On The Rocks - Book Review

By Sawyer Bennett

Synopsis

He left to travel the world for fame and glory, but only after spurning Gabby Ward and crushing her young heart. Now Hunter Markham has come back home to the sand and salty breeze of the North Carolina Outer Banks so he can open up Last Call, a beach bar nestled among the dunes of the Atlantic.

Gabby Ward is not happy that Hunter has returned. Bitter over his rebuff years before, she’s content to stay far away from him and his dangerously charming ways.

Gabby’s well-schemed plans to ignore Hunter go up in flames when he presents an offer to her that she simply can’t refuse, throwing them together in a common quest to each reach their goals. Working together day in and day out proves to be problematic for Gabby, who soon realizes that the feelings she had for him are still very much alive. Hunter struggles to reach through to Gabby’s cold heart, all while starting a new career away from his life as a top ranked, professional surfer.

What starts out as a mutual business arrangement soon turns into a passion that neither of them can continue to deny.

Hard choices lay ahead for both of them when Hunter is offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to return to the pro surfing tour.

Choices that could destroy what they have built or take them further than they ever had dared to hope.

Review

ON THE ROCKS is the first book in the Last Call series and was a reasonably enjoyable read, although I did struggle with the story at times.

Gabby spends most of the story trying to keep her heart protected while embarking on a sexual relationship with Hunter, the same man who broke her teen-aged heart five years before. Hunter has always regretted how he rejected Gabby all those years ago, and now that he’s back he wants to right his wrong. There’s a lot of push and pull between Gabby and Hunter; she’s afraid he’ll never feel for her what she feels for him, and he won’t tell her how he feels because he thinks she’s not ready. Throw in a silly reason for breaking up and an ex-girlfriend who you just knew was going to turn up and cause trouble, and you have ON THE ROCKS in a nutshell.

The two other big characters introduced in this book were Hunter’s twin brother, Brody, and his little sister, Casey, who is also Gabby’s best friend. ON THE ROCKS is told in dual POVs, with the epilogue being told in Brody’s POV as he’ll get the next book.