and marriages are doomed to failure.

For some reason that doesn’t quite ring true for me, Jesse decides he – a confirmed bachelor, mind you – must school Allison in true love by introducing her to examples in Sweet. While there, she’s also roped into helping with his brother’s upcoming nuptials (she’s a wedding planner, after all) so she and Jesse have time to develop a relationship and he has time to change her mind and his.

Xe Sands is a pro at narrating contemporary romance. She has the Texas drawl down pat, without making anyone – even the quirky seniors – sound cartoony, and her male register is low enough to be convincing. She uses a sort of intimate delivery that took some getting used to – almost like she was stage-whispering but not exactly; in general, however, she does a great job with both the narrative and the dialog.

It makes for a fun beach-read type book – not too deep or dense, and at 8.5 hours, just about right in length – but the ending got a little too mushy even for romance, and I say that as someone whose reading consists of about 98% romance. It’s one thing to have the characters’ backgrounds be the conflict that keeps them from getting together, but when the hero is incredibly self-aware, sensitive and all-knowing, I find myself shaking my head. Don’t let that stop you from enjoying a trip to Sweet, Texas, if small-town Texas romance is your thing!

Melinda

Narration: B

Book Content: C+

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence: None

Genre: Contemporary Romance (small town)

Publisher: Harper Audio