SWEET TALKIN' LOVER – Tracey Livesay
Avon Books
ISBN: 978-0-06-297954-4
December 30, 2019
Contemporary Romance

Bradleton, Virginia – Present Day

Marketing executive Caila Harris is facing a career crisis. She must ace her newest work assignment—or face unemployment. Her assignment is to go to Bradleton, Virginia, and assess the continued viability of a factory that does work for her employer. Caila is aware that her bosses think the factory should close down, but she plans to make an unbiased assessment within a day or two and be gone. Upon her arrival, things don't work out the way she wants, and she ends up extending her visit. People start out friendly, but once they realize who she is and why she is there, they turn hostile. Even the mayor, Wyatt Bradley, isn't friendly…at first.

Wyatt has been destined to be mayor since he was born, seeing as his family helped found the town. He does get embarrassed by the nickname a lot of people call him, namely Mayor McHottie. He might be young, and everyone knows him, but he wants to serve the town well, especially when there are jobs on the line. The arrival of Caila to do the assessment of the factory, which provides most of the work for people in town, is a big deal. Wyatt is determined to show Caila how great the town is, and that means showing her around…and soon finds himself attracted to her.

Bradleton is a small town where everyone has each other's backs. With the possible closure of the factory looming, everyone has to stick together. Caila is treated with hostility at first, yet she is aware that the underlying suspicion of what she's doing is why they don't trust her. At first, she is wary of Wyatt's overt attentions. Of course, he is the mayor and is showing her around, but their sizzling attraction has thrown her for a loop. Is the passion and desire that simmers between them real, or is it because he is trying to seduce her into some favorable results?

Caila had thought she left small-town life behind, but once she gets a taste of it in Bradleton, she may not want to ever leave. Wyatt and Caila dance around their attraction to each other, but when they can't deny it any longer, then readers know it's the real thing in SWEET TALKIN' LOVER.  Yet, Caila is a big city girl. She has a resentment of small-town life as a result of finding herself as a child plucked out of Baltimore and into a small town where her grandfather helped support Caila's mother and siblings after her father died.  Can she give it all up to live in a small town? Meanwhile, Wyatt has to contend with his snooty family in that they think his attention to Caila means more than he claims it is—all business. Even the people around them understand that Caila and Wyatt are falling in love with each other.

SWEET TALKIN' LOVER is a cute, funny tale that features a multitude of minor characters, from Caila's three girlfriends who advise and prod her to go for the rainbow, and Wyatt's friends who snicker while he denies to them that his growing friendship to Caila is more than business.  In the end, what will Caila decide about the factory? Will she save her job and that of the citizens of Bradleton? Can Wyatt convince her to make Bradleton her forever home? Find out the answers to these questions by picking up a copy of the thoroughly entertaining SWEET TALKIN' LOVER.

Patti Fischer