Red-Haired Ash Reads

When Emelie finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her while camping, she decides to take a walk. When she comes back to the campsite though she finds her ex has abandoned her in the woods. She decides to walk to town but gets turned around and instead finds Axel, who is bathing in a river. With a storm rolling in, Axel lets her stay at his cabin until he can take her back to town. 

This was an enjoyable instant love romance. Axel is a huge mountain man who has spent the past few years alone in the woods. He doesn’t let a lot of people close but Emelie gets under his skin instantly. He finds himself falling hard and fast. Axel was protective but also really sweet. I liked how hard he fell for Emelie and that he had no problem teaching her about living offgrid. I love when a protective guy is also great with having a strong, independent woman. 

Emelie may not know anything about living on a mountain but she quickly finds she loves the pace of life and doesn’t want to go back to the city. She embraces this new life and does everything she can to learn how to help, like hunting and canning food for winter. I liked that this woman knew she wanted to make her life in the mountains with Axel and took steps to learn how to live this life. 

Axel and Emelie had an instant love romance that was enjoyable. They were instantly attracted to each other and by the end of the day Axel had basically fallen for her, which I liked. I love an instant love/ forced proximity story and this one was quite enjoyable for me. It may not be memorable with a unique story, but it was still a very fun book to read. 

My only complaint with this book was that Axel called Emelie “Little One”, which is fine, but it was tacked on to every single sentence he said almost. This quickly got old as you can imagine and I also think it’s just not a great pet name for someone. I get it, you’re huge and she is tiny, but it just didn’t work for me. 

Overall, this was an enjoyable romance. I am interested in reading more of this series because I am curious about Axel’s friends who also live off grid like him. 

TW: on page hunting and death of animals

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