
One thing I appreciate is beautiful prose. Some authors write almost lyrically. They describe feelings and situations in such a way that readers feel they are experiencing them for themselves.
Harper Reynolds is one of those authors. I’ve read a short story by her, but this is the first full novel of hers I’ve read. What also sets it apart is that it’s more than just a romance. Harlow Quinn is an ice sculptor, something I know nothing about, so it was interesting to discover something totally new to me.
Yes, it’s steamy, but thankfully there is a story too. Noah Brooks, the gorgeous hunk on the front cover, is sailing alone. He’s a confident man who finds himself falling hard for the woman who spends hours working with ice.
They have five days to spend together, and it soon becomes clear that it’s not enough. Once the cruise ends, it’s a will-they, won’t-they situation. And the great thing is, the author believes in happy endings.
An enjoyable read that also takes you on a journey.
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Book Blurb and Link
He builds things meant to last. She creates beauty designed to disappear.
Noah Brooks trusts solid foundations, honest work, and measurements that don’t lie. People? Less reliable. When his sister books him a luxury Caribbean Christmas cruise disguised as an intervention, the custom home builder plans to survive seven days of forced relaxation and get right back to his business.
Then he meets Harlow Quinn.
Harlow is an award-winning ice sculptor with a suitcase always half-packed and another commission waiting in the next city. She’s aboard to carve the showpiece for the ship’s Christmas Gala—not to get distracted by a broad-shouldered builder with rough hands, blue eyes, and an inconvenient talent for seeing straight through her.
Their chemistry hits fast, and the close quarters make avoiding each other impossible. Between tropical ports, midnight dances, stolen moments in below-deck freezers, and open-door heat that burns hotter than anything Harlow expected to find at sea, a shipboard fling starts feeling dangerously real.
Noah makes her want to stop running.
Harlow makes him question why he’s built homes for everyone but himself.
But the cruise has an end date, and seven perfect days may be all they’re going to get. Harlow knows how to leave before it hurts. Noah knows even the strongest foundation can’t hold someone determined to walk away.
Falling in love is the easy part. Believing it can last might break them both.
Built to Stay is a steamy Christmas cruise romance featuring an award-winning ice sculptor, a protective blue-collar builder, instant chemistry, he-falls-first devotion, open-door heat, and a guaranteed happily ever after.
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