There’s never a dull moment at the Crooked Rock Urban Indian Center.Rayanne Larson knows firsthand the struggles of native people. Working at Crooked Rock gives her the chance to do good work for Indians living in the city. She has high hopes for the Center’s progress until its new leader hands her special project over to his underachieving—and distractingly sexy—nephew.Henry Grant’s life is … Grant’s life is going just fine. Though he knows rez life, he’s always been an urban Indian. He has no interest in the Indian Center job his uncle pushes on him. That is, until he meets Rayanne. She’s attractive and smart, and like no woman he has ever met.
Rayanne is determined to keep her distance but when the Center faces a crisis, the two of them are forced to work together and she can no longer ignore the sparks between them.
*It’s not a true cliffhanger but there are unresolved story elements that carry over into the next book.
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Yes! A Native romance written by a Native author. I’m here for it.
This is a sweet, fade-to-black romance, which is generally not my thing (I’m all about the full-steam-ahead romances), but I enjoyed the overall story about the Urban Indian Center so much that I hardly noticed when the romance didn’t get all naughty.
My favorite thing was the humor. Oh goodness, Native humor is the best! So deadpan and dry, I was howling with laughter a few times. I also really enjoyed that the story focused on Urban Indians displaced from their tribal community, looking to connect with other Natives in their city. As someone who lives 500 miles away from my tribe, that aspect of the story really touched me.
Found it to be an easy read. Enjoyed the characters
I loved this book. I felt so much empathy for the main characters who each felt that their skills and talents were underappreciated, but were so motivated to keep trying to make things better. I found myself deeply invested in the fate of the small nonprofit and its staff working so diligently to help their community. I’m very much looking forward to the other books in this series.
Great Story
This was a great story about a group of people trying to find and give help to Indian people who don’t live in the reservation. They try to provide services and information for help. But it all can be in jeopardy when the building their were trying to get falls through.
This series has very engaging characters; it provides a look into the world of Native American people struggling to maintain culture and identity. The romance is original and compelling. Looking forward to the next in series.
Looking forward to reading next book
Positive view of Natives, negative view of non-natives. Unfortunately few get the problem and fewer see the solution.
This particular book is an #ownvoices Native American romance. Would love to find more books like this!
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Highlights
Banter not only between the hero and the heroine, but between them and the secondary cast as well.
The characters felt like a tight-knit group/family. I really enjoyed what they feeling brought to the story.
Henry and Rayanne both went through a lot of growth, but I particularly enjoyed Henry’s character development. I enjoyed seeing a romance hero who didn’t “have it all together” right from the get go. It brought a certain level of vulnerability to his character as he faced his internal and external challenges.
Henry and Rayanne had such a loveable relationship and such good chemistry.
The emphasis on community and community connections was super well done.
I’m definitely intrigued and invested enough that I’m looking forward to reading more of this series.
October 16, 2020
Interesting glimpse, sweet and spicy romance.
The politics and maneuvering of an Indian Cultural Center was enlightening and upsetting. The racism that seems to be the norm is awful. The romance and friendships of the younger crowd was fun. But, the sex was a bit too explicit for this old lady.
I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn’t. The characters just seemed immature and incompetent
Too Slow moving to be very interesting to me.
I couldn’t get into this book and gave up after 5-6 chapters, I think. I ended up deleating this from my Kindle
Very slow moving, kind of boring
Too many unrelated details and repetitions.