This was a heartwarming story about two adversaries bumping heads in a shared workspace after a devastating hurricane/flood. While both characters were extremely hard-headed, once they softened up and worked together the romance was very sweet. Tansy is a single mom struggling to keep her and her daughter afloat while Jack is closed off after a traumatic divorce. I appreciated the bond Jack shared with her daughter Briar and how gruff, but caring he turned out to be to Tansy.

Perfect about of charm, angst, and depth to the story. I'll be looking forward to what comes next from Melanie Sweeney.

Melanie Sweeney does it again! I am solidified as a huge huge fan after reading this story and take me home. This story was one of finding hope and community after a huge natural disaster. It ripped my heart out and it was out back together seeing everyone come together and seeing these two stubborn people fall in love.

Thank you to the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Where You're Planted is an easy read that was a super sweet romance. I loved the hurricane backstory and the community aspect of the characters and plot. I found the female main character to be a little difficult to like and understand her actions. Overall it was enjoyable, but a little predictable.

Where You're Planted was a great, light hearted read but still had plenty of depth. Tansy is fighting to be able to reopen her library that was flooded during a storm. Jack is running the botanical gardens whose funds are frozen while trying to make repairs from the previously mentioned storm. Their worlds collide when Tansy's library is temporarily moved to the greenhouse and it was definitely NOT love at first sight!

I absolutely adored this book! The chemistry between Jack and Tansy was undeniable pretty much from the start. It was light and funny with lots of banter, but still hit on some deeper topics. I absolutely LOVED that you saw a male character deal with an issue that is typically relegated to the female characters in books. The side characters in Where You're Planted added so much to the story. I loved them all but Irma in particular was a hoot! I can't wait to read whatever comes next from Melanie Sweeney!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Tansy has to move her library into a shack in the gardens nextdoor to what used to be the library, but was ruined in a hurricane. But she has to deal with grumpy Jack.
As they get to know each other and help each other a spark blooms. They want the same things for the community and as they argue, but also find common ground they have to figure out what they both want.
A hopeful book about community, love, and finding your way after devastation.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

I loved this book! The two main characters had excellent chemistry and the general cast of characters were all great. This was a cute, light read in which there was a lot of depth and character growth.

Take Me Home is what convinced me to read more of this author, and Where You're Planted is what solidified me as a huge fan! Such a beautiful book about relationships, love, trauma, and found family. I love that Melanie makes the background characters an important part of the story, as it gives so much depth to the story as a whole.
Tansy is a children's librarian trying to save the library after a hurricane destroyed it. Jack works in the botanical gardens next door, which is also where her temporary library is located. Jack is grumpy, Tansy is sunshine, and all of their coworkers + Tansy's daughter are everything in between. The mix of tension, inevitable having to work together, and figuring out life together are just delicious in this book.
So thankful to have gotten an early E copy, and cannot wait to have the physical book in hand to reread this summer!

Thank you NetGalley and G.P Putnam's Sons for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

This was a very cute and fun read! Jack and Tansy had great chemistry and I was vibing with them. They were the perfect amount of light and fluffy mixed with vulnerability. When you start the book, it's pretty slow and it took me a while to get into it but it starts to build when you're about 45% in and I promise you it's worth it. 

Read if you like
- Small town
- Dislike to lovers
- Single mom
- He falls first

ohhhh my goodness has melanie sweeney made it her mission to rip me apart every time she releases a new book?! i absolutely fell head over heels for her writing after reading her debut, and i was ecstatic to see i had received an arc of her latest release- spoiler alert, it didn’t disappoint! from beginning to end, i was entranced and my heart = warmed/wrenched.

This was such a lovely romance, with excellent depth to the main male character. Sweeney does an excellent job of ramping up the stakes and making both our love interests fight for what they need job wise and personally. The spice is great, the love is solid, the emotional challenges beautifully written. An excellent romance and will definitely go read Sweeney's first book now.

Plant this one in my library as it is a keeper. Melanie Sweeney steals your heart again with two characters working to do the best for their community and the things they love while also overcoming personal struggles.

I loved that she is able to write little hidden play on words if you look just right. She too, had a way of writing in just the best side characters and locations that just make you smile, and make you want to visit just to see them in real life. They just have to exist.

It pulled at my heart and made me smile throughout. It’s the kind of romance I crave to read. It has substance and heart.

Thank you Penguin Group Putnam and NetGally for this ARC.

This was my first book by Melanie Sweeney and I really enjoyed it. Tansy's story was so sweet and relatable. Perfect beach read! I can't wait to read Melanie Sweeney's other book now too.

A few favorite parts that highlight the descriptive talents of the AMAZING Melanie Sweeney that have me swooning over Jack Reid:

He slung his toolbelt over his shoulder then stomped through the trees toward her, tucking his shirt back in. And jeez, why was that so riveting? Her lips parted, her mouth suddenly dry. There was nothing sexual about it, and yet, it felt so blatantly intimate, his hands slipping unselfconsciously down the front of his pants.

"The admin building has bathrooms”, he said as he stalked past, casting a long, skeptical side-eye down at her, like maybe he'd somehow heard her stupid body's thoughts about his stupid body, and then joined the path toward the main gardens. Five steps later, he called back, "Are you coming?”

"Is that a question you regularly have to ask women?” (I MEAN….LOLOLOL)

He stopped mid-step but didn't turn around, and Tansy held her breath, appalled that those words, in that old flirty mean tone she hadn't used in years, had come out of her mouth. Hastily, she added, "You've got to be the least patient person I've ever met.”

He turned to face her, hands on his hips in a melodramatic disgruntled man pose. "For the record, patience in that area is not a problem for me.”

Tansy's cheeks--and other regions of her body--flooded with heat, and her eyes dropped straight to her mud-caked shoes.
====
He crossed his arms over his chest. She'd come to realize there were two shirt options for gardens staff--the sage green polo and a hunter green button-down. Jack was wearing the latter today with the sleeves half rolled, half shoved up his thick forearms.

She could smell pine and grass, the slightly sweet scent of decomposed soil, sunscreen, and a hint of sweat. It wasn't the designer scent of cologne, but one you'd find in a well-loved sweatshirt, something threadbare and broken in, warm and unfairly soft. Like he sweats a lot, but somehow it smells good. Tansy couldn't explain it, but she understood this now. He smelled unquestioningly, oddly, irritatingly good. And because it was so unmanufactured, she had to wonder if there were pheromones involved here. Body chemistry.

Which would be entirely unfair, given that she despised this man.
====
These descriptions! GAH! I never thought I’d swoon over a botanist, but here we are. I need to see these forearms in person.

Okay, first -- I LOVED THIS BOOK! I loved this book so much. I have been a huge Melanie Sweeney fan since I was about 15% in on Take Me Home, and by the time I got to 100%, I was willing to make her matching BFF bracelets. She was my favorite author discovery last year. I was so happy when I got approved on Netgalley to read her newest book early.

Briar, Tansy’s young daughter, was the perfect thread tying Tansy and Jack together, adding depth and warmth to their dynamic. She wasn’t just there for the sake of the plot—she mattered, and that made the romance all the more meaningful. Briar is struggling since surviving the hurricane, and Jack becomes a comfort blanket for her in the form of a hot, human man. (I get it, Briar.) Jack handles this adorable kid’s attachment to him in beautiful stride, which just makes this grumpy guy even more endearing to me. And Jack? He is so adorably grumpy at parts. He elicited many giggles. And heart eyes. And a sudden interest in plants. :-D His past broke my heart. The damage he carried made me feel fiercely protective of him, and seeing him slowly let his guard down, even as he fought his feelings, was so incredibly well done. The tension, the banter, the emotional push and pull—Melanie Sweeney knows what she is doing.

Now, before I get to Tansy, our main female heroine, I have to preface this first. I am currently reading a different book where the main character is flawed, as we all are, but who I just canNOT get on board with. I’m tired of her whining, how the crazy level of just plain wrong she is directly correlates with how selfish and self-serving she is, and I want the book to be over already. It is not an easy feat for an author to write an imperfect character who has vices that are difficult to overlook, especially when they stem from pride and selfishness, and make that character someone the reader still wants to root for. I especially know that now because I’m suffering through this other book that has this exact problem, and the author, unfortunately, has not exhibited the skills needed to keep this reader from wanting to poke that character with a fork. Not deeply enough that it cuts, but definitely deeply enough that it leaves a temporary imprint. I share this because Melanie Sweeney has a character in her book whose flaws stem directly from her pride and selfishness (a byproduct of that pride), but where the author I’m currently reading has failed, Melanie Sweeney has magnificently prospered!

And that character is Tansy, our female heroine. Tansy was a very complicated character for me, which I appreciated. No one is perfect. Everyone has their shortcomings. Everyone has elements of good and bad, and Tansy definitely had her good and bad. I was SHOCKED that Tansy did not evacuate a hurricane when she had a child. Then I thought that maybe her backstory reflected experience with hurricanes and through recounted history, we’d learn that the norm for her family was to stay put and they always survived them. That can normalize something as crazy as a freaking hurricane. I grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas, which is right along the Gulf of Mexico (MEXICO, THE GULF OF MEXICO) and we have been under many a hurricane watch. My mom grew up with them, and she didn’t evacuate when Hurricane Cecilia hit. Surviving something like that, if nothing life threatening happened, can downplay the urgencies of future hurricanes. This was not shared about Tansy, so I was irritated with her. That still was not enough to count Tansy out as a character for me. The first glimpse of how Tansy’s pride could become a problem is when the rescue team shows up at her home after the hurricane. They are knee deep in water, and she realizes the person manning the boat is the man who insulted her at the beginning of the book (Tansy basically almost stranded herself, therefore possibly leading to her death and leaving her child motherless, to rescue birds from her library, and the man - our handsome, handsy, well equipped male heroine, Jack - was not shy in letting her know how idiotic he thought that was.) So what is Tansy’s first instinct when she sees Jack on this boat? To PASS! To say she will remain in knee deep water with her CHILD and wait for the next boat because she’s mad at this handsome dude. Tansy’s very eclectic and adorable kid, Briar, gives her an admonishing, “MOM!” and Tansy, thankfully, snaps out of it and accepts the ride. But I should have known this was a glimpse of things to come with our dear Tansy.

Readers eventually will learn that Tansy’s pride is so big it couldn’t even eclipse her CHILD, and it is so obvious how much she loves her kid. Tansy’s house has been destroyed on the inside by the hurricane. Walls, flooring, everything. She soon finds out that because she did not have flood insurance, her home insurance will not cover the full repairs. Tansy’s ex, and her child’s father, is incredibly financially secure and repeatedly offers her financial assistance, which she routinely refuses because she has this “independent woman” schtick that is more important than ensuring her daughter is living in a safe and comfortable home. If anyone should have been worth swallowing her pride for, it should have been Briar. This is Tansy’s only imperfection. It’s a HUGE one, but it just makes her growth so much more meaningful when it’s Jack who helps her realize that leaning on someone does not make her lesser, nor does not diminish what she has accomplished. So when Briar’s father, Charlie, discovers the real state of the home their daughter has been living in, he is right to be upset (although it is probably more fueled by the jealousy of discovering how much time Jack has been spending with Tansy and Briar). I believe that if he’d taken this to court, a judge would agree that Tansy was an unfit parent to have permitted them to live in those conditions when better alternatives were available to her. And these are all things Tansy eventually realizes, and I LOVED IT. I love when an author can write a flawed character so well that we are rightly agitated with them so much that we’re talking to ourselves in a room at a book that cannot talk back, but still feel endeared to that same character at the same time, and then create believable circumstances that allow the character to evolve into someone we LOVE. This is easily one of my favorite reads for 2025.

This is easily one of the best enemies-to-lovers romances I’ve read in a long time. If you love complex characters, emotional depth, and a romance that feels hard-earned and deeply rewarding, this book is a must-read.

Thank you so much to Melanie Sweeney for writing this gem, to Penguin/GP Putnam's Sons for signing this amazing person and publishing her books, and to Netgally for making this available to read early.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Okay, so this book was great. I initially groaned a little at the introduction of Briar as I don’t usually enjoy child characters (kids in books often feel too cutesy or trite). However, Briar was an essential part of both Tansy and Jack’s character development and brought depth to the story in a way that I haven’t found before. I loved Melanie Sweeney’s support of the LGBTQIA+ community, individuals with neurodivergence, and those experiencing poverty. I will for sure hold space for any new Melanie Sweeney books on my TBR.

So much is packed into this hopeful, sweet, swoony love story between a resourceful librarian/single mom and a grumpily kind plant daddy. Go get it. Like, right now. 

Tansy's life was upended by a horrific hurricane, making her home barely livable and her temporary library at the local botanical gardens in jeopardy of being closed for good. 

Jack is the grump who saved her and her kid in the aftermath of the storm, but also the guy in charge at the gardens who bristles at the encroachment of Tansy and her colorful team as they try to reach the community's needs. 

Agreeing to a truce forces them both out of their comfort zone, making them aware of how deeply their heels were dug into a place that held them back. Their quiet, lovely love story is surrounded by other loves, too, like of family, friends, coworkers, and community. It was funny and moving and visual and observant and tingly and hopeful and I genuinely didn't want it to end. 

For fans of:
- Books about booklovers (librarians!)
- Plant daddies
- Inclusive cast of characters
- Community overcoming hardship 
- Cinnamon roll wrapped up in big, hunky grump
- Workplace romance

Thanks to Putnam Books for the ARC of this sweet book! I read Melanie Sweeney's debut novel and really enjoyed it, so I was excited to dive into this one! Where You're Planted is an enemies to lovers story, but felt a little more mature than your typical enemies to lovers storyline. I personally enjoyed that because as a thirty something mom, it was fun to read about another thirty something mom. Tansy is a single Mom and a librarian who is reeling after a hurricane upended all aspects of her life. Her library branch is temporarily moved to a public garden in Houston where she initially has trouble working with the director, Jack. Jack has a tough exterior and seems very inconvenienced by Tansy being there. They bicker back and forth until they finally find a common ground. Jack forms an unlikely bond with Tansy's daughter and then Tansy herself. I enjoyed this one because, I feel like the emotions behind all of the characters different circumstances felt very realistic and also the love story was sweet while being a little bit of a slow burn. 5 stars overall and I would definitely read more books by Melanie Sweeney!

This book was a pleasant surprise. A librarian and a gardener have to learn how to share space after a hurricane comes through and destroys their town and the library. As someone who has lived through several devastating hurricanes, the community and rebuilding aspect felt very genuine and realistic. The romance built nicely and authentically. I thought the story also showcased realistic episodes of panic attacks and anxiety. Overall, the story felt like a breath of fresh air.

Jack and Tansy get off on the wrong foot during a hurricane. Tansy feels responsible to save the library’s birds and Jack gets rude under pressure. The library becomes a hazard after the hurricane and Jack is forced to share his gardens with Tansy. She’s bossy, powerful and infuriating. He’s grumpy, stand offish, and a secret sweetheart. The pair butt heads to begin with but soon their strong feelings got from hate to lust to maybe love.

This is such a fun story filled with so much banter, a cute grump, and the best spicy scenes. Jack is basically Luke Danes in gardener form. Grumpy but obsessed with Tansy in the sweetest ways. Once I started I just couldn’t put this book down. It was over too soon. Ugh. I knew it was going to be good because I enjoyed her first book, but this one was even better. If you like enemies to lovers and grumpy x sunshine this one’s for you!

Enemies to lovers
Grumpy sunshine
Caught in the rain
Single Mom

Thanks G.P. Putnam and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Where You’re Planted by Melanie Sweeney is a heartfelt book. The FMC, Tansy is a librarian and single mom while the MMC, Jack is a gruff and grumpy assistant director of the botanical gardens. The two meet during a hurricane, and Jack ends up rescuing Tansy and her daughter. Their first couple of interactions don’t go so well. After the hurricane destroys the library where Tansy works, the library temporarily moves into a space at the botanical gardens much to Jack’s chagrin.

I adored this dual POV story telling. I loved getting both main characters perspectives. Both main characters have to learn to work together and open up to the possibility that they are more than just archenemies at work. Their relationship transforms from enemies to friends to something more.

I loved seeing both main characters’ growth throughout the story. I also enjoyed all the side characters in this book, they were great additions to the story.

This is overall a sweet contemporary romance that is definitely worth a read.

Thank you to Penguin Group Putnam, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, and NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

3.5 stars rounded up

I am a huge fan of Sweeney. I absolutely loved her last book, so I knew I had to get my hands on this one.

I will be honest when I say I found the first half of the book to be a bit boring. Sweeney was trying to make this an enemies to lovers trope (I think) but I didn’t really feel it. I thought Tansy had a bit of a bad attitude toward Jack but I didn’t feel it was justified. I was confused by it but for the sake of the story I went along with it.

When we hit the 50% mark of the book it started to pick up. I was rooting for these two.

I loved all the insight into the plants and how Jack connected with Briar. Sometimes when there are kids in the books it can either be lacking or too much, but I thought this was perfect.

I do feel there were many unanswered questions regarding kids, Sophie, and Charlie…but I’m okay with it.

I can’t wait to see what this author comes up with next!

*An ARC was received in exchange for an honest review.