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Welcome to this week’s readerly confessions – I texted Ashley early on in Kathryn Nolan’s Wild Open Hearts and told her I was disappointed.  As the book opens, there is about to be a gigantic scandal at Luna’s company, Wild Heart, and Beck is going to save her reputation.  Gag. Derek was hired to crisis manage Emily’s reputation. Jude was hired to protect Cameron. And now Luna is going to volunteer with Derek to prove herself.  It felt like too much to have these men saving these billionaires and I didn’t appreciate finally having female billionaires to have all (so far) the meet-cutes being about the men “saving” the women.  But did I stop? Nope. Did the dissapoint continue? Nope. Does Ashley reframe this below to my delight? YES! The rest of the set up – Beck, the only child of local motorcycle gang leaders (dictators?), runs a nonprofit that rescues dogs.  Color me interested – I adore dogs and have worked in the nonprofit sector for my entire professional career.  

Wild Open Hearts has heart (pun not intended), the characters are gloriously multi-dimensional, and all of the relationship dynamics are totally believable and relatable (except for the billionaire part, but whatever).  From reading The Price of Scandal and The Mogul and the Muscle, I wasn’t sure how I was going to enjoy Luna.  I love my weekly yoga class, but I am not dedicated to daily practice (because sleep and books are more tempting) and am way more type A than free spirit (#enneagram6).  But, y’all, I love Luna! She had a dream, she busted it, and she made a business. I guess she’s more relatable to me because her dream was very much in line with being the change she wanted to see in the world instead of the hard sciences where Emily and Cameron began their careers.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Luna did some of that too, but her dream was much more philanthropic feeling than that of her fellow Bluewater Billionaires. While I didn’t have a dream when I began walking down my career path, I wanted to help others whose voices weren’t being heard, and that’s what I do.  Well, I support the people who do that work by ensuring they have the funds to do so, and boy would I love to work with Beck!  

This was my first book by Kathryn Nolan but it will definitely not be my last.  She’s funny, deep, and enthralling, and her writing fit in perfectly with the other three authors (Pippa Grant wrote #4, and we’ve read and loved several of her titles already).  They’re not all the same, but they’re probably all for the same readers.  Don’t skip the notes at the end of this one. Nolan was a nonprofit fundraiser, and take it from one, this work reflects the struggles very well.  I was reading admiring her dedication to researching the struggles of young, small nonprofits, fundraising, and passionate and overwhelmed staff, but perhaps that was experience not research.  Either way, it was definitely in line with my experiences and those of colleagues who’ve shared with me.  

~Nikki

Kathryn Nolan, according to Goodreads, is the author of 9 full-length (heh) romance novels, with “big, swoony heart-feels” and one collection of 14 sexy short stories. She’s an outdoorsy, book- and travel-loving, hippie chick with a camper van, a husband, and a rescue pup named Walter. Wild Open Hearts was my first foray into her oeuvre, and I was pleased as punch at the relatable characters, the natural falling in love process, and slow build up to the grand finale. I won’t lie and say that I’m going to read another of her novels first, I definitely just downloaded the Sexy Shorts onto my kindle for my reading pleasure. However, I am excited to read her 3 novels set in Big Sur (Bohemian, Riptide, and Landslide). When Canadian Adam and I did our stint in California recently, one of my BFFs and I took a road trip up the PCH (that’s Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway) from L.A. to San Simeon and Hearst Castle, which is just a few short miles, ok, like 60 miles, south of Big Sur. The coast and the mountains are gorgeous and I would 100% go back there again for a longer visit, but will just have to visit through books for now. Please enjoy my Jeep photoshoot from that trip…

There’s not much I can add to Nikki’s assessment about what she loved about this book. I, like Luna, have a weakness for tall, Viking-like men, preferably riding motorcycles. But, Nolan gives us such an opposites-attract couple, that at the beginning you wonder how nature-loving, vegan princess Luna da Rosa and grumpy, meat with a side of bacon, leather wearing Beck Mason will find common ground, much less love. And then they realize that they have both been feeding the same stray pup by Luna’s headquarters and then readers, like Daisy (and the rest of the vagillionaires), want Luna to “marry him and have a bunch of bearded babies.”

I do want to discuss Nikki’s issue with the men being the saviors in these three books. I’ve had a bit of time to think it over, and I want to put a slightly different spin on the situation. Let’s begin with Emily and Derek. Emily had the first date from hell, Derek was hired by her board to fix the situation and her reputation, and over the course of him DOING HIS JOB they fell in love. Cameron and Jude was a similar situation, they fell in love over the course of Jude DOING HIS JOB, which was to be personal security for Cameron. Did they swoop in like Superman and save the day, not really. Neither Emily nor Cameron wanted these jobs to be needed in the first place. Emily did not want a reputation fixer and Cameron certainly fought the need to hire personal security. But, the decisions were out of their control. A member of her company’s board of directors hired Derek and by Emily and Cameron’s personal assistant forced Jude into Cameron’s life. The instigators in these instances, all female. The same is true for Luna. Her mentor, another female business woman, suggested the best way for her to start working on reclaiming and living her values would be to partner with Lucky Dog, Beck’s non-profit, because she knew that Luna’s heart would come out and shine around the animals. The grumpy, motorcycle riding, Viking was only a bonus to Luna’s love-life, because his past almost destroyed the hard work she had put in trying to fix her own reputation. So, really, these men were just pawns in some rich woman’s game. But they came out on top of…with… oh, fuddle… they each ended up with a badass billionaire babe!

We know you’re not ready for this love-fest to be over, and neither are we, but join us next week for our Reading Life Review and the final installment of the Bluewater Billionaires Series of books with Pippa Grant’s Crazy For Loving You.

~Ashley