Y’all. Y’ALL! Remember when I reviewed Make Me Want by Rebecca Brooks, back in August? Well! Make Me Yours is the final book in the Men of Gold Mountain series, and hot damn, it’s a hell of a finale! Do you like romance and hot men and strong ladies and mountain towns? Yeah? Don’t sleep on this series, y’all!
Anyway. I digress. Here we go!
Claire Collins has been doing everything by herself for years. She’s been raising her daughter by herself, she’s been running her business by herself, and she’s been taking care of everything in her life by herself. She doesn’t need or have time for anyone, least of all a man. So of course, her friends are trying to get her to start dating again. After each of them finds their perfect match, it’s just Claire left – and that’s when Mack invites Claire to a live performance of a band at her bar, Mackenzie’s. Only, it’s not just any band. Unbeknownst to anyone, the lead singer is none other than Ryan Thomas, Claire’s ex-boyfriend and her daughter’s father.
Ryan Thomas has skeletons in his closet, sure. He’s a recovering alcoholic who set his own music career up in smoke with his reckless behavior. But now he’s been sober for four years, and he’s trying to get it all back. On the very last night of his current band’s tour, he’s playing a little bar in Gold Mountain, Washington, and he sees her. Claire. The girl who walked out on him over five years earlier. The girl he has no closure with. The girl no one holds a candle to. He doesn’t know why she left, and she doesn’t want to tell him. But then they start getting reacquainted with each other, and it turns out that Ryan is a different person than the one Claire left, and Claire is a stronger woman than the one who walked out.
Can they get over the past and make a future together?
3 Things I Loved
- Claire and Maya. Oh, for cute. Claire is a great mom, and Maya is just the sweetest five-year-old I’ve ever read in an adult novel. They were captured so well. I could tell immediately that they were a family unit, and it had always been them against the world together. I loved it.
- The portrayal of tough illnesses to capture accurately. Oh man. I don’t think I’ve ever seen alcoholism and a severe peanut allergy given this type of accurate treatment in a book. It was humbling. It was a joy to read, even when it sucked, because those illnesses suck. But that’s part of what made it an accurate portrayal, you know?
- Ryan. Okay. I wasn’t sure how to feel about Ryan at first, because the whole musician thing isn’t my jam. But then he started talking about his past, about his alcoholism, about Claire leaving. Oh man, I fell for him pretty hard, and I ended up rooting for him completely. He was great. And he and Claire were great together.
Dislikes/Problematic Content
Mmm. I can’t think of anything, really. This was a great second-chance love story – the best I’ve ever read, by far. And while I didn’t come across anything problematic in the actual story, there are some content warnings I’d like to address. There are descriptions of severe alcoholism, a severe peanut allergy (including an anaphylactic reaction), and emotional abuse in the pages of this book. But don’t worry, it has a happy ending. 🙂
Rating
A reminder of the rating scale:
- Red = DNF, I hated everything
- Orange = Ugh, no thank you
- Yellow = I mean, I’ve read worse, but there were problems
- Green = This was good!
- Blue = Oh my gosh, I loved this book!
- Purple = This is the unicorn of books and I will be rereading it until the binding falls apart and EVERYONE should be reading it!
Oh, this book was good – fluffy and cute and there were dinosaur references galore. Gotta love a five-year-old girl who loves dinosaurs. So! I’m going to give Make Me Yours a BLUE rating. I loved it. It was the perfect closing to the Men of Gold Mountain series. Go read them!
Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I absolutely loved it and pre-ordered my own copy right after I finished. It’s out today! Go get it!
Happy reading!
-A.
Snark & Squee 
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