This was a sweet, chaste read. Sarina is back in her home town after her grandmother’s death. Drake is trying to buy her property. Of course they are attracted to each other, and things progress from there.
I did find a lot of editing errors which did take away from reading this book.
Thank you to netgalley for the ARC.

Closing the Deal is a sweet, clean romance about two people on opposite sides of a real estate deal. Sarina’s grandmother passed away, leaving her with a beautiful piece of property that acts as a wedding venue and employs many people in town. She hasn’t lived in town in several years, because there are too many memories there and she’s built a life for herself in the city. Now she must decide if she wants to renovate the property and keep running the place, or sell the property and move on. Enter Drake, the son of a huge real estate developer who has been tasked with purchasing the property. Drake is used to following his father’s orders, but he finds himself drawn to Sarina and wants to act in her best interests. The two spend some time together while Sarina decides what she wants to do, and they grow closer during that time.

It’s a 100% clean romance, not even really a slow burn because they only exchange small kisses. I appreciated that Drake didn’t want to deceive Sarina, and tried to do right by her. Unfortunately, I think too much time was spent on all of the subplots - the property itself as well as Sarina’s friends - for me to really have a vested interest in the couple. I’m not sure that they spent enough quality time together to have a solid foundation for love at the end of the book, but it’s a cute story. Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. It’s certainly not a bad read, but the relationship wasn’t developed enough for me to really love the story either.

The story of Serina and Drake. She has just inherited a house following the death of her grandmother. Should she stay and restore it or return to her job and life in the city?
Drake wants to buy the house and develop the property, but as he spends more time with Serina he realises he wants her more than he wants the house.

Looking forward to the rest of this series.

Before I get to the story itself, I have to commend whoever designed the attractive cover for this book - it was as appealing as the book's description in terms of my wanting to read it.

I liked the premise to the story & the characters. The story structure works but it does take a while to get going. I really enjoy series built around a group of siblings or friends, but much as I'm interested in reading theirs, it felt like it was spending time at the beginning setting up for Mona & Kayla's stories while I was wanting it to get on with Sarina's. The details of the friends' characters & backgrounds would have worked better being given mostly in snippets as the main story progressed The development of the story and especially the relationship between Sarina & Drake didn't feel natural. Basically, it's a decent story but on the cheesy side. I did enjoy the sweet ending, and my interest is sufficiently piqued to want to read Kayla's story next.

Clean romance level: sweet kisses
Religion: One or two mentions of God, but nothing that any except the most anti-theist would get in a swivet over