Nothing To Lose by Darlene Fredette is a quick read about second chances, finding your feet and falling in love.

I've put off writing this review for months because I wasn't entirely sure how to word what I had to say about the book. I've decided to be honest with how I perceived the book, and so this review may appear a bit blunt in places largely because the book was a bit hit and miss for me personally. That's not to say that it is a bad book by any means – in fact I loved the concept, and the couple have a super cute meet and some really great chemistry and the story showed a lot of promise – but I just failed to connect with the characters and was hyper aware that was I was reading was words on a screen. This review is strictly my opinion at the time of reading the book and I'm sure many people felt differently about it.

For me personally, a book's experience largely comes from how invested in the characters I become; I want to feel their emotions, live and breath every moment with them and feel like I'm on the ledge making those hard decisions with them. I'm an emotional person and reader in turn, so connecting with the characters is massive for me. In story it's everything, and sadly with this book I just didn't engage with them on an emotional level. Which is a shame because I really liked the characters themselves and the story as a whole, but because I didn't fully engage with them, I was conscious of the fact that I was reading a book, and thus the story as a text was always close to my mind.

I think one of my biggest issues with this book was how super quick the story was. I read the book cover to cover in under two hours and was left kind of reeling by how quickly everything happened in the story. My head was spinning with the track changes the story made so fast, which meant I constantly checked previous paragraphs to make sure I hadn't missed aspects in the giant leaps the book was taking. In the end the narrative just felt rushed. The character development could have been more fleshed out a bit more and the events slowed down a bit, which in turn would have allowed me to form an attachment to the characters themselves. Instead the book chugged on full steam and I was left scrambling to catch up. This staggering pace of the book then lead to a few more issues which resulted in flat dialogue and a rather large amount of clichés that further more distanced me from the characters and the story itself.

Nothing To Lose has the perfect setting for this book. The small family run bakery means the story becomes more intimate for the characters, but it also forces them together a lot more. The added addition of food, especially extra sweet and sugary goodness, makes the romance in this book a bit more sweet and steamy without being too explicit or over the top. What's more the themes of second chances and falling in love are universal and Fredette nails these aspects of the story.

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of slow burn romances, which this book is most definitely not, but if you are looking for something a bit more fun, flirty and a bit more light hearted – say a quick summer read – then this book is sure to his your needs and time constraints.