IF ALL ELSE SAILS by EMMA ST CLAIR is a delightfully witty novel with really believable characters and some hard earned romance!
There has always been bad blood between Josie and her brother Jacob’s best friend and client, Wyatt Jacobs, the famous ice hockey star. When Jacob asks her to nurse the grumpy sportsman back to health after he has had an unfortunate accident and become a total recluse, she only accepts because she could use the money he promises to pay her……
There is false arrest for trespassing, a battle of wills in the “little murder cottage”, infection causing delirium and a sailing trip, which all lead to the two of them slowly getting to know one another…….
I loved the book and cannot recommend it highly enough as a fun and enjoyable read.
I was given a free copy of the book by NetGalley from Thomas Nelson. The opinions in this review are completely my own.

This romance is a twist on the grumpy/sunshine trope as both characters are outwardly grumpy yet seem to have warm hidden interiors. Wyatt is a professional athlete who is trying to recover from an unexpected injury during the offseason, but the process has not been going smoothly. Enter Josie, his agent’s sister and also a nurse, who he has an unexplained contentious history with.

As the two go on a sail down the ICW together during the tail end of his recovery, they start bonding and the walls and miscommunications that were built up over the years start to crumble. This book is a cute example of finding love if you are brave enough to open yourself up to opportunities.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced digital copy.

thank you net galley for the arc in exchange for an honest review!

honestly this book was pretty meh! the slow burn was slow burning and the female main character had a lot of hang ups that I felt were resolved very quickly but not at all and then you turned pages and it was the epilogue.

overall it was a fine read but I wouldn't re-read!

read if you like:
- slow burn
- enemies to lovers
- one bed trope
- he falls first and harder
- hockey player/ nurse
- closed door romance

I enjoyed this, it was alot of fun. the pacing felt really slow at times but I still had fun. I will read more from Emma

Emma is an auto-buy author of mine and when I got approved for this i was jumping to the moon.

It was everything you could want from a book. The story was well done.

This book was everything I hoped it would be! I think I’ve found a new favorite author! The witty banter between main characters kept me laughing and I couldn’t put the book down. I found myself saying, “One more chapter,” at the end of every chapter until to my surprise I was at the end and it was almost 1 am. I had a great time reading and I look forward to reading more from Emma St Clair!

I liked this but I didn’t love it. It fell a bit flat for me primarily due to pacing issues. The novel shines in moments of witty dialogue and engaging chemistry between the characters. It was those moments kept me invested but unfortunately, they were overshadowed by sections that dragged, making it hard to stay engaged or find the motivation to keep going. The slower pacing made certain parts feel unnecessarily drawn out, which impacted my overall enjoyment.

That said, when the book was good, it was really good. The humor, the tension and the character dynamics worked well. I just wish the story had moved at a tighter pace to keep that momentum going. With a few tweaks this could’ve been rated higher for me.

The book features witty dialogue between characters, but its slow pace made it difficult to stay engaged. Thank you, Net Galley for the arc version of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.