Solid story. I read [b:Love After Hours|36404629|Love After Hours (A Rivers Community Romance, #4)|Radclyffe|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507885017s/36404629.jpg|58098883] first, so it only made sense to start from the beginning. Having read a few of Radclyffe's books, I've gotten use to her writing style and the types of characters she uses. However, Harper and Presley don't exactly fit Radclyffe's typical butch/femme couple. Perhaps this is what influence me to round up from 3.5 stars. ( )

I always have such high hopes for Radclyffe stories/novels. And this one was pretty good too.

It's the story of Harper Rivers, a doctor at a community hospital that has had a Rivers at the helm since its inception. She (and pretty much everyone else) assume that when her father Edward (also a doctor) retires she'll take over. Unfortunately the Board of the hospital has a different idea and sells the hospital to a humongous medical conglomerate called SunView. That's how the character of Presley gets introduced into the story. She's the VP from SunView who comes to town to either bring the hospital into the SunView network or shut it down if she finds it not profitable enough. Of course, everything gets very complicated when Harper and Presley fall for one another.

The plot didn't go anywhere that was surprising to me, but it was the characters and their relationships especially that were my favorite part of the novel. The Rivers family characters, Flannery, Carson, Harper, and Margie as well as Ida and Edward, the parents, were awesome and all the complicated relationships between them just made those parts of the book jump off the page. There was also Carrie, Presley's assistant, who was a very interesting character and I wish that we'd gotten to see just a bit more of her. And then there was Preston, Presley's twin, the CFO of SunView and apparently the competitor to Presley for their whole lives. What was interesting about Preston was that we barely got to see him (or hear from him) yet he had such a big part in the book.

It was a fun and interesting story set against a real problem (loss of Community Hospitals). A definite must read.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books. ( )