Book Review: The Hot Honey Hideaway

Hot Honey Hideaway is the 4th book in the Maple Falls series by Harper Graham and follows Krista and Joe.

Krista has made appearances in the series before as she’s been in Maple Falls living with her grandparents since she was 16 and is friends with the main characters from the previous books. Joe is a photojournalist visiting Maple Falls for work. Krista helps run her grandparents’ campground and owns and operates the Hot Honey Hideaway – a coffee and cocktail cafe/bar that is her passion project. But with her grandfather getting older and unable to do as much of the physical work around the campground and her grandmother’s dementia worsening, Krista believes she needs to sell the Hideaway in order to devote more of her time to keeping the campground running.

One evening during Krista and her friends’ cocktail club at the Hideaway, they invite Joe to join and during a game of truth or dare, Krista and Joe are dared to swap lives for a week. They will teach each other how to do their jobs and swap roles and homes (Krista’s apartment and Joe’s tent at the campground) for a week. The dare turns into a town fundraiser to benefit the camp. Krista and Joe, who were already instantly attracted to one another, are now working closely together for the swap and to help out Krista’s grandparents.

I enjoyed this book and I loved Krista and Joe. The book was cute and fun and I really appreciated how openly the two of them communicated with one another. There wasn’t any miscommunication or immaturity. Of course there was conflict and they couldn’t just get together and live happily ever after without any issues, but their obstacles came from both of them feeling a sense of responsibility and not wanting to stand in each other’s way (from their perspective). As much as I liked Krista and Joe, I didn’t find myself as hooked or as invested in this book and story as I was to the previous books in the series. I’m not sure why since I did love the characters and the storyline wasn’t bad. I just never got hooked.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy the book and loved being back in Maple Falls.

Thank you to Bookouture for the copy!

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