Loving the Mountain Man by Adriana Anders

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The December prompt for the Smart Women Read Romance's patreon exclusive review was Winter. The book that won the poll was Loving the Mountain Man by Adriana Anders. This is the 3rd book in her Love at Last series. I was able to apply this to the Winter Wonderland (white on the cover) prompt for Merry + Bright, facial hair prompt for Winter's Kiss and trapped in a snowstorm (only one bed) prompt for Banging Through the Snow.

Christa drives up to a holiday party at her boss's cabin in the mountains. When she arrives and finds out that she wasn't notified that the party was cancelled and he makes unwanted advances to her, she escapes. When driving back down the mountain quickly, she hits some black ice and ends up going over a cliff. Before her car can completely hit the bottom, she gets saved last minute by another cabin owner Micah. He takes her home and they call the police and her family. When a blizzard shows up overnight, she's stranded with the burly mountain man until the roads become passable. Micah is a recluse after serving in the army and losing one of his legs. He hasn't had much contact with women and feels a pull towards Christa that he hasn't felt in years.

As I mentioned before this is the third book in her series. I have not read the first two and didn't have time to squeeze them in with all the readathons and challenges I participated in. This read well as a standalone and I don't think that it connects too much to the other books outside of Micah maybe being friends with the heroes. Maybe? I'm still not sure. Anyways, this is also the first book I've read by Adriana Anders. Loving the Mountain Man was a quick instalust read. It was cute and there was a lot going on, but I wish that either it was longer or didn't take too much on. We have the sexual assault on Christa, Micah's a disabled veteran, Christa is plus size (or more normal size) and then we have the stress of her surviving death and being snowed in together. 

I think that Christa and Micah had good chemistry when they were getting intimate, but I did want more emotional development between them and more conversations. This is a hard one to rate for me. I'm thinking maybe a 3.5-star but rounded up to 4. I just was felt wanting in the end and don't know if I believe in the HEA. Yes the HFN, but not the HEA. There just some times when we were being told and not shown. I also wanted some recognition of the fact that she was so turned on as apart of the adrenaline/aftereffects of almost dying. She mentions that's partly why she's into him, but not in the way that I felt it should've been addresses. Or at least also factored in. But it was good.

I would definitely be interested in trying more of her works. It looks like the other two books in this series were novellas that were added to and rereleased, so I don't know how different I'd feel about those. I know she has a suspense series that some booktubers I follow liked, so maybe I'll try those. I'm always happy to try a new author and while this was set at Christmas, it wasn't super Christmas-y. If you're looking for a holiday set novella that isn't fully holiday based, certainly give this one a try. I had a lot of fun during the live review and can't wait to see what books get chosen next year!

Have you read Loving the Mountain Man?

Bookishly Yours, 

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Loving the Mountain Man, Adriana Anders, 4-stars, 1 day, eBook, 236 pages, published in 2019