This is the second book in the A Pine Cone Romance novel trilogy series and this time D. Jackson Leigh takes the reigns to tell us Trips love story.

Trip is the cool kid in her small town of Pine Cone and she knows it. She’s a little cocky but has a big heart and is fiercely protective of all she loves. Trip likes the easy life of fast women and fast horses, definitely not ready to settle down. She becomes disgruntled by the incessant new cop in town that keeps smacking parking tickets to her car… doesn’t she know who Trip is? New cop in town is Officer Jamie Grant who is cool as a cucumber until her PTSD springs to life from her days of tours in Afghanistan. Jamie is annoyed with larger than life Trip parking where she wants when she wants with her devil may care attitude, but could she be more annoyed at the woman she left behind at college who broke her heart? Yes, Trip and Jamie were best friends in college and when a three way went wrong with Jamie’s then girlfriend, Trip took the blame for something that was never her fault… She was in love with Jamie and always thought their love was unrequited. Can they now find a way to put the past behind them and rediscover their true feelings?

This book is the unrequited love trope I love with a twist and it made for a charming storyline, one that if I’m honest I did not want to end. I really enjoyed the character dynamic with this book, of two very strong independent women who aren’t looking for love but fall for the one they already love. It is quite an angsty story but in a enjoyable way. I have to say that I found Trip quite arrogant in the first book but all came to light when reading this and I really enjoyed her depth of character that D. Jackson Leigh was able portray, especially in the moments Trip was with Jamie or her friends. Jamie’s character blew me away, she’s been through so much and yet still comes out the other side a good person. Her feelings for Trip are interesting to watch unfold because you get the sense it is all an emotional wall to keep from getting hurt again but when she begins to let her walls down its’ quite exciting to see how their relationship develops, especially when the lies that have shaped their past relationship all come to light. The chemistry and dynamic between these two is fantastic and becomes even more intense when their sexual desires take over.

Before reading this book I highly recommend reading the first book in the series Take My Hand by Missouri Vaun where you will be introduced to Trip as well as the other Pine Cone must read characters.

5 stars

I liked the story and love the author but it was a little challenging to read.  It's the second in a trilogy written by three different authors.  A Pine Cone Romance.  I thought it was going to be similar to one author writes  a story and the second author writes a story and so on.  The way this reads, each author writes their story and overlaps with the other.  Basically, where one stops the other will jump in and take over.  If you are going to read this book, I would start from the first one.  It will help to understand this one better.

href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40168090-take-a-chance" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Take a Chance" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1526665882m/40168090.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40168090-take-a-chance">Take a Chance</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3447277.D_Jackson_Leigh">D. Jackson Leigh</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2452843189">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This is #2 in the Pine Cone Romance trilogy (written by three different authors). <br />Main characters Trip (veterinarian) and Jamie (police officer) shine in this romance with humour, some angst and sex. They are ably supported by Jamie's four legged sidekick Petunia and assorted human and animal friends. Overlapping scenarios aside, I really loved the vein of humour woven beautifully throughout the plot and the author tackled the sticky subjects of PTSD and veteran's homelessness with a sensitive touch. <br />Ms. Leigh has written an enjoyable book worthy of 4 stars.<br />I rec'd an ARC from NetGalley/Bold Strokes Books for an opinion.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31134832-gail">View all my reviews</a>

So, this is book two in the loosely connected Pine Cone series with each book written by a different author, they share a setting and some of the same characters but each focus on a different romantic pairing. Apparently (I looked it up) a "pinecone moment" is a moment when two characters connect and realise they're in love, i.e. in The Sound of Music Maria unwittingly sits on a pointy pinecone at the dinner table and shrieks, much to the Captain's disapproval. Later he admits that that was when he fell in love with her. (All together now, awwwww). Basically, pinecone = mushy! 

I hope that using this name for the series and calling the town 'Pine Cone' is meant to be ironic or at least an in-joke between the three authors, because Jesus Christ this book is riddled with cringey clichés. It could could be read as a tongue in cheek piss-take of the genre and the 'rulebook for lesfic romance', or you could just not read this book at all (you wouldn't really be missing out - I mean butch with androgynous name plays the field because she had her heart broken and now can't trust anyone. New girl arrives in down, hot but has a mysterious past; we've all read that book!). As I read this on my kindle, every time I came across yet another cliché I'd highlight it and make a note, I don't think I've ever had so many notes on a single book. I won't list them all here but we have the poor inner-city kid done good, (she escaped the dangerous projects downtown and went to College), we have our two heroes playing basketball against the local thugs to re-claim the cracked basketball court for the boys & girls club (everybody's a winner in the end) 

"Trip" our local butch is a white Georgia farm and mansion owner with black live in staff, which makes me slightly uncomfortable, there's even a scene where Trip tells Jamie not to pick up after herself as Essie, the housekeeper will enjoy picking them up in the morning! This is later explained away as keeping the old lady going, but still, it's weird). More subtle racism is evident in describing to a POC's skin as "caramel" and "latte". Alex K. Thorne wrote a good blog post about how this fetishises skin colour on the Ylva site (https://www.ylva-publishing.com/2018/...) that really made me aware of just how common a trait this is and more importantly how weird it would be to describe white skin as yoghurt or flour etc. 

I could go on but I'm getting pissed off again now, so I'll stop. 

Oh wait, there are so many discussions about dog fart and horse semen it's bloody hilarious!

If you really want to read a book by this author read Swelter

Sorry to say but I found out that this book is the 2nd instalment of a series. So my POV might be a little different. First of all, it's standalone(lucky me!). Second, I really hope the 1st books is better than this one.
It may be because I haven't read the first book or maybe it's so to established connections with all the three books(too many teasers) but I find it a little cliché that a very small town in the south has that many lesbian and for a standalone novel I recommend to read the 1st book first. Seriously, just three new ladies comes to town and guess what? All of them are lesbians.
Also, I feel like there's too many issues/causes thrown in the story to really feel all of them. And the funny thing is I found out that Jamie is Latino way into the story. I did enjoy it despite all it's shortcomings. If you love dramas and slow burn romance and a very likeable dog, I would recommend it. I'm definitely reading the first book soon!

Book received from Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review.

This is the 2nd book in a 3 book series. Each book concentrating on one of the three main characters.   The first book was about Clay.  This one was about Trip.  And I am assuming the third book will be about Grace.  I liked the first book and was looking forward to this second book.  There were some interesting storylines,  such as Petunia, the service dog, flatulant problem but I felt like the author was trying to throw in too many causes.  There was ptsd, drug runners, veterans dreams, neglected girls and boys clubs, rescue center for unadoptable dogs.  Not to mention the reuniting love story that I felt were better teammates than lovers, but whatever.  Then there was the epilogue that seemed to sweetly solve all the above mentioned problems and added a dash of marijuana spiked brownies.  Onward to book three.

Take a Chance is the second book from Pine Cone, every book is written by a different author, and i loved that!!!!!!!! Each author was given her “specialty” to write around: Missouri Vaun is a real-life artist so Clay is an artist; D Jackson Leigh is an expert on horses and women’s basketball; and VK Powell is a retired police officer and gets to share that expertise with Grace. And now I can’t wait for the third installment in August. This series follows the lives of three friends: Clay, Trip and Grace in the small town of Pine Cone, Georgia. Trip Beaumont is Pine Cone's veterinarian and a well known player. Officer Jamie Grant is the new police officer in town, owner of a drug sniffing dog called Petunia. Trip is intrigued by the elusive officer who frequently writes her parking tickets but when they finally cross paths they realise that they have a conflicted past in common. Will they be able to leave the past behind to build a future together?

Interesting fact about the Pine Cone Romance series, each book is written by a different author.  I didn’t know that coming into reading this and now I kind of want to go back and read the first installment to see what I missed. Saying that, these are stand-alone books so don’t worry if you haven’t read the first book in the series. You won’t be lost. 
Trip Beaumont definitely has the golden touch when it comes to charming the ladies of Georgia.  She’s managed to charm everyone but the new cop in town who keeps writing tickets every time she parks illegally. She’s pretty much funding the police department with home many fines she’s going to have to pay. Little does Trip know that the cop causing her so much trouble is former college friend, Jamie Grant. Jamie has changed a lot sing Trip last saw her. She joined the army after the attacks on 9/11, ended up getting a job in law enforcement and has a trained drug dog with quite a heart breaking medical history. 
At first, Jamie doesn’t want to have anything to do with Trip. Having her heart broken in college and then run the risk of it happening again? No thank you. But slowly they’re drawn together.  Trip is an amazing veterinarian with access to treatment options for Petunia. 
Their romance was well paced. They didn’t immediately jump into bed together. If they would have after the backstory we got, I would have been more than a little annoyed. They spent time together and started to understand each other as adults. 
There were bits that bothered me. Like how is a town that small full of that many LGBT people? I’d love to find a place like that in real life, especially in the deep south. So please, tell me this secret! There were a lot of clichés and I felt that it added to the bleh factor.  That’s kind of why the rating dropped from a four star to a three-point-five star rating. 
It was an easy, quick and decent escape from what my week has been. I’d give it a try if I were you. I’m definitely going back to read the first book in the series to see if it lives up to everyone’s reviews.

Take a Chance is the second book from Pine Cone, and it is quite lovely. The premise is three stories with the same wide cast of characters and recounting mostly the same events, but from the view of three different close friends. This book is written by D. Jackson Leigh who is a favourite of mine, but I am a fan of all three of the series’ writers. The main characters in this book are the local vet and bigwig, Trip, and the newest dynamic duo town, Jamie and P. Wouldn’t you know it, Trip and Jamie have a history! 
I started this book without reading the blurb and not realising the overlap in people and story. I was really pleased when it quickly dawned on me. I don’t think I have seen this done before, certainly not as well, but it really works. The logistics of writing must have been a nightmare for everyone involved.
As expected the writing is tight, very easy to read, and I got the same warm satisfying response as I did from the first Pine Cone Romance, Missouri Vaun’s Take My Hand. On balance I found this be a very enjoyable read but I don’t think it was quite as good as Take My Hand. I didn’t quite get the sense of who Trip and Jamie really are, despite their obvious deep attraction, and their back story could have done with a little more depth. Recommended, 4½ stars, especially as part of the series.

I think it’s a fantastic idea to give each of three authors a main character to develop a story around in a small town. After reading this second installment I’m amazed at how hard it must’ve been to weave the common part of the story together while still being cohesive. Each author was given her “specialty” to write around: Missouri Vaun is a real-life artist so Clay is an artist; D Jackson Leigh is an expert on horses and women’s basketball; and VK Powell is a retired police officer and gets to share that expertise with Grace. And now I can’t wait for the third installment in August.
This version, from Trip’s point of view, runs concurrently with Clay’s point of view in Missouri Vaun’s Take My Hand. I understand that there are parts that other readers find distasteful, such as the elderly housekeeper and the sharing of the more promiscuous lesbians in town, but to me it’s an honest version of small southern towns.
I enjoyed reading about PTSD from Jamie’s POV (plus the details of the drug bust that were only alluded to in the first book) and I especially loved Petunia.
Because each of these three books run at the same time it’s not essential to read them in order. Each is told from a different character’s POV. I loved this book.

*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion*

3.5 Stars. This book is the second of a trilogy, the first one being Take my Hand by Missouri Vaun. This book was about Trip, the local veterinarian and Jamie, a police deputy. Trip keeps getting tickets from Jaime for parking illegally all over town. Jaime, is just trying to do a good job working with the town and her drug dog, Petunia. Trip and Jaime knew each other from college, they were roommates who had some drama happened and lost touch when Jaime left for the military. Trip wants to make up for lost time, where Jaime wants nothing to do with her. 

This book was okay. I enjoyed the writing and the story line of the first one better than this one. There seems to be a little character development but not as much as I would like. It also seemed like there wasn't a lot of build up about their relationship, the first 1/4 or 1/3 Trip did not know Jaime was even in town. It was an okay book I would maybe recommend to some people, but it was not my favorite.

This is part 2/ book 2 in a 3 story set in the town called Pine Cone. 

I loved pretty much everything about this novel. I picked this up and it was hard to put it back. The two romantic leads used to be best friends in college till a poor choice / decision in their personal life lead one to signup with the armed forces while the other decided to go to vet school.

Ten years later, they meet again in the town of pine cone where Jamie has joined the local sheriff's department as a drug identification expert along with her canine partner P who is a drug sniffing expert. While Jamie and Trip don't officially meet untill 1/4th of the book, they do have run ins with each other initially. Trip is small town roayalty whose best friend happens to head the local police department and pretty much gets away with parking violations whereas Jamie abhors rule breakers and continuously issues her with parking tickets! 

The book is funny, heartfelt and with enough details to make the life of the vet and law enforcement interesting. Jamie's work with P is extremely cool and interesting to read (even though P has serious health issues), while Trip's knowledge sharing of dating via horses and cattle is hilarious. 

Throw in some basketball action, a couple of flashback sequences and some PTSD (used extremely well), we get a multilayered romance that is so much more. I wish it hadnt ended when it did and frankly a followup novella (or a missing chapter) with these two would be great. 

Can't wait for the next one.

By the way, I read this one first, which is probably why I loved this one a lot and liked Missori vaun's book less. Those who read the first one, like it more. So I guess the reading order should be based on the story you like less.

I found this book to be troubling in a variety of ways. While other books go out of their way to explain what the characters look like, this one didn’t even try, I had no idea that Jamie was supposed to be Latinx until like 60 percent of the book. Overall a bad story with almost no plot and they spent most of it rehashing what happened in the first book and setting up for the third book. Ian actually very interested in Grace’s story after all the teasers in this one. I think that the characters weren’t very well developed, i also think the dramas that broke hem up was forced and Jamie just got over it so quickly. Like one minute she was angry and the next she is ready to forgive for a chance in Trips pants. Also do not even get me started on he problematic nature of having black “servants” in the south. I don’t care if she is letting the woman live there and giving her family work for her it still seems wrong and vaguely racist. So I did not like this books, and I love some of the authors other works, but this left a bad taste in my mouth.

Hot, summer days in Chicago don’t come cheap. They’re earned by living through 9 months of cold and sometimes brutal weather. I gave up one of these wonderfully sunny days to read Take a Chance, cranked up the AC and enjoyed every bit of the story. I can’t say enough good things about the main characters, Trip and Jamie, the supporting characters of best pals, Grace and Clay, and the rest of their friends and surrogate family. My favorite aspect of the story was definitely the dialogue. Each voice was genuinely distinct depending on the character as well as mood specific. The fact that the dialogue was so dynamic really gave life to the characters. The plot was fine—given another chance at a lost love, can you get it right the second time? Jamie’s battle with PTSD as well as the plight of Adder also added more layers. My only negative about the story was the return of Suzanne. I felt it was totally unnecessary because Jamie and Trip were already invested as was I. The offer of a dream job was more than enough of a temptation. Big recommendation for Take a Chance. I will definitely seek out the other two installments to Pine Cone and more books from this author.

As I was reading this story, I couldn’t help but think of the television show, The Incredible Dr. Pol. As someone who has lived in the city their entire life, I found the very vivid description of Trip’s veterinary  procedures to be quite interesting. I also enjoyed reading about the positive difference adults and teenagers alike can have on children in need.There were also some other very serious issues the author tackled such as PTSD and homelessness. To balance out the seriousness of those issues, the author wrote some hilarious scenes concerning the use of marijuana.
Overall, this was a very enjoyable read!

3.25 Stars. This is the second book in A Pine Cone Romance series. I did not enjoy this as much as the first book that was by Missouri Vaun, but I did still like it. Just as a reminder all three books in this series are by three different authors.

These books are about a group of three best friends and their potential love interests, living in small town Pine Cone. This book stars veterinarian Trip and new police officer Jamie. Trip is not only the vet but also small town royalty because of her family name. She tends to park her big truck anywhere she likes to. As soon as the new officer starts working, Trip starts getting more parking tickets than she can count. Trip is pissed but doesn’t realize the new officer is actually a woman she has a very shaky past with. What will happen when Trip realizes the one woman she can’t forget is actually the new officer?

The way this book was written, the first half is new scenes sprinkled with scenes you would have already read if you read the first book. Then the second half of the book was all new and seems to pick up after the first book ended. Writing this way brought some good and bad points to it. I liked seeing how Trips character interpreted scenes differently than Clay (the star of the first book) did in book one. But there were some scenes that were too much of a repeat that you don’t come away with any new information. I found myself sort of skimming them since I had read them already in book one. VK Powell is writing book three which will be out soon. Another thing I didn’t like is this book gives some spoilers into what will happen in Powell’s book. Reading this book gives the basic romance plot away for what happens in the third book. While I really like the change of three authors writing books in a series, I’m a little worried how the last book will turn out.

When it comes to the good, I enjoyed the main plot of this book. I liked the police work of Jamie’s character and the vet work of Trip. If you are an animal lover, you will enjoy many scenes in this book. Trip was my least favorite character overall so it did take me a while to warm to her. However Jamie’s was really interesting and easy to like.

The romance itself is decent. I like that it took a while for them to get together. The big three words were said a little quickly for my tastes but since they had history I’m more okay with it. I wish there was a tad more chemistry between them. I believed them as a couple, but I wanted more spark.

While I definitely recommend the first book more, this story did keep me reading and I liked it. No big wow moments but a decent read. I am still looking forward to reading the third book; I just hope it’s not ruined by the spoilers from this one.

This was a good book and I was entertained. I loved Trip and her relationship with her best friends. The history between Jamie and Trip was a good touch but I felt like after 18 years they would have needed to talk a bit more before everything was resolved. I liked that Clay and Grace and am looking forward to reading the others novels about them.  Petunia was my favorite part of this book. She was just fantastic!  Overall I enjoyed this book but I felt like I needed more details in a bunch of parts. I love forward to reading D’s next book!!

Umm that took me a long while, all the way through this I kept having to check on goodreads to see if I was reading book 1 again, I don’t know what the authors are trying to accomplish but I really don’t like it, having a feeling you’ve read this book before is not good plus I found this to be just another average romance apart from the dog I wasn’t keen at all, I wasn’t keen on the first book but already requested this before I’d read it, if your looking for a normal run of the mill romance then this is for you, recommended to romance fans.

ARC received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

I knew going in that this was part of a trilogy written by different authors, which was why I was intrigued enough to read it, even given the description, which didn’t exactly grab me as I’m not a huge fan of past lover stories. What I didn’t realise was that the three books take place at the same time (although this extends slightly past where book 1 ended), and this was a mistake in my opinion. The downfall of the overlapping nature of the books means that a ton of spoilers for the third book appear in this one, that wasn’t so apparent from the first to the second books, as not much is revealed about Trip and Jamie in book 1, but having to read very long scenes again here was tedious.  And I’m sure writing three separate stories about the same characters would make keeping the details straight hard, but River’s aunt changes names from the first book (Eve) to this one (Ellen). 

My second major issue was that Trip was my least favourite of the three characters in the first book, and here that was amplified, at least in the first third of the book. Her over inflated sense of self importance was astounding. Here’s what she thinks about being ticketed for parking in front of a hydrant or in no parking spaces, every damn day.

“But she did give weight to her value to the community. And, by God, she was an important person in these parts, and she ought to be able to park wherever she wanted.” Oh please. 

And as with the first book, not only do we have the three main characters and their love interests, but there are also several other bi/lesbian/gay minor characters. Given how many bi/lesbian women there are you’d think there would be enough to go around, but Trip implies she’s going to send the details of one of the women she’s sleeping with to Clay, and that there’s another woman in town that they ‘share’. Gross. 

Trip’s characterisation does get better though, she’s good to her friends, extended family, and other locals, and great with animals. 

I also liked Jamie, (and that she was a POC, although this isn’t really defined until the 70% mark and could have been better used). Her side storyline about homelessness and the people she helped was interesting, but the dilemma with her dog took up way too much space.

Trip and Jamie also hover around each other for much of the first two thirds of the book, then finally discuss the ‘issue’ between them and then wham, ‘we’re over it, let’s get it on’. There’s also a vague miscommunication based on insecurities at the end just like in book 1. 

I didn’t enjoy this as much as book one, and given what I already know about book 3, it’ll be hard for VK Powell to overcome the fact that much of her book has probably already been covered in the first two. I think she got the short straw here. Missouri Vaun lucked out by going first. 

I give this 3 stars, rounding up from 2.75 only because I think the format the authors chose constrained Jackson Leigh here (as she hints in the acknowledgements). If they’d chosen to do a normal trilogy that took place in the same location but over different time periods I think this would have been better.

This book is part of the 'Pine Cone romance' series by three different authors: 'Take my hand' by Missouri Vaun, 'Take a chance' by D. Jackson Leigh and 'Take your time' by V.K. Powell. This series follows the lives of three friends: Clay, Trip and Grace in the small town of Pine Cone, Georgia.

There are series written by an author that usually need to be read in chronological order, series of standalone novels by different authors under a common theme, and the 'Pine Cone romance' series which is a bit peculiar. In this series the three different authors decided to create three romances (one in each book) but with the three stories overlapping. For example, if the three friends share a scene, it will appear in all three books but with a different point of view. D. Jackson Leigh says in her acknowledgements that it was arduous to write. Well, sometimes it's also arduous to read. I personally found some issues, one is that after reading the first book (whichever the order) the reader has sometimes a sense of deja vu, a feeling of having read that before because... they read it in the previous book. It works fine in some scenes as it gives other characters' perspectives but in other cases it is tedious. Also, some events that overlap in the books give information that act as spoilers for the other books' stories which is a bit annoying. Finally, I found that there are a number of unresolved secondary plots which are main plots in the other books, so in order to grasp the full story, you need to read all the series. So I guess readers can rate each book separately but also the series as a whole. Due to these problems appear throughout the series, you'll see some of my comments repeated in the other reviews.

Trip Beaumont is Pine Cone's veterinarian and a well known player. Officer Jamie Grant is the new police officer in town, owner of a drug sniffing dog called Petunia. Trip is intrigued by the elusive officer who frequently writes her parking tickets but when they finally cross paths they realise that they have a conflicted past in common. Will they be able to leave the past behind to build a future together?

'Take a chance' is a slow burn romance with a dog as a cute secondary character. Animals play a big part in this book with Petunia at the forefront, a variety of big and small animals and in horses' metaphors used by Trip. There are a few flashbacks to the main characters' shared past but most of the story ocurrs in the present. The secondary characters are a bit flat, specially for the ex girlfriend. The main conflict seems a bit irrelevant and Jamie's PTSD is treated lightly. The subplot involving Petunia is not completely resolved considering that she's such an important secondary character. But, most importantly, the subplot regarding Trip's veterinarian colleague is left unresolved, surely to be covered in 'Take your time'.

Overall, an ok romance read that might interest animal lovers. 3.5 stars. 

ARC provided by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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