I get very distracted with Catherine Anderson’s books by two things: the overly ridiculous melodramatic backgrounds of some of her characters and the incredibly artificial way that people speak in her stories.

The first one I can overlook because this is the fourth book in this series, and overall, her last 15 books have featured heroines whose back stories are just over the top insanely crazy. It’s just a trope of her writing, so I just whistle past it.

And the second is a little more difficult because I’m not sure if it’s just because no one where I live ever talks like some of her heroes. No man in my life has used the word fabulous as often as her male characters do, and that’s probably a probably more my issue than Catherine Anderson. Maybe I’m just around the wrong kind of people.

Anyway, once I breeze past those two issues, this is a relatively good story. There’s a dual romance — Crystal and her delivery hero, Tanner, and then Crystal’s grandfather and the lady he romances at the assisted living center, Essie. I liked Crystal and Tanner more than Tuck and Essie, mostly because I never really liked Essie.

But Crystal and Tanner are interesting characters. I liked Crystal more — she felt more real. Tanner was bit too good. I didn’t really see any flaws. He was a great dad, great boyfriend, great friend. He had too little vulnerability, if that makes sense. He was demoted early in the book and forced to spend less time with his kids, but that was a blip and didn’t feel like it was a problem too much. He was still good for Crystal, I just wish there had been more of an equality there. She seemed like too much of the damaged one in that relationship, while he was just sitting around waiting for her to get her shit together.

A decent first read of the year, though. Catherine Anderson is always reliable for that.