Review: Sweet Wild of Mine by Laurel Kerr

Sweet Wild of Mine
(Where the Wild Hearts Are #2)
by Laurel Kerr
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication date: May 28, 2019
Genre: Romance
Rating:

Love runs wild at the Sagebrush Flats Zoo…

In a bid to revitalize his career, bestselling author Magnus Gray has come to Sagebrush Flats to write about the local zoo’s latest rescue―an orphaned baby polar bear. But Magnus dreads the drama of small towns and is bullishly determined to keep to himself.

June Winters is a people person, and delights in welcoming Magnus to Sagebrush Flats, though it seems unlikely she can get the handsome stranger to crack a smile. Then a mishap with an open gate forces Magnus and June to deal with a stampeding flock of fainting goats, an adorable but clingy polar bear cub, a cranky pregnant camel, and two star-crossed honey badgers. Never mind small town drama―the lively animals may just convince these two that opposites really do attract…

Sweet Wild of Mine is the second story in the Where the Wild Hearts Are series. In this installment we meet Magnus, a best-selling author who has hit a bit of a snag in his career. His publisher thinks it would be best if he went back to his roots of being around animals and documenting his time in nature in order to pull in the readers again. So, he packs up and heads to Sagebush where there’s a little zoo getting quite a bit of buzz. Magnus hopes that by spending time at the zoo, helping care for a baby polar bear, and laying low for a while, he will get back into the zone. What he wasn’t planning on was a little firecracker pushing her way into his life and stirring everything up.

I love that this series deals with a small town. It’s the kind of place where everyone knows each other, and it just feels like one big family. As with the previous book, we got to hang out at the zoo quite a bit. We are there when Sorsha the baby polar bear arrives. We watch as she grows, becomes more confident, and wins over the hearts of everyone. We also get to see some development with the other animals in the zoo as they thrive and live their best lives in captivity. I also really liked that we got to see the original crew from the first book quite a bit in this novel.

With all that being said, I had a tough time with this book. For one, it moved excruciatingly slow. I found myself bored a lot while reading this book. In fact, it took me two weeks to read, which is not normal for me. It usually only takes me a day or two to polish off a book. However, the slow pace of this one had me putting down the book a lot. I also had a hard time dealing with our heroine. She’s quite abrasive and pushy. Right from the start Magnus lets her know that he doesn’t want to be bothered, and yet she continues to push herself into his business. Whether it’s chasing him down the street to ask him why he won’t be her friend, to telling him he needs to cut his hair and shave his beard. June was just too much, and not in a good way. If the roles were reversed and June was a guy, there wouldn’t have been one thing acceptable about her actions. I suppose for me, the chemistry just wasn’t there for these two and the heroine’s demeanor really turned me off.

I love that the author gave this story a twist by bringing in a new character to the small town of Sagebush. I’m a huge fan of the zoo setting and the fact that we get to see the animals develop and grow as well as the humans. I did have issues with the heroine and ultimately didn’t feel connected to her or their romance. I also wish the pacing was a bit faster and maybe focused more on the humans rather than so many side stories in the animals point of view. However, I think that for anyone looking for a slow-paced romance with imperfect characters, this might be right up your alley.

Previous reviews from Where the Wild Hearts Are
Wild on my Mind