My Rating: ✩✩✩✩✩
I have had many a book by this author on my TBR list and I clearly need to get reading Hibbert's entire catalog!
Hitting lots of cute tropes without being sappy or trite, this is a genuinely cozy romance with just enough of an edge. The characters are believable, undergo a normal amount of development and find an HEA not despite their foibles, but because of them. The small-town setting, complete with enmeshed family and supporting characters, makes for great world building and really drops you right into full immersion. As a novel, the plot is solid, the pacing is great, the resolution realistic and the chemistry perfectly swoony.
Where the book really shines is the autism (and plus-size) representation. Ruth is both of those things, but neither are her defining characteristics. Most importantly her finding love is not dependent on fixing either of those traits. She doesn't have to overcome her inherently autistic self, or go on some ugly-duckling style transformation, to find someone to love her as she is and to love someone as they are in return. In a world of romance featuring 20-something "not like other girls" women whose entire catalog of quirks include "liking a sport" or "fixing a car once" this feels very refreshing.
All together, a nearly perfect contemporary romance.
Published on 3 March 2026 by Sourcebooks Casablanca
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