The Wild Side
The Wild Westbrooks
By Cassie-Ann L. Miller
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi
Cash and Meghan have been best friends since they were teenagers, when Cash’s mom moved him and his siblings to Honey Hill, after his parents’ divorce. Cash moved back to Chicago to work with his dad and is now the CFO of the company with goals of getting the company to the billion-dollar mark by the end of the quarter. However, he has never let his friendship with Meghan wane. She is the one person that cares for him and not the dollar signs associated with him.
Meghan also grew up in a broken family. Her father abandoned her and her mother and started a new family with someone else. Meghan has two half-sisters in town that she isn’t allowed to associate with. Meghan’s mom blames it all on the Hutchins curse, stating that all the women in their family are alone. No man will ever choose them, in the end, and that love isn’t in the cards.
Ten years ago, Cash and Meghan made a marriage pact, if they were both single at age 30, then they would marry each other. It was written on the back of an old gas station receipt that Cash keeps in the glove box of his car. Meghan has a picture of it in one of her dresser drawers.
Now it’s Meghan’s 30th birthday and Cash is rushing to Honey Hill to go visit her. Thanks to his big mouthed sister everyone now knows about the marriage pact and are assuming he’s off to rush Meghan to the altar. The truth is, Cash has had a crush on Meghan for years. However, the two would never want to risk the friendship they have for a relationship that could end in disaster. But can the two really stay friends when there is so much heat between them? And, if they give it a try will the Hutchins curse come to bite them both?
I know some people really enjoy those slow burn love stories. This one took it to another level. Meghan and Cash fought their attraction for about 200 pages! It was such a slow build-up and it was honestly hard to keep reading through all their insecurities. And, when they finally decided to give things a try, we still were fighting through all their issues!
Meghan was also fostering a pair of cats from a local animal shelter. I thought it was great the story brought that up, but I felt the author didn’t really know much about it. I used to foster dogs for several rescues and I can tell you that no good rescue would allow someone (Cash) to take one of their cats six hours away to foster it, especially within minutes of meeting it and without a home check. They also wouldn’t allow someone to adopt a pet, after watching their child abuse it in front of them. In this book, the adopter changed their mind after the cat fought back instead of the rescue stepping up to defend their charge.
This book showcased two very different broken families. For Meghan it was her and her mom against the world and Cash was surrounded by family, despite his parents splitting up. Cash had to also look at his father who chose his business over the people in his life. Cash had to decide if maybe he was following the wrong path and was headed towards a life alone, like his dad.
The story had a syrupy sweet ending, but overall, this book just didn’t light my trigger. It was an okay read, but it took too long to get to the good stuff and once there the good stuff was gone too quickly. It seemed pretty tame for a book titled The Wild Side and it fell flat for me, if I’m being honest.
