[Emily’s Review]: Covington Acres (Briar County #4) by Riley Hart

Colby Covington has no clue if there’s anything in the world for him beyond Briar County. His family assumes he’ll do as they do: work Covington Acres, get married, have kids. Colby doesn’t want children, and seeing as he’s never felt even an inkling of romantic love for another person, he sure as hell isn’t interested in marriage.

In his mid-forties, Vincent O’Brien is starting over in the small town of Harmony. After being cheated on, again, he’s sworn off ever falling in love. As fate would have it, Vince needs a place to stay, and Colby has a spare room.

With an immediate connection that shakes up Colby’s sheltered world, neither man expects their friendship to blossom so fast…or for a semi-public hookup to make Colby realize he’s bi. Friends with benefits is perfect. It’s easy, it’s fun, they trust each other, and neither Vince nor Colby wants anything serious.

But the more their lives intertwine, the more Colby starts to feel something he’d thought himself incapable of. Something like love, with Vince…the man who will never feel—or want—the same.

I received this book for free from PR Company in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

First and foremost, PER the author’s synopsis:
Covington Acres is a small-town, bisexual/demiromantic awakening, friends-with-benefits romance with mature characters, home-brewed beer, and secret kisses.

Soooooooooooooooooooooo…

This isn’t going to be the most positive review. I like Riley Hart’s writing a lot. I enjoy a lot of the stuff on her back list. But her most recent stuff has not been hitting the mark for me. Which is a bummer, because without fail I pick up everything that she writes, the minute it’s published and available.
I was seriously excited for this installment of Briar County.

However, I don’t believe I liked this book.

For a few reasons.
The first reason, being that small town romance has to be done a certain way (IMO). Like, I need some real conflict, I need some drama! I live in a small town, I’ve read small town, small town is boring… I like reading small town if the problems feel bigger than the small town they occur in. This book, was not that, it had none of the conflict needed in order to make a small town interesting.
The second reason was mostly because this book follows two 40 year old men. FOURTY YEAR OLD MEN. Like, even if you might be having a little bisexual-panic, I think literally everyone (INCLUDING A FOURTY YEAR OLD MAN) can agree that bros don’t hold hands, or kiss, or snuggle, or make jokes about having sex with each other. Like… that’s not bro-y.
The third reason and the most important in my opinion, was that this book was a cookie cutter novel. Small town, two “friends”, not wanting to work the family business, meddling family-ish, just enough queer panic to cause tension in the friendship but not enough for them to have some sort of identity crisis.

The tropes in this book are cookie cutter for a reason. The plot is definitely a tried and true formula. But it didn’t work in this case.

All the characters fell flat, the plot fell flat, and honestly it was boring. There was so much “I don’t want to hurt you” martyr-ism happening with both romantic leads. But not a lot of character history to back up said martyring.

I think that this book needed a little more content, maybe another hundred or so pages of backstory and character building. I think that this novel would have benefitted immensely from some extra pages.

Will I stop reading Riley? Absolutely not. I love her, and even though this wasn’t my favorite book, or even my favorite series, I think she is a great author. I just want a lil summin’ more from the next release <3

Emily

Emily is a coffee loving, cat snuggling, hairstylist and book-a-holic.
Having always been a voracious reader and devouring books at a breakneck speed, joining the bookish and blogging community seemed like a natural next step. She loves giving recommendations to friends and family and then very gently (and not forcefully at all) asking for their opinions after they complete each chapter.
Her reviews tend to be goofy, a little sweary, on the more impassioned side and maybe sometimes a little self deprecating.
Emily typically enjoys reading almost every genre, including (but not limited to) monster romance, literary fiction, rom-com, contemporary, LGBTQ+, low/urban fantasy, paranormal, dystopian, sci-fi, gothic romance or basically any book that will make her cry.