Review: Forrest for the Trees by Kilby Blades

Forrest for the Trees by Kilby Blades
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARV via Smartypants Romance, all opinions are my own.

Do you like enemies to lovers with a little bit of a mystery involved? If you do this book is for you! This follows National Park Ranger Sierra Betts through the Smokey Mountains as she patrols her territory and banters with Federal Fire Marshal Forrest Winters. Forrest is always doing something to annoy Sierra, eating the bacon bites she makes for the other Rangers at her post, cracking jokes, and generally just being around where she doesn't want him. Side note, can we get the recipe for those bites?

As strange fires keep popping up in Sierra's territory, Forrest is led to believe that they have an arson case on their hands. When red tape and sketchy park politics come into play, Forrest and Sierra decide to work together to find out what is really going on in the park they love so much. As they get to know each other, Sierra realizes that Forrest isn't so bad after all and they start to develop real feelings for each other. As they begin to close in on the real fire starters, Sierra has to reveal to Forrest a secret that she's been keeping and hope that he won't feel betrayed.

This was great! This touches on several different social issues. I felt the social issues were well woven into the storyline and the message came across without taking away from the plot. There was a good balance of romance, character interaction, chemistry, and the investigation itself. Sometimes I find that when you throw all of those things together one of those things overtakes the story, but I felt like every element was given just the right amount of spotlight to shine. I thought both Sierra and Forrest were well developed and the world building was well done. I felt like the scenery and situations were well described.

If you like slow burn romance with an enemies to lovers vibe and a little bit of a suspense element to it, give this a go. Like all of the books in the Pennyverse/Smartypants Universe this is a standalone and features characters from other books written by Penny Reid or the other authors that have written books in or around Green Valley.

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