ARC Review: Close Enough to Touch by Victoria Dahl

I hate to say it but I wan't the biggest fan of this book. Not that I disliked it, but it was just okay to me. After reading Dahl's last series I had very high expectations going into this book. I guess I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. Both the hero and the heroine got on my nerves. They were both just so whiny about everything in their lives that after a while it just became annoying to keep reading.

Cole whines about not being able to be the cowboy that he is. He was injured a year ago and may never be able to ride again. I get that, I understand his dilemma, my problem is that is all he thinks about. Well that, and the time he left for two months to go off to Hollywood. To me it felt like all Cole does throughout the whole book is harp on his past. I just thought his affliction to anything Hollywood was over the top. But despite his whiny attitude, I did enjoy Cole. I liked that he was a gentleman.

Grace is makeup artist who is down on her luck and out of money so she decides to try to make a go at it in Wyoming. Grace begins living on a ranch that her aunt owns and hopes to save enough money that she will be able to move on to Vancouver in a few weeks. I don't know what it was exactly, but I just never was really able to warm up to Grace. She's hard, mistrustful and is constantly pushing everyone around her away. I just wanted her to stop being so closed off with everyone and to accept that there are people who are genuine and nice.

As for the relationship between Cole and Grace, I never understood it. I guess I felt like the feelings they both felt were superficial because in the book it didn't come off as if they truly cared for one another. Yes, I believe they were both attracted to each other, but I never felt like there was any romance between them. Grace is so closed off and Cole hides from anything Hollywood that it just felt like a relationship filled with hooking up. They are continuously having these random one night stands that never really lead to anything else. Then all of a sudden I am supposed to believe that they love each other. It just didn't come across like that to me at all. I think that the relationships Grace and Cole were experiencing with everyone around them was more believable than their own.

Don't get me wrong, by no means did I hate this book. In fact I rather enjoyed certain parts of it and found the book engaging and hard to put down. I loved all of the secondary characters we are introduced to and I can't wait to read more with them. I just wasn't the biggest fan of the romance between Grace and Cole. I will say though, that some of their scenes together was very sexy.

All in all, this was an okay read for me. It succeeded in keeping my attention and I'm definitely intrigued to see where this series is going to go from here.

**ARC copy provided by NetGalley**

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