I was attempting to add maple syrup themed things to my amazon wishlist because people are practically yelling at me in my inbox to add food stuff to my wishlist that I can eat and I found this gem and I am honestly losing my mind:
It’s a classic [City Slicker Girl] with [fancy glamorous but stressful job] is forced into [Rural Environment By Circumstances Outwith Her Control] where she meets [Rugged Rural Area Man Who Juts Wants To:] *spins wheel* “build barns and make maple syrup and be left alone to raise his coyote in peace”, formula right there and honestly I am HERE FOR IT
Oh god it isn’t properly formatted for ebook, why have the maple gods forsaken me.
{Edit} The main dude’s name is Rick Stannard, he’s a rugged manly man with loner tendencies, a pet coyote he rescued from the woods (pretty sure they belong out there bud) who builds barns with his bare hands and harvests maple syrup for his Aunt Joy’s maple themed store. Aunt Joy is of course, an absolute sass factory. I did not expect to be making a cameo in this book, but there you have it.
It’s also been implied that Rick has medical PTSD so even if he turns out to be a total walnut I’m still going to defend him. He is my nephew after all. He’s also a dumbass who just tripped in the snow by attempting to run in his snow shoes, sprained his ankle, blacked out and nearly froze to death while his pet coyote looked on contemplating the merits of going full feral.
Our main city slicker gal is named Lily Hindsdale and she’s super pissed her grandma died and she has to leave her swanky city slicker job to go to “the wilderness” (aka, Vermont) to take care of her grandmother’s estate. She’s giving off serious corporate villain vibes atm, as she plans to sell her grandma’s land to the resort building company she works for, and “bring civilization to these backward living people”. She may yet have some redeemable qualities but I’ve yet to ascertain any. Frankly I’m hoping the coyote eats her.
Update: Lily has no redeemable qualities.
Just in case any of you were doubting that Aunt Joy is actually me.
[edit]
Okay so Lily also has PTSD related to being in the wilderness. I think she got mauled by a bear or something as a child but we don’t know yet.
Rick is also a poor patient and keeps trying to walk on his busted foot. He’s also dazzled by shiny looking women who look like “they belong in make up commercials” and suffers from “meandering laundry list of descriptor syndrome”
You guys, she’s not like other girls, she’s not one of the wild folk like his rugged Vermont cave people, she’s elegant and refined. With skin. We know this because she’s wearing a cream-colored scarf. Also that’s an odd phrasing I can’t get over, “hung to her thighs”, it’s like the author tried to avoid the cliche trope of describing something as “clung to her thighs” and my brain is just…not parsing it. Hung, hung to her thighs. Surely “skimmed” is a better descriptor? “that skimmed her thighs”.
Actually now that I look at it this whole sequence is out of order.
He starts at her face, goes to her legs, then to her coat, and then her scarf? When surely his gaze could just have easily skipped over her taking in detai—you know what fuck it I’ll just rewrite it:
“A woman stood impatiently in the doorway, brushing the curls of her strawberry blonde hair away from her face as she waited impatiently to be let in. She was not one of the locals who frequented the store—Rick felt certain he would have remembered a face like hers, with her glowing warm tan and piercing blue-green eyes. She certainly wasn’t dressed like someone prepared to brave the Vermont winter, but he couldn’t help but let his gaze linger on the cut of her rust colored dress coat, the fabric hugging her figure and skimming just short of her thighs to reveal long shapely legs clad in skinny black jeans and designer boots better suited to the runway than the mud and snow. She was like no one he’d seen. Not since he’d left New York.”
Like, I mean, I know I’m just a lowly smut peddler who does this for a living and all that, but if the most fascinating thing about the beautiful woman standing unexpectedly on your doorstep is the cream-colored scarf she’s wearing
Or maybe he just has a scarf fetish, who knows. I’d be down with that.
Okay so he invited her in and she’s not sat down three seconds before she insulted his entire home, his business and his way of life and told him she wants to buy up all his land to make a tacky hotel resort and bring some “class” to Vermont and my hard headed fictional nephew did the only plausible thing. He’s going to let the coyote eat her.
Wow great book everyone, so glad it just ends there and there isn’t 300 more pages of this. Yep. Yep.
I’ll say this much, at least the author is aware that her main character is a completely unlikable corporate shill and seems to have an intentional sense of humor about it lmao.
Anyway, I’m off to bed, see you all in the morning when I will likely look at my life choices and still decide to keep reading this sticky maple mess cause gosh darn it, I want to know where the pancakes feature in all of this.
