I received a copy of Trouble Brewing by Walker Rose from NetGalley. This western contemporary romance follows the characters of Calder and Meredith. The western romance is a new genre for me, so I was excited to read it. Calder comes back to Scandal, North Dakota, to deal with the ranch and brewery after his father’s death. There he meets Meredith; now she has taken up responsibilities at the business and lives there too. Their past meets the present, and they have to temporarily work together.
Calder and his brothers left the ranch behind when they were teenagers as their father chose to marry Meredith’s older sister soon after their mother’s death. Living in Denver, Calder has built his business from the ground up and hasn’t spoken to his dad much. Coming back to Scandal for Calder digs up a lot of past events that left emotional blows. Meredith lives in the ranch, helping and taking care of the brewery with her sister and Calder’s dad. When they die in a car accident, her whole world changes and she doesn’t know what she’ll do next. Her fate rests with the decisions of Calder and his brothers. When Calder lands in town, Meredith and he distrust each other’s intentions.
The story has a lot of tropes with enemies to lovers, proximity romance, and even a bit of country girl/city boy dynamic. Calder is a little resentful towards Meredith because of her sister’s and his dad’s relationship. Once the full backstory is revealed, it does make a little sense why his emotional reaction is strong, but in Meredith’s case, it’s misplaced. Meredith tries to be understanding about the weight of the brothers’ comeback with how things ended, but she refuses to be blamed for it. Slowly, these two characters start developing an understanding and have an emotional connection. For me, the physical attraction part moved too quickly; otherwise, I liked the relationship that develops.
Calder is broody and quiet; it seems he is hardly affected by anything. He has internalized a lot of it and mainly struggles to express it. I liked how the bond between Calder and his brothers was portrayed, and it made me excited for the following books. The hero of the story remains Meredith and Calder’s love story. Their individual emotional struggles, combined with their relationship, seems to happen naturally. Meredith holds the emotional core of the story together. She loses her family and then comes these three guys wanting to sell everything she has ever known, plus her feelings for Calder.
Trouble Brewing by Walker Rose is an enjoyable read. I loved how the characters were fleshed out, especially Meredith. The romance between Calder and Meredith was interesting and cute too. I did have some problems with the pacing; I felt the story wandered a little in the middle, with no outcome for the mystery set-up. Overall, it’s a good book, and I liked it enough to read the next additions.
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