Lumberjack In Love

By Penny Watson

Self Published
Publication Date: September 2012
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: Purchased

City slicker Ami Jordan was just dumped by her back-stabbing boyfriend, has no job prospects, and can’t find a decent cup of coffee in the entire state of Vermont. The last thing she needs is a sexy, bearded lumberjack complicating her life. Even if he’s smart, talented, and has the hottest ass she’s ever seen.

Tree house builder, environmental champion, and Bulldog owner Marcus Anderson has no patience for flatlanders with an attitude. But when landscape designer Ami Jordan shows up at his log cabin, he suddenly develops a hankering for a high-maintenance city gal. Now his house looks like a jungle, his recycling is in disarray, and his libido’s on fire.

He’s a lumberjack in love.

Goodreads Summary

Okay, I uh, have to do a little something here, just hang on. One second. There. Now this is what I’ve got to have in my head when I’m thinking about a sexy lumberjack. No offense to dear Penny, but that cover….*shudder*.

I found Penny and her blog through someone else and after the initial blast of her love of dudes with beards and flannel, saw she had a giant heart and a completely absurd sense of humor. She never fails to make me laugh or grin and a time or two, yep, I’ve spit liquids from something she’s said on Twitter. So that’s my pre-review disclaimer: before reading this, I was pretty fond of Penny and her kind of semi-silly, action comedy slays me. Lumberjack In Love was a fun blend of all of the things that make me laugh and some tender, sweet and smokin’ sexy stuff.

Hunky beardy Marcus Anderson is all alone chopping wood when Ami Jordan comes creeping into his yard in her stiletto-heeled boots, ogling his posterior. Okay, it does turn out that she has a reason for coming out to the boonies and bugging him. Her bean sprouts-eating sister has commissioned Marcus to build a playhouse for Ami’s niece and she wanted her to check on it. It only takes one look at his lovely visitor to know that a cabin in Vermont is no place for a city slicker like Ami.

Ami’s vast appreciation of Marcus doesn’t extend to his real estate. It has too much outdoorsy stuff, including animals. Still, for a beard that gorgeously lush, a tush that deliciously gorgeous, dinner wouldn’t be a gigantic sacrifice. She does have to be in the godforsaken area for a while yet and Marcus did invite her to see his log…cabin.

Ami is less of a nature-hater and more of an outside-disliker (a woman after my own heart). She’s an award-winning children’s landscape designer who got screwed over by her boyfriend and business partner and it’s only logical – and Marcus agrees – that she work with him on his playhouse designs, giving him plenty of reasons to let her disrupt his life. Marcus is a delightfully solid man’s man, just Alpha enough to give you the shivers, not so bossy that you want to shake a stick at him. I loved Ami’s blend of harried city woman personality, the part of her that was still burning from her thieving ex and the soft and funny person she was with Marcus. I felt that I knew a lot about these two in just a relatively short amount of space (I’d call this a long novella).

This was just. So. Funny. As soon as Ami was driving up to Marcus’ house and she thought it all looked too “nature-y,” I knew I was going to love this book because that’s just the thing I’d find funny and it got a lot better from there. What’s not to love about a heroine who’s downright feral about the local sludge that passes as coffee or who’s madly passionate about a heavily bearded guy but deathly afraid of a certain furry animal?

My Summary: You’ve probably figured out by now that I loved this. It’s not a long read but it’s one I’m keeping for frequent re-reading because when I wasn’t smiling or fanning myself, I was laughing out loud. Penny also has an ongoing series about the Klaus Brothers, as in Santa Klaus. They’re just as funny, just as sexy, but longer and out during snowy weather.

My Rating: A