Hearts of Alaska, Book 2
From the publisher:
It’s up to a trio of adorable rescue huskies to make two lonely hearts in a coastal Alaskan town realize that true love is worth too much to turn tail and run.
Glaciers have nothing on Kelsey Porter when she decides to freeze someone out. After getting burned once, she’s not about to let it happen again. And right now all that icy contempt is focused on one annoyingly attractive and entitled interloper: Ian Roth. Not only is he looking to take advantage of her quaint, coastal community, tainting the small-town charm of Helen, Alaska, but he has committed the one crime she can never forgive–he doesn’t like her dogs.
Unlike what Kelsey believes, Ian loves Helen’s charms as much as she does. That’s partly why he’s determined to open a brewery there, and he’s not about to let anything or anyone stop his dream from coming true. But he didn’t count on the beautiful, prickly woman getting under his skin. Or having to be within hand-biting proximity of her three huge huskies.
When Kelsey’s family conscripts her into helping Ian get his brewery off the ground, she finds herself caught between a rock and a hard . . . muscular . . . man who has a fear of dogs. But the longer they work together, the more she can feel herself begin to thaw. Now she’ll have to choose: let sleeping dogs lie to protect her heart, or mush head-on toward love.
I am always predisposed to like books set in Alaska, and I am happy to say this book delivered. The setting is Helen, Alaska, one of the many small towns scattered throughout the state. But Helen has something special; two families involved in a century old feud.
Kelsey Porter is the daughter of the one of the feud’s chieftains and has been raised to keep it going. Her father offers up her writing talent to the new brewery that just bought his building, and while Kelsey is annoyed with him, she doesn’t say no. But when she goes to the brewery, Ian slams the door in her face.
Turns out he’s afraid of dogs, and even worse, afraid to admit it. Kelsey has three huskies and thinks of them as her children, so she doesn’t take too kindly to anyone who doesn’t love them. But she’s agreed to help out the brewery, and Ian is quite good looking as is his brewery partner. Both men are Jewish, which you don’t find every day especially in small town Alaska. Or pretty much any small town. So I liked that aspect a lot.
Eventually Kelsey ferrets out Ian’s dog fear, and they start to help one another. Things get more complicated when the whole town gets involved with both sides of the feud taking pot shots at the brewery. Things really come to a head (pardon the pun!) when the town finds out that Ian is dating a Porter. He can’t let the brewery fail because of the feud, so he dumps Kelsey. He quickly realizes that was the biggest mistake of his life, but it takes some time for them to work it out and reach their happily ever after.
This is definitely the book to cool off with this summer! It’s a sweet romance and I am looking forward to the first book in the series, Heart on a Leash, that I missed. (As usual.) Luckily, it was just lost on my Kindle but I have it queued up to read next. Look for the review shortly.
NOTE: There is an excerpt available at https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/636309/paws-and-prejudice-by-alanna-martin/
7/2021 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
PAWS AND PREJUDICE by Alanna Martin. Berkley (June 29, 2021). ISBN: 978-0593198858. 336 pages.
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