This is my book of the year so far! I know, it's February, but I see this book keeping its top spot for a long time. I love everything about it, from the rich depths of persona and right struggles given to the characters to the transporting sense of place to the lovely dance of growing closeness. Devon has all of her instincts on peak performance and has written an immersive, UNIQUE story that's hard to come by these days. I loved it and am keeping this one to read again and again, just like I do with Eat Pray Love and everything by Sarah Addison Allen. Glad I 'found' this author.

OMG! I didn’t expect to love this book so much!

It truly matched with each expectation I have about a well written-heartfelt- intense love story!
This is such good recipe for angsty- second chance romance novel:
A sweet- lovely family
Events take place at spectacular wine yard ( reminds us of Russell Crowe’s Good Year and Keanu Reeves’ A walk in the cloud)
Two adorable, broken characters still deal with their past burdens, struggling to move, connecting each other to heal: balanced angst and dramatic confrontations
Steamy, pant melting moments blended perfectly with tear jerking chapters
Less cliche, more unique and heartwarming conjunction

Overall: I’m so happy to be introduced to Jen Devon! I think Harry and Rowan’s stories will stay in my heart for a long time! I’m looking forward to read the future works of her!

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

This was a beautifully intense romance that sucked me in from the start. The characters were developed intentionally with relatable flaws. I loved that this story was emotional, spicy, relatable, funny, and romantic all at the same time. From laughter to tears, this book gave me everything I would want.

A gorgeously atmospheric, heartbreakingly angsty, surprisingly STEAMY contemporary romance about an OB recovering from the loss of a patient and a botanist at a crossroads in her career. Together, they heal and learn to love in character arcs that parallel with the rehabilitation and eventual flourishing of an overgrown vineyard. A rare combination of angst and high heat that you so rarely find in contemporary these days, and I was SO pleasantly surprised. If you're looking at this cover wondering whether this is going to be a closed-door romance, I assure you it is not. The door is wide open, repeatedly. Along with a lot of other viable surfaces.

You want to read BEND TOWARD THE SUN if you enjoy:
- angst & characters gently working through personal traumas
- high heat
- big warm family & supporting cast
- dramatic kissing in the rain
- fog-shrouded vineyards

I have described this book as a gentler version of A WALK IN THE CLOUDS featuring a blonde Keanu Reaves but with far more focus on the romance and less on the external plot. The perfect read for a stormy day curled up by the fireplace when you want to wallow in Feelings, possibly sipping your vino of choice for thematic reasons.

I was hooked on the characters in Bend Toward the Sun from the get-go. Jen Devon creates memorable characters with depth and humor who work through past hurts in a relatable and real way. Rowan and Harrison are two of my favorite characters this year. Yes, I know it's only the start of February but I read this book in December and I'm still thinking about them! 😂 I love a good book in where the guy falls before the girl does and that is the case for our friend Harrison. I highly recommend putting this on your pre-order list! Bend Toward the Sun comes out in August 2022.

So often romance stories are about emotionally available women and the sexually driven men they tame. Bend Toward the Sun turns that trope on its head.

Harry has wanted to be a husband and a father since he was 7. Rowan's traumatic childhood has her running for the hills anytime real emotion presents itself in relationships. This is the story of how they break each other before they can heal each other.

This book is slow, sad, sweet, earthy, romantic, and about every kind of love from friends to families to lovers.

“Wine is the harmony of humans and nature, and family is the harmony of love and friendship.”

Oh the beauty of this book. Beautiful words, beautiful love story, beautiful characters, beautiful setting. I absolutely adored this story.

Rowan and Harry are broken characters. Soul crushingly broken that it actually hurt my heart. They have both endured painful moments in life and their meeting is what will start a healing process. However, walls are built up, boundaries are set and fear takes away hope.

“When you put a thing on a pedestal, you beg fate to tip it over.”

The author’s writing is so good…so powerful that I think I highlighted half the book. Though Rowen’s childhood was devoid of love (after her Grandma Edie passes away) it is evident she has a huge heart as we see her love and joy in nature and plants. Harry falls head over heals but is finding Rowan’s walls to be impenetrable.

“Alone is my favorite place to be.”

The wit, the cast of characters, the gorgeous prose all combined to make this book unputdownable for me. A truly beautiful, romantic story with just enough angst, humor and poignancy to balance it all out. The power of love and the strength to open up a damaged heart will leave you breathless. I loved everything about it.

“It’s safe to make the leap when you know who’s waiting to catch you.”

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

REVIEW FOR Bend Toward the Sun by @kisscrafter

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5

As someone who consumes more contemporary romance than anything else, I’ve read a LOT. However, the day that @rlynn_solomon highly praised this book, I had to check it out. And I was NOT disappointed. The emotion that oozes in between the pages and in the words is unlike anything I’ve read. I’ve preordered this book already, because I need a physical copy.

The parts that I really enjoyed:
🌸 Rowan is a botanist and that is a career I’ve never read about.
🌸 The warmth I felt while reading.
🌸Harry and Rowan’s relationship was complicated but also very real.
🌸 The steaminess… 🥵

There were many quotes I loved (and included in my journal) but the one I will share and allow everyone else to see when they can read this beautiful book is:
“You told me once you knew plants better than you knew people. What’s this last petal telling you, Dr. McKinnon?”

If you are a romance fan, get this book on your radar when it comes out August 9th, 2022!

I want to thank @netgalley and @stmartinspress for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Sweet romance about two people with difficult pasts. I found it to be relatively slow paced which is why I’m rating it a little bit lower. However, I would still recommend it.

Bend Toward the Sun stole my plant and happy ending lovers heart. It's a story of growth, healing, and redemption.

Well written and heart warming story. I have recommended to multiple friends to read this book when it is released. Can’t wait to see what else the author has up her sleeve.

There is so much to enjoy in Devon's debut novel, not least of which is an unusual setting of Pennsylvania vineyards and the project of creating them from the ground up. The botanist heroine, Rowan, is reluctantly enticed into a start-up family business where a large, loving, raucous family earnestly put their entire savings and efforts into creating their own wine-making farm. A charming and sweet hero is certainly part of the enticement. I enjoyed the opening chapters as we see the heroine struggle with delaying her own claustrophobic academic career goals for what feels like a healthier option to be working outdoors with nature and potentially jump-starting a romance with one of the family's sons.

The middle of the book bogged down a bit though, and for me, it became mired in one of my least favorite romance tropes: the commitment phobic half of a romance relationship. Rowan has many Issues and it takes much of the book to unravel them. The hero, Harry, has the patience of a saint as he tries a number of tactics to break down Rowan's defenses and just enjoy life and his love for her. This is a book where the hero falls for the heroine very quickly and stays committed to their love, even in the face of some chilly dismissals and hurtful rejections. As much as I wanted to understand Rowan, I admit to feeling impatient too many times and also to feeling sympathy for the angst-ridden hero. I know if the roles had been reversed, I would have wanted the heroine to walk away much sooner. This also isn't a book with much plot, and so I do think that if I had been more enamored with the heroine's psychological journey from emotionally damaged to a more emotionally grounded person that she gradually becomes by the end, I would have enjoyed the story more.

Still, the book offers lots of rewards in a lovely hero who knows what he wants and goes for it, a cast of appealing brothers and potential love interests for them, and a gorgeous setting that had me engaged in wanting to learn more about wine making. I do want to read this author's next book to see how she develops as an author.

This book’s description had me at “winery”, seriously though, this was a quirky romance with a different setting and truly unique main characters. I feel like a lot of romance novels follow the same basic script with a guy who can’t commit, this novel has more of a role reversal in regards to this cliche and it really works for these characters. This book is sweet, steamy and different. Definitely recommend this one!

This started off slow, like most other books I've read but the pace steadily picked up to an uneven canter the further you get into the story until it reached the finish line. Rowan and Harrison exuded such intense passion and deep emotions while both struggle with the baggage from past failures and anguish. Harrison came home from practicing medicine to lick his wounds and hide out but instead found a woman who was brash, smart and stood by her convictions, even when such beliefs started falling apart. They kept each other accountable while fostering not only a romance but a friendship and a communal liking of the Brady family and Rowan's friends.. Enjoyed the humorous bantering and the undercurrents of emotions and untold stories that exist between Rowan's friends and Harrison's brothers and can't wait to read about their journeys. This book was worth the time and effort and I highly recommend it. Thank you Netgalley for this opportunity.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the ARC. One of the best books I’ve read in a while. The steam made me blush. The characters are characters that I’ll forever remember. Wow is all I can say.

This was very much a book about healing as well as a romance.
The main characters both go on journeys of self discovery and self love. I appreciated the real depiction of their struggles and that the author didn't shy away from showing the ugly side of healing from trauma.
I also loved the angst and sexual tension but also the friendship the two had throughout the book. It all felt very realistic and grounded.
Very impressive for a debut author! Would gladly pick up another one of her books.

This is a good book. The two main characters are Rowan and Harry. Rowan is botanist and Harry is a doctor. Harry family bought a vineyard and one of Rowan’s friends sent her resume to them for a job. Harry had a patient to die and is on a leave of absence. They meet at the vineyard and they have an attraction. Rowan has issues with an ex who was married but didn’t tell her. Harry is having issues with his patient’s death. They fall in love, after they work out their issues.

[ 4.5 out of 5 ] Thank you to St. Martin’s Griffin and NetGalley for the eARC to read and review!

"Bend Toward the Sun" was an emotionally charged story with an electrifying romance that was painful, exhilarating, and deeply personal.

This story wears its heart on its sleeve as Rowan and Harry struggle to reconcile with their pasts in the wake of the instant attraction and affection they feel for one another.

The main characters had polar opposite upbringings. Rowan is socially awkward and understands plants far better than people. She had her beloved grandmother Edie who fostered Rowan’s love for nature - which led to Rowan becoming a botanist - until age 12 when she was then left in the uncare of her estranged mother. Meanwhile, Harry is one of six in a very close and loving family. This major difference is one of many roadblocks in Rowan and Harry’s relationship.

But I love how these two lost souls find their way again through love. It’s a painful journey and several times you’ll question in chest-tightening worry if their chance at true love and happiness will burn away.

Past intimate relationships have not gone well for either (an understatement). So to have such strong feelings feels right, wrong, and terrifying all at once. Plus, they both can be very, very, very stubborn.

I felt those months and months worth of time skips, which made their back and forth will-they won’t-they arguments seem redundant and a tad frustrating. Post-read, Rowan and Harry’s romance is really well fleshed out with all the necessary growth, drama and angst you’d want in an enthralling love story. Time just dragged some.

In the end (oh my goodness!), Rowan and Harry filled my heart with such joy and fondness. The chemistry between them was sizzling, the banter endearing and funny, and a satisfying conclusion worthy of a standing ovation.

I had a good feeling I would end up truly enjoying "Bend Toward the Sun," and I did! I loved the story and all of the characters. Rowan was my favorite because I could relate with her and she’s unexpectedly hilarious. Jen Devon wrote a wonderful, heartfelt romance. I highly recommend this novel.

This better be the start of a series because I loved these characters and need books about the rest of the Brady family immediately. Rowan and Harry have both hit pause on their life plans and both found themselves helping Harry's family build their B&B and vineyards. Drawn to each other from the moment they meet neither of them knows what their future will hold. Rowan doesn't trust often or easily and Harry has owns his own wounds to heal. However everyone can see their chemistry even if they are reluctant to act on it.

The Bradys are the type of loud, loving family I have always wanted to be a part of (no disrespect to my small, quiet one). I could have read about their family dinners forever as I speculated about the love lives of the single siblings. Rowan was very much a heroine after my own heart. Smart, introverted, and cautious, she still had so much heart and care to offer everyone around her. Her banter with Duncan made me chuckle out loud (definitely ready for his story). My only quibble was how tiring I found the back and forth self-sabotaging of their relationship. It went on.a bit too long by the time it was Harry's turn to take a stand.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review,

What an emotional, charming, funny love story. Rowan is a botanist stressed about completing her research and finding a post doc placement. Harry is a doctor who recently lost a patient and is taking a break being hiding out at his family’s vineyard. Their attraction to each other was one for the movies and the as one of the most authentic romances I’ve read recently. The setting was also excellent with amazing descriptions that brought the vineyard to life. I definitely recommend this book!