Rating: 4 stars
Nowhere Books Bingo 2025: Book Dedicated to a Parent
Thank you to Janine Amesta for granting me this ARC. It has not influenced my review, my opinions are my own. Thank you also, Emmalita, who tipped me off about this author.
Selah Moreno's beloved stepfather always wanted to be an airline pilot, but couldn't become one for a number of reasons. So he flew hot air balloons instead. Selah trains to become a pilot instead, but when her father unexpectedly dies, and her mother and younger sisters need help, she puts her dream of flying planes on hold to take over the air balloon business. Things are not made easier when she discovers that the man she idolised made several unwise financial decisions shortly before his death. Now the family business is in serious trouble.
Selah meets the handsome park ranger Dex Westerly when he books a hot air balloon ride to propose to his influencer girlfriend. The proposal does not go well, and when the balloon lands at the end, some unexpected complications result in Selah landing on top of the humiliated man, in what would otherwise possibly have been quite an interesting embrace. When Selah and Dex next meet, he's still processing his failed relationship, but the spark that was obvious when they first met is still there. Selah doesn't have the time or inclination to become anyone's rebound girlfriend, but the park ranger is handsome and they keep running into each other. She also finds his unusual roommate, Harper, a rescued crow, amusing.
Dex and Selah agree to work together to try to raise money for a wildlife rescue program in the park. It will also help raise the profile of the Moreno family's air balloon business, which really needs more customers. The initial event is a hit, and soon, thanks to a social media post by Selah's sister which goes viral, a lot of people think that there is a budding romance between Selah and Dex, and they get more than one enquiry from the media to appear on air.
Selah has been bottling up her emotions about her father's passing since his death since she has had to be the one keeping the business afloat and supporting her mother and sisters. Nevertheless, she has made no attempt to hide that she plans to go off to be an airline pilot as soon as she can find someone suitable to help her family with the business, and her 'one foot out the door' attitude is really impacting her relationship with her sisters.
Dex is dealing with the aftermath of his rather humiliating breakup but discovers that he doesn't really miss the woman he was trying to propose to. He is sad that he won't have a chance to build the life with her that he had been envisioning (without really ever considering her wants or wishes at the time, she clearly did not want cosy domesticity with a dude whose half-tame crow shows up to cause chaos pretty much daily). Having grown up with very distant and rather cold parents, he's drawn not just to the vibrant Selah, but her loving and affectionate family as well.
The main complications in this story are caused by Selah being so set on fulfilling her stepfather's lost dream of flying airplanes, that she won't let herself ever consider a different future for herself. Her mother is still struggling with coping without her husband, and her sisters feel like she is rejecting them and their family by planning to leave the second she gets the chance. This also means she's unwilling to really commit fully to her relationship with Dex, even though the man is clearly a treasure, telling herself that it's only a temporary, rebound relationship anyway.
Thankfully, as is always the case in romance, they find their happy ending. Harper was a cool and unusual animal companion, clearly not actually a pet, but a discerning (she didn't like Dex' ex much, but clearly loves Selah) and amusing presence in the story. After losing my own mother two years ago, the exploration of grief in books always hits me a bit differently than it used to, but there was nothing too triggering here.
Selah's relationship with her sisters and mother was very well done, I thought. Her youngest sister comes across as rather irresponsible and bratty at first, but Amesta takes the time to make the reader (and Selah) understand why she has been acting the way she has, and the sisters find a deeper understanding of each other over the course of the book. I'm very excited to see her sisters find their own happy endings in the coming books, and will absolutely be checking out the author's previous romance novels.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read
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