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BOOKWORM REVIEW: Love and Kerosene by Winter Renshaw


RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
SPICE: 🔥🔥

Winter Renshaw sets our hearts aflame with two characters who find a second chance at life..and love.

Annaliese Nielsen was trying to put her life together. After her fiancé Donovan cashed out her life savings before dying in an accident, the only thing she had left was his family's fixer-upper home. She had been trying to move past Donovan's deceit by chipping away at the house's much-needed repairs, and then a knock came at her door.

Lachlan Byrne is back in Arcadia Grove to do one thing and one thing alone before he leaves the town for good: Burn down his family home. He hopes that the secrets and memories will go down in flames along with the house. What he did not count on is the living obstacle that is his estranged brother's ex-fiancé.

They eventually come up with a compromise to finish the renovations while Lachlan waits to officially inherit the house. Could their close proximity change his mind about the house..and more?

This is the kind of book that feels like you are being pushed down a slope and you have nothing to do but just enjoy the ride. And enjoy it I absolutely did. While their history was full of angst, Annaliese and Lachlan's easy but deep connection made me devour this book so handily. You start with two people whose personalities are completely opposite to each other and who are pretty much alone in this world because of their own doing. While their original connection was adversarial, they eventually peel layer after layer of each other until they find that they are more similar than they had assumed and that they fill in the missing parts of their heart.

Annaliese is a fantastic ball of sunshine, and Winter Renshaw does a phenomenal job of showing us through Annaliese's actions and connections with people. She is vulnerable but her kindness makes that naivete completely relatable. Lachlan is a big ball of grumpy and emotionally isolated, but I love that he is self-aware enough not to be a jerk.

We get a slow burn as they try to navigate around a history of disappointments and deceit -- sometimes from the same person. This read is not as spicy as I expected. They have a few moments that lead to a "fade-to-black," but their chemistry more than makes up for the lack of action in my POV.

** I am voluntarily reviewing an advance copy of this book. Thank you to Winter Renshaw, Montlake, and NetGalley for providing an ARC. **

ABOUT THE BOOK

Two people find love in the embers of their painful pasts in this slow-burn romance from Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon bestselling author Winter Renshaw.

For me, family is a curse. My father and brother made my life hell. My mother’s untimely death still keeps me up at night. Now that my brother, Donovan, has been killed in an accident, I can forget the past.

The last remnant is the childhood home I’ve inherited—and which I intend to burn to the ground. The only obstacle? Anneliese Nielsen, Donovan’s fiancée.

Donovan left her destitute, and selling this run-down house is her only chance to recoup her losses. I shouldn’t care, but…maybe it’s her eyes when she sees me. I look strikingly like my brother, a man she loved despite everything.

So we strike a deal. We’ll renovate the house together, but she’ll have to convince me to sell—or up in flames it goes.

But the more time we spend in the house, the more its terrible history threatens to come out.

And even more dangerous, the harder I start to fall for Anneliese.


MEET WINTER RENSHAW

Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon bestselling author Winter Renshaw is a bona fide daydream believer. She lives somewhere in the middle of the USA and can rarely be seen without her trusty Mead notebook and ultra portable laptop. When she’s not writing, she’s living the American dream with her husband, three kids, and the laziest puggle this side of the Mississippi.

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