seriously romantic: you can't hurry love by lee kilraine

the final cates brother gets his match in you can't hurry love, even though i doubt this is the last we'll see of climax, north carolina. paxton cates and jolene joyner have been at war ever since paxton cut off one of jolene's pigtails in kindergarten.

when jolene is forced to ask paxton for help out of a legal quandary, he decides to ask for a fake relationship as payment. jolene has always been such a goody-two-shoes, and he needs to project stability and family values if he wants to make partner at his law firm.

the thing is that jolene has been feeling disatisfied with where she is in her life. she's been acting like the good girl for so long that she's completely repressed the wild child she used to be. the why and wherefores are easily explained by the messed up family dynamics. jolene has a twin sister who went to the troublemaking extreme, and the more darlene acted out the more jolene behaved. soon it became second nature for jolene to ignore her wild impulses, and when her mother asked her to give up a career in dance—jolene's true calling—she did it. but in doing so she denies a part of her soul. 

deciding to fake date paxton is an act of rebellion. but paxton wants to date her for the steady, upstanding presence that no longer fits. and she's not sure what he'll think of the new jolene.

(spoiler alert: he likes new jolene. quite a lot.) 

the thing is, being with jolene now, has made him look at their long-time rivalry through a new lens. and what he realizes is that he never actually hated jolene. he always liked her. he liked to argue with her because that's what boys do when they like girls they're not ready to be in relationships with. 

one of the things that makes paxton a great hero is how emotionally honest he is. he realizes how he feels and he goes after what he wants. it takes jolene a while to understand what is happening, but it's easy to be sneaky when someone is avoiding you. 

the epilogue on this one was so sweet and closed the story out for these two characters perfectly. they ended up exactly where they were supposed to. 

**you can't hurry love will publish on september 19, 2017. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/kensington books (lyrical shine) in exchange for my honest review.