I am full of lovey dovey mush. I really enjoyed this story of Harry and Rowan. It was a love story full of steam and tenderness. I couldn't help but have a smile on my face rooting for them. Gave me Ali Hazelwood romance vibes!! Highly recommend if you are looking for a good romantic read!

*Thank you @stmartinspress for the #gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.*

With so many great reviews I kept waiting for this book to get better but I didn't. The story is overwritten with nothing really happening. Time passes but the characters don't grow until the end of the book. They both had issues that never felt resolved to me.

I am still processing all my feelings about this book so this will be a shorter review until I come to my final conclusions. Bend Toward the Sun is a beautifully written romance. Both Rowan and Harry are complex people who are dealing with their own trauma. I really like that their story was set on the background a gorgeous vineyard. I was surprised to see that this was a debut novel from Jen Devon as the writing was top notch.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced e-book in exchange for an honest review!

If you enjoy forced proximity romance with a dash of spice and bantering, meddling families then this is the book for you. I really enjoyed all of the characters in this book especially the Brady family. I really enjoyed despite this being a cute romantic story, Devon did an amazing job writing about two badly damaged MCs who help one another heal from their traumas. I highly recommend this book!

What a wonderful book! I loved the raw emotion, the character’s journeys, how smart this book felt. An amazing read and I would definitely read this author again!

Set to be released on August 9th, Bend Toward the Sun by Jen Devon is a long-haul love story chronicling two very different people trying to heal old wounds and find comfort in one another over the course of a year.

This book took me a little while to get into but the ending was worth the trudging to get to. I got a little frustrated because it felt like Rowan and Harry’s pasts got a little too in the way of their romance, but I guess that was probably the point, right?

Ultimately, this book shows how important it is to reconcile with your past so that you can’t move forward into the future. Additionally, it also highlights how you have to love and accept yourself before you can love and accept another person into your life.

If you’re looking for a heartwarming read that deals with deeper topics, this one’s for you!

*I received an ARC from St. Martin’s Press in exchange for my honest opinion.

I snagged this book to read since it takes place in a vineyard, and I feel a personal connection since my family has a small vineyard. Rowan and Harry are well-developed characters who I kept rooting for, no matter what turns they took through out the story. The setting was beautifully described, and I could feel the love for the land that both of the main characters felt, the vineyard truly felt like a supporting character! I can see this novel turning into a series with all of Harry's siblings taking center stage, and I can't wait to read more.

Rowan!!!! Ugh I LOVED this book. It put me in the feels and I’ve re-read it twice now. I highly recommend.

Jen Devon’s Bend Toward the Sun delivers ALL THE FEELS in an emotional love story about loss, healing, and human connection. When Harrison Brady leaves LA in the wake of losing a patient, he thinks he’s going to help his parents renovate their new bed and breakfast. He never expects to meet beautiful Rowan McKinnon, a somewhat socially-awkward botany Ph.D. who avoids serious relationships and rarely lets people get close.

The Brady family convinces Rowan to help them restore the vineyard on the sprawling old estate, setting the stage for an epic year-long romance.

This book gave me low-key Colleen Hoover vibes without the surprising plot twists. If you like slow-burn romances, big emotional drama, and HEAs, I’d definitely recommend this book! (Content warning: It’s a bit spicy.)

Thanks so much to Net Galley and St. Martin’s for the advanced reader copy of this book!

#netgalley #stmartins #arc #advancedcopy #bookreview #romancebooks

What a gorgeously romantic story with such well-rendered, complex characters and a warm, beating heart. You won't want to leave the vineyards. Jen Devon is wildly talented -- can't wait to see what she does next.

Jen Devon's author bio states that she likes to write romances about imperfect people who find their perfect matches, and that is exactly what this book is all about! Rowan is a scientist who doesn't believe in love, and Harry is a doctor suffering from anxiety after losing a patient. When they meet, the connection is immediate but the trauma of their pasts makes it difficult for them to open up to each other.

I loved Rowan with all her angst and prickliness and Harry with all his anxiety and sadness. They were definitely imperfect characters, but all I wanted to do was cheer for them to make peace with their past and find love with each other. The secondary characters were also amazing. I loved the whole Brady family and Temperance and Franki, and I hope that Devon writes more stories with these characters. There are some steamy scenes in this one, which is not really my cup of tea. But the characters and story were so good!!

I was really liking the book and thinking it would be a 4 star read. Then I got to the ending, and it was even better! I loved the final 70 pages so much. It was the perfect ending to this story.

In romances, it's fairly typical to see a third act breakup, followed by a reunion and a happily ever after. I often feel like the reunion/happily ever after part is rushed and unsatisfying. Too much time is spent on all the angsty questioning of will they/won't they, and then when they finally decide to be together, it's all rushed at the end.

However...Bend Toward the Sun did not fall into this category. The finale was a perfect ending that did not feel rushed at all. This book is definitely full of angst and questioning, but it all pays off with an excellent ending! I cannot say enough good things about the ending. I may just go back and read it again right now!

WOW WOW WOW. This was the perfect book to transition from summer to fall. We follow Rowan and Harry through a year at the vineyard. From the witty puns and banter, some very spicy spicy and emotional scenes, this book has it all! The instant connection between Rowan and Harry is brilliant, but also I loved getting to see each of them breakdown the barriers of themselves for the other person. As someone who doesn’t know a lot about plants, but does drink a lot of wine, I loved all the plant talk and learning about the damaged vineyards.
If you have read this one, don’t you want to be a part of the Brady family?

A stunning, breathtakingly gorgeous read that will steal your heart and remind you why you love reading love stories. I was lucky enough to receive Bend Toward the Sun as my very first ARC, and let me tell you - this one set the bar for every future ARC I will ever read.

We begin this love story as Harry and Rowan's worlds collide (literally) in a dusty abandoned greenhouse. Rowan is a botanist PhD student with a lifetime of emotional damage that has made her closed-off and doubtful of anything claiming to be love, and Harry is reeling from a traumatic event in his first year of medical residency that makes him question his entire path forward. A series of events brings them together on the vineyard that Harry's family just purchased, and though Rowan tries to keep her distance, even she can't deny the spark between them. But will either of them be able to confront what’s happened to both of them so they can move forward together?

I’ve tried for months to figure out the words to describe this story, and none of them do it justice. Harry and Rowan have the most swoonworthy chemistry, and from their first moment together you just KNOW they have something special. They're flawed and imperfect and make mistakes. But at their cores, they're both so utterly lovable that you can't help but root for them.

Through Jen Devon’s ethereal writing, you immediately see the ways that these two fit together, while also seeing the ways they'll have to confront things about themselves that they've long buried away—from Harry, with his heart-on-his-sleeve vulnerability (which was SO refreshing to see in a male hero) to Rowan, whose lifetime of hurt and betrayal has caused her to build impossibly high walls around her own soft heart. I also absolutely adored Rowan's friends and the entire Brady family, and the scenes of them all together just felt so natural and warm and welcoming and I just wanted to live in those moments on the page.

Bend Toward the Sun is a romance in the truest sense of the word. The setting is magical. The writing is gorgeous. It's angsty, and heartbreaking, and so, so beautiful, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the advance review copy!

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this book! I like that this book got into the story right away! I will say this story is heavier on the emotional struggles of the main characters than the romance aspect in the beginning. I felt as though the book had too much description of everything. This book is definitely kind of an instant love story. I was kind of upset that she was so closed off to the idea of love and being with him but the tension during the fight they had was amazing but it did bug me with how cold she was. The first kiss was at the perfect moment like a scene in a movie! I definitely see more books about the Brady brothers finding love with Temperance and Frances! I just don’t understand why Harry can’t see that he deserves better! I think I just felt like Rowan was an Unlikable character due to being so cynical. This book was definitely a deeper type of romance and in the end I actually liked that about it. You end up understanding the characters and wanting them to finally get the happy ending they deserve.

A beautiful love story - you'll wonder if its going to happen, but its lovely to watch unfold! Plus the main character shares a name with someone close to me so of course I couldn't put this one down!

Bend Towards the Sun will give you all the feels as we get to know Rowen and Harry through their year in the Vinyard. Finally a love story with some more complicated baggage. Both Dr's one is a botinst, one is ob and a life time of different way of being shown love.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this digital arc. All opinions are my own

I ended up not quite finishing this one in the time allotted between receiving the ARC and needing to review it because it was a heavier book than I was really able to read at that time. However, I love the characters and ideas present, and I am going to buy and return to this text soon! I have continued to hear excellent things about how well done this romance is, and I can't wait to be in the brain space to give it another go.

This is a debut book by Ms Devon, so I really didn't know what to expect when I picked this up. I was very pleasantly surprised. This was such a beautifully written, intense love story, I got swept right into it from the very beginning. The development of characters was well done and I immediately fell in love with Rowan and Harrision. They were so realistic and relatable, it was easy to get pulled into their story. Both have their own challenges to deal with. Rowan has been burned by love in the past and made up her mind that she will not allow anyone to get that close to her again. But when she meets Harrison, she knows she is in trouble. Harrison has been hurt by love, but is not opposed to it. What does rattle him is the painful loss of a patient. He begins to doubt his abilities as a doctor and decides to take a break at his family's new vineyard. Rowan is hired to help with the restorations of the vineyard, and the two are immediately drawn to each other. The two had such amazing chemistry, you could feel the pull between them. Ms. Devon does a very nice job of bringing the story and the characters to life with her vivid descriptions and attention to details. This is a heartwarming story filled with emotion, angst, and romance and was just such a pleasure to read. I am so glad to have had the opportunity to read this and I will definitely be looking for more of Ms. Devon's work in the future.
I received a complimentary copy from Netgalley and am voluntarily leaving my review.

I love this book so much. I read it slowly to savor it until I couldn’t any more. It was a beautiful story & so well written. I know Rowan, Harry & the Brady’s will stick with me for a long time.

I knew I needed to read this book when someone else reviewed it and said "holy shitballs" :) I loved this book. It is a perfect rainy day read because you can't stop reading it. I haven’t read a romance novel in a long time and this is a classic novel that made me remember why I liked them soo much. I felt like all of the characters were very relatable and like people that I knew in my life.
It was beautiful and heart breaking and makes me want to visit rural PA on the off chance it’s real.