A Photo Finish by Elsie Silver

TL;DR: A great example of a grumpy/sunshine type of story.
Source: Netgalley, thank you to the publisher!

Plot: Two people who had an online fling end up forced in close quarters and have to work things out. This was pretty original (for me) in the setup.
Characters: I liked these characters okay, though Violet wasn’t my favorite. She’s very pushy.
Setting: You gotta love a ranch right? This one wasn’t as rich on setting and focused much more on their inner monologue.
Romance: These two had it bad for one another and that was very obvious.

Thoughts:

I really liked A Photo Finish by Elsie Silver, with some caveats. This one is a great take on a grumpy/sunshine with Violet, who finally has her dream job as a jockey. She wins her first big race and in that moment in the winners ring comes face to face with the man she had an intense online fling with a few years ago. Not only that but he’s her boss’s brother in law and she’s forced to share a house after an injury soon after.

Violet is for the most part, very positive and go getter. She goes for what she wants and works hard to get it. Cole is a veteran with PTSD and he’s intense withdrawn. At the beginning of this Cole was a huge asshole, like HUGE asshole. But he slowly comes around and we see more of his personality and why he is the way he is. I started off disliking him and slowly grew to understand him on a lot of levels and I really appreciated a twist that Elsie snuck in there. Violet on the other hand began to feel pushy and abrasive and I lost a lot of love for her in the later half.

Their romance is intense. You can tell they have it bad for each other, and I liked the setup and ranch. My main issue was just Violet and especially her treatment of Cole in the last portion of the book. He suffers from PTSD from seeing his father’s death and augmented by his time in the military. As someone with personal experience with that I really, really, hated how she treated him and his triggers and anxiety. I’m aware it’s going to be different for each person, but if someone treated me that way I would absolutely not react how he did and even reading it was upsetting.

That’s a small complaint, and one that I do know is entirely personal to my own brain/emotional soup. Otherwise this was a very good romance, with clear chemistry and a fun arc to follow. If you like Elsie Silver this one is probably going to be a hit for you.