Hideaway at Silver Lake

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Come hell or high water, she was about to alter the wrong course her life was on.

When Poppy was eleven, her mother died and with an artist father who had his head in the clouds, she took on the responsibility of her two younger sisters, Cam and Marigold. Now in her early thirties, Poppy is tired of still filling the mom role for her sisters and just generally always being the one to step-in and take charge. So, for this Christmas, Poppy rents a cabin a few hours away from her home in Madison, WI, texts and emails her work and sisters letting them know she's fine but wants two weeks to herself. Her sisters are instantly worried and determined to find her but when sparks heat up with the neighbor of the cabin Poppy is staying at, she wants the world to disappear even more and have some alone time with Sam.

“That's my girl.”

Hideaway at Silver Lake is the first in the series about three sisters and starts with Poppy. The majority of the story deals with Poppy wanting a reboot to her life, figuring out that she takes too much on, and learning how to say no. The romance between her and Sam is instant, as soon as Sam sees Poppy, he's pretty much in love. But Sam has been burned before, by his high-school sweetheart who wanted the shiny things in life more than Sam and after working himself to the bone to give them to her, they end up canceling their wedding. Now, three years later, Sam knows what he wants out of life and while he says he's going to take things slow with Poppy, until she learns how to say no and make time for herself, this takes place over two weeks and they don't spend every day of those weeks together.

“Now...I think we should get in trouble. I think getting in a whole lot of trouble would be good for both of us. So I want you to go inside, get a great night's sleep and think about it.”

This had nice moments, Sam calmly and sweetly takes care of Poppy, not overbearingly or controlling, but simply doing the things that need to get done, cleaning her car off for her, cooking, getting her tucked in on the couch to get her to sit down and putting a wine glass in her hand, giving her the taking care of and spoiling she needs. When her sisters show up, uninvited, you'll be frustrated with Poppy that they're not listening to what she wants and chomp at the bit for Poppy sit them down and say what she means. Sam does this a bit for her and then towards the end, Poppy finally explains what she needs and while her sisters are initially hurt, they finally get what she was saying. It just took a while to get there and there was some repetitive feeling as Poppy bemoans how her relationship with her sisters and father has evolved and not changed.

She was mooning after that man.

As this took place in the middle and end of December, there was some nice holiday atmosphere, ice skating, family dinners, decorating, and presents. This was mostly closed door, after kissing and clothes coming off, the door shut, except for a towards the end scene that kept the door open and actually ended up feeling a little out of place for what the tone of the story previously was. I also thought that Poppy and Sam's speech felt odd and not fitting for early to mid-thirties people; a lot of tarnation, honest to Pete, malarkey, and skedaddle. The ending I love you scene didn't hit the mark for me as it included, what felt like adding in a convoluted demonstration by Sam that had money tied to strings but the epilogue ended up providing those feels I look for in romance with a cute proposal. Overall, some sweet and cute, slowing down repetition, characters that felt older than their age, and soft seasonal feels.