Molly Dearborn and Karl Dean were high school friends who harbored crushes on each other. Nothing happened between them and then a big misunderstanding drove them apart, and they haven\u2019t spoken in 22 years. Molly moved away and wound up married, while Karl stayed in their hometown of Harlot\u2019s Bay, Maryland, and opened a bakery. Now Molly makes a living as an audiobook narrator for steamy monster erotica, not realizing that her old friend and crush is her biggest fan. He diligently listens to all of her work as a way of being close to her, which is an adorably sweet secret given his outwardly gruff demeanor. When Molly hears that Karl\u2019s obituary has run in the hometown paper, she immediately flies back, only to find Karl very much alive and well. Dade\u2019s romances are always a mix of exaggerated humor and body positivity, and this one is no different. Both main characters have major issues vocalizing their feelings, which is exactly what led them to cut contact after high school. With more than two decades apart and Karl still very much in love with Molly, you might expect things to have improved. Unfortunately, that didn\u2019t happen\u2014they\u2019re still just as emotionally stunted as ever. Molly is guarded and slow to trust, while Karl is borderline monosyllabic. The characters\u2019 chemistry feels described, rather than seen. Harlot\u2019s Bay, previously seen in At First Spite (2024), is alive with quirky characters, and their shenanigans tend to take over the spotlight. Fans of the series will rejoice at returning to town, while readers starting here may be overwhelmed by the tweeness of it all.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Molly Dearborn and Karl Dean were high school friends who harbored crushes on each other. Nothing happened between them and then a big misunderstanding drove them apart, and they haven\u2019t spoken in 22 years. Molly moved away and wound up married, while Karl stayed in their hometown of Harlot\u2019s Bay, Maryland, and opened a bakery. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}