I loved this book!! The Idaho setting was beautiful!! The romance and chemistry between these characters was absolutely amazing! Such a wonderful debut novel!

A sweet, closed-door romance that balances humor and depth. I appreciated the autism rep and navigation of complicated themes in a romcom. Recommended for readers of wholesome romance.

8/10

This book was not what I expected although I do think it was beautiful. It’s a story about grief and forgiveness. You could really feel for the FMC. Lili has a tragic past and a rocky relationship with her mom. Her mom convinces her to come out and visit her in Idaho. As she is nearing the town a cow is in the middle of the road. She is forced off the road and is stuck in the mud. Blake happens to be driving by and helps her. Blake also has a tragic past and is raising his young daughter who has autism. This story has all the feels. It’s about 2 people with heartbreaking pasts coming together.

#netgalley #netgalleyreads #netgalleyreviewer #netgalleyreview #netgalleyarc #netgalleyreader #arc #advancedreaderscopy #advancedreadercopy #whathappensinidaho

Thank you Rising Action Publishing Co. and Netgalley for the copy in exchange for my honest review!

Idaho... an interesting setting for a romance, which is part of what intrigued me initially.

We get the small-town setting every good romance has, we get the traumatized educated newcomer FMC, and the sexy single dad townie MMC - we need SOME uniqueness here, please! It had a lot of heartfelt moments, but many of the events felt forced rather than organic. This is a debut novel, and it shows a lot of promise, so I'm hopeful about her next book!

An amazing debut novel . Liliana has lost eight years ago her husband and her 2 year daughter when they where hit by a car and she still is grieving . She is a trauma surgeon and is visiting her mother after 8 years because she told her that she has to give her something from her dead father . Few miles away from home she has a car accident thanks to a cow and the person who happens to help her is the handsome mechanic Blake . Blake is a single father to a six year daughter Maddie and also helps Liliana mother whenever she needs him . While she waits for her car to be fixed she spent time with Blake and she starts to fall for both him and his daughter . Blake is struggling with his feelings for Lili because of the secret he keeps from her . When she finally learn his secret will she give him a chance ?
I received this book from netgalley and the publicer as an ARC . Thank you . All thoughts and opinions are my own .

This one just never fully clicked for me. I couldn't make myself fall in love with the characters (except Maddie, she was perfect) Blake & Lili were both a little too flawed for me, They needed to communicate earlier. Also Lili's relationship with her mother felt unrealistic. If she hated her that much, fly home or get a hotel or something. I liked the deeper plot of Lili's loss and how Blake felt connected, but I feel like that conversation should have come a lot earlier in the book. I think there is someone out there who this book could be their new favorite, I'm just not that person.

To start, thank you for the ARC!

This book was not my cup of tea, which was on me because I knew going into it that I'm not the biggest fan of these kinds of relationship; where one of them is a widow(er). It also didn't help that I couldn't really connect with the characters, so much so that I couldn't even remember Liliana's name until the 80% mark.

The premise itself felt very much like like Liliana's deceased husband and kid were being replaced by Blake as his kid which also rubbed me the wrong way.

Overall, I am not the biggest fan, but I appraciate the opportunity to read it!

This book gave me all the feelings. I appreciated Lili's grief and commitment to her work and how being home stirs up so many emotions and past connections. And Blake's secret has been eating away at him-and he's not sure how it will impact this mutual attraction. There's definitely some drama to go with all the big feelings as they both confront the sparks. I enjoyed the side characters, especially Lili's best friend. I also loved the small town setting. This was a nice weekend read.

Thanks to the publisher for sharing a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I wasn't sure what to expect getting into this book, I thought I would be pretty surface and fun. It got way deeper than I was expecting with fully fleshed out characters, backgrounds and redemption arcs throughout. I was so excited for the setting and it brought the atmosphere I was looking for. I've been a huge midwest kick craving a romance. A beautiful debut!
Thank you for the chance to read it.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to both NetGalley and the author for granting me the opportunity to read and review this book with complete honesty. Initially, I held high hopes for this novel, yearning to fall in love with its captivating storyline. However, regrettably, the connection I sought with the characters never materialised. In conclusion, while I appreciate the opportunity to delve into this novel, I must confess that it failed to capture my heart due to the inability to establish a profound connection with the characters. Nevertheless, I commend the author for their skill in crafting a genuine and evolving relationship between Liliana and Blake, even if certain plot choices felt contrived. It is no secret that each individual experiences the grieving process in their own unique way. In the case of Liliana, however, I found it challenging to resonate with her emotions. Despite constantly being haunted by the tragic deaths of her beloved husband and daughter, it felt as though she merely discussed her grief without truly embodying it. This lack of emotional depth left me feeling somewhat distant from her character. On the other hand, the dynamic between Liliana and Blake gradually unfolded in a natural and beautiful manner throughout the narrative. Their relationship blossomed, gradually revealing the depth of their connection. However, I must admit that I was disheartened by the turn of events involving Blake's daughter, which mirrored Liliana's own painful past. It seemed to me like an overly convenient plot device, introducing unnecessary complications rather than exploring more nuanced avenues.

I thought this was a great romance book full of laughter, emotions, loss, grief, the whole works. Definitely some heavy sad/loss in the book but the love found after really brings some redemption to their lives and the story overall. I'm a fan of big city meets small town or small town went to big city and comes back to small town. Very Hallmark in that sense and I love it. Bonnie is a great writer and I very much enjoyed this read. As an Idaho girl I was excited to get to read an early copy ARC of this book. 5 star read for me, I recommend this! Thank you Bonnie and Rising Action Publishing for sending me this book!

This book sent me a roller coaster of emotions! I loved the ending and it was really pulling on my heart strings, I did find it a little slow to get into to but oh boy when you get in to it, you are in for a ride!!

what an amazing book!! i'm so thankful to netgalley for letting me read this one early!! it was just so much fun and exciting and sweet!! i had a great time reading this one and you should pick it up!!!

Major spoilers in this review! So read at your own risk.

This book was pretty heavy since it involved the loss of the FMC husband and child, so that made me want to sympathize with the FMC, who also lost her dad at a young age and her mother turned to alcohol (TW: death of husband, death of child, death of parent, Parent with alcoholism) and i feel like i could cut Lili with a lot of slack for all the trauma she has endured. But i just couldn’t like her a main character. She was overly critical and harsh to Blake and him as a single parent.

Blake is TOO much of a hero. In an accident, I don’t think they would let someone injured assist? Seemed like a liability. I also think he should have been more conscious as a single parent that he is ALL Maddie had left!! You CANNOT leave Maddie Blake! I will fight you. So I didn’t really like Blake as a main character either.

The best character in this whole book i Maddie, and i would die for pirate captain. Long live Captain Maddie!!

What Happens in Idaho is a return to home story that deals a lot with grief and trauma. It is a sweet closed door romance with likeable main characters. I really loved Blake and Maddie’s relationship.

I will say the ending is where I felt it really dragged. Why did we have to spend so much time with Blake at the site. Just too much and that event just seemed a little forced for the story.

This was a rather quick read and overall enjoyable story. Thank you to Net Galley , Bonnie Jo Pierson and Rising Action Publishing for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I’ll give this book a solid three stars. It started out strong, but started lacking towards the end.

I’d like to applaud the author, it’s a solid debut book with rather impressive writing style. Bonnie Jo Pierson does have way with words, she has the ease and skill that makes it pleasant to read. I did enjoy reading this book, which was a nice story of romance, grief and parenthood.
What I enjoyed about “What Happens in Idaho”:
- realistic grief portrayal, it was emotionally charged and and absolutely heartbreaking;
- realistic depiction of a neuroatypical person (as it’s a spectrum, different people have different experiences and stories);
- realistic and relatable retribution story of FMC’s mother.
The book is not a simple romance novel, it gives us a bit more depth and insight, more emotions and storytelling. It’s also rather “clean”.
I did have problem with some parts of it being simply boring and too long. They kind of evened each other out, which is a shame because it made the whole book rather average, when it could be very good.
Overall I find it a quite enjoyable, 3/5.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Rising Action Publishing Co. for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
What Happens in Idaho releases July 16, 2024

Liliana finds herself back in her hometown for the first time since the loss of her husband and child, and becoming a doctor.
This is a love after loss story and contains difficult themes that touch on grief, trauma, car accidents, and rough childhood upbringings tied to parental neglect/abandonment, alcoholism, and the foster system.

The writing was strong to start, but then the plot started to taper out and become a bit stagnant.

I had a hard time rooting for the main characters romantically based on the fact that Blake omitted the truth from Lili the entire time when he knew he played such a large hand in something that was so monumental and traumatic to her; you can’t build a meaningful relationship off of that.

Blake was made to be a jack of all trades character to offset his guilty conscious and show that he was a good guy, but it came off as too much in my opinion. I mean, why bother adding the fact that he volunteers as both an EMT and firefighter in addition to being a mechanic, owning his own business, being a single dad to an autistic child, and always doing free upkeep on Renee’s house, if we don’t even see him doing his side jobs (EMT/firefighter) in <u>Idaho</u>?

The whole reason why Lili came back to Idaho in the first place was because her mother said she had something for her, yet we barely see them converse throughout the entire book. There was a huge lack of closure with the plotline of the life insurance policy and character development between the two.

The last little bit of the story played a big part in the decline of my overall rating.
Having Blake’s autistic, 6 year old kid hiding in the back seat of his car for over 12 hours while he was speeding was a really senseless thing to include.
The car accident from 8 years ago made sense as a main plot thread, and the second one would have been sufficient enough. But to throw in a third felt like delivering a joke to a room with no one laughing. To put that burden on Liliana on top of everything else she had to go through with Blake and her mother felt like a huge slap in the face, especially given the fact that it was basically an exact replica of what happened to her late husband and child — I would have not recovered from that emotionally if I were in her shoes.

Normally romances with heavy hitting themes are my bread and butter, but something about the outcome of this one just didn’t sit right with me.
I walked away feeling like the entire small town was laughing in Lili’s face by how much they disregarded her loss and how they essentially replaced her husband and child with Blake and Maddie; even going as far as calling Renee Maddie’s grandmother when Renee never even treated her own biological offspring as her own.
Again, the past parental neglect and alcoholism didn’t feel like fully resolved threads.

This book sounded so good to me but for some reason I could not connect with the characters. I felt like the book seemed rushed and it focused on parts that were not important to the storyline. The car accident really ruined the book for me. I also just had a really hard time understanding Lili and her choices. Although this book wasn’t for me, I could see others enjoying this.

It was good, but could have been much better. I felt more empathy towards the characters than anything. I could barely feel the romance, I wish there were less drama. A lot of things, unfortunately, felt like easy writing, like for example Blake and Maddie’s accident, just a repeat of what Lily had experienced but with a better ending.

Thanks for the arc