fish out of water by katie ruggle
Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced readers copy of this book!
I love a cozy mystery romance, but I haven’t read much romantic suspense. I was nervous this book would be too intense for me and it wasn’t at all. It’s not too stressful or super dark. There’s no rape or anything like that that occurs with the drama of the missing sister.
I loved the hero in this book- he’s an author and stoic and protective. I wanted him to have the best life ever and that helped for a super quick read of this book.
The heroine I had more problems with and that’s why this didn’t make a 5 star rating for me. Her sister is missing but she decides that she needs to always have time to put makeup on before starting her quest to find her sister every day. There’s a LOT of moments in the book where she’s trying to educate the hero on why it’s completely normal for her to spend time on different makeup looks while camping and hiking to find her sister in the remote mountains. This same character also drinks black coffee every day. This person could very well exist in real life, because it’s a big big world out there. However, in my personal experience with the world- the type of person who won’t leave the house unless fully done in makeup, is usually the type of person who at the bare minimum at least wants milk in their coffee. (Let the record show that I also drink milk in my coffee. Because it’s delicious and perfect in every way). So the makeup thing got super old and I was honestly hoping that in the end she would realize that she could be all for the power that being done-up can make you feel, but also have a realistic sense of priorities when it comes to actually trying to save someone’s life…
Overall I really enjoyed this book and flew through it! I’ve read some reviews saying that Ruggle has an eerily similar book called Gone Too Deep - I haven’t ever read that but fair warning if you have!