No real surprises or feelings for the romance sank this book for me. After a more successful read of Book 1 (see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3973721102?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1) I was excited to read the next in the series.

Unfortunately, a lot of the story treaded familiar romance grounds - a woman trying to prove herself, a hero struggling with a dark secret, learning to communicate (badly), place in family etc. Given the length of the book there was a little too much happening here which meant that important topics (

Spoiler

like the hero’s infertility

) became a few lines of plot points. I get that HQ novel often do this but here I noticed them a lot more so I was annoyed.

The focus on the heroine was better done and the sections on her working on the sensory clothes for autistic people was actually interesting. I wish the tie into her family was better done though. Adelaide wants to provide her worth to her fashion brand family company so she lands on doing a charity show. Because there was only a line of foreshadowing about why she cared about autism it made the show feel tacked on in terms of the plot.

Again the length of the book and being stuffed with other things didn’t allow for a smoother transition. I wish the book had opened with the show already being thought off and the grandma being against it or something so it didn’t feel so mercenary. However, that would have made the grandmother less sympathetic which I don't think the author wanted to do. It was a pulling of punches which hurt the book.

As for the romance - there wasn’t much. The book is less intense - we only get the couple to kiss mid-way through. It results in a boring romance which can’t balance the book.

2 stars in the end - mostly for the stuff happening around the romance. Parts of the fashion show were genuinely interesting - more so than the romance which was a shame.