Tinkering with Love
(Rock Falls #1)
by Aliyah Burke
Publisher: Entangled
Publication date: June 20, 2022
Genre: Romance
Rating:

Dawson Shay could never be accused of being a bubbly ray of sunshine. Like, not ever. But her outlook on life has only gotten worse since she moved across the country for her dream job rebuilding motorcycles…only to lose the job to someone else. Now her run of bad luck includes a wilderness retreat with the entire company—including the asshat who stole her job. Fortunately, Tully Faulkner’s bearded, tattooed hotness is pretty much the perfect distraction.

Except, Tully isn’t just Mr. Hometown Hero, he’s also said asshat who stole her job. And if he thinks he can win her over with his ability to charm the pants off everybody else, he’s got another thing coming. But Dawson can’t avoid him forever… or the seriously hot sparks between them. Somewhere between the breathtaking northern lights and teaming up to win their company’s scavenger hunt, Dawson starts to think that Tully’s magic touch might be just what she’s been missing.

But even sexy gearheads have their secrets. And Dawson’s about to discover that falling for the too-perfect-to-be-true Tully might just backfire on her completely…

I loved the sound of this book. A female protagonist who works on motorcycles? Yes, please! The fact that Dawson uproots her life to move across the country to manage a motorcycle shop only to show up and find out that the job promised to her was given to someone else had me rooting for her. However, this were very rocky in this book, and I don’t just mean the relationship between Dawson and the guy who took her job, Tully.

You see, Dawson is obviously upset over the whole job situation. She was promised a job, uprooted her life, only to find out that the job was given to “the hometown hero”. So instead of working on motorcycles, she works with vehicles at a sister company. This book had a lot of “love at first sight” going on and it didn’t really work for me. On day on, Tully was saying some very inappropriate things about taking her to his bed and giving her mouth to mouth because he knows she wants it. Just things that should have resulted in him getting harassment charges. However, Dawson lets it slide because he is “hot”. Which brought up the back and forth that pops up later. She would kiss him, or sleep with him, and then immediately shut him out because she “didn’t like him”. I just wish she’d have put her foot down and not been so googly eyed over some cocky dude who gets his way. This doesn’t even brush up on the fact that Tully makes a bet with his buddies that he can get Dawson to fall in love with him by the end of summer. What’s the wager? $10k. However, it’s totally alright because the losers pay that money to a charity of the winners choice. So it’s morally alright to do that. …. I think not.

While I had a HUGE problem with the romance aspect of this book, the one thing that I LOVED was Mr. Harrellssen. He’s this crotchety old man who takes a liking to Dawson, even though he complains about her presence the whole time. She makes him food, hangs out with him, and he is just this grumpy old grandpa that would quite literally shoot someone for you and bury the body with no questions asked. Plus, it helped that he hated Tully, and refused to let him on his property when Dawson why trying to escape him. He was just the sweetest, most genuine person in the whole story.

I really with that I liked the story more than I had did. I thought I was going to fall in love with this enemies to lovers romance. Especially given that Dawson is this badass chick. However, the back and forth with Tully, the way he conducted himself towards her, and just the fact that there were red flags popping up left and right, really left me feeling creeped out the entire time.