Seven Year Itch is a spicy, tension-filled enemies-to-lovers romance that hits all the right notes. Seven years after Calder drove Dakota crazy while renovating her house, they're forced to share a bungalow at his brother’s destination wedding. She’s newly divorced, he’s still maddeningly charming, and the sparks between them are impossible to ignore. With sharp banter, slow-burn chemistry, and a satisfying emotional payoff, this is a perfect summer read full of heat and heart.

4⭐️
2.5🌶️

- Cat daddy
- Small town
- Enemies to lovers
- Only one bed
- Friends with benefits

This was a cute read from Amy. I enjoyed getting to know Dakota and Calder and I absolutely their banter! This book was entertaining and kept me laughing throughout. I liked getting their backstory along with their current story and I enjoyed getting glimpses at Trista and Wyatt since I read their book. I love the family dynamic of Calder’s family and thought the meddling was amazing from his niece 😂 I enjoyed getting to see them hate each other so much to then fall in love and enjoy everything about each other. I’m excited to continue this series and can’t wait for the next book!

⭐⭐⭐

ARC Review

Tropes:
Hate to Love
Love after divorce
Only One Bed
Coaching Romance
Cat Daddy
Rural Mountain Town

This story is the second book in the Mountain Men Matchmaker Series and can be read as a standalone.

This story follows Calder Fletcher and Dakota Schaefer who honestly HATE each other, but Calder suddenly has a sense of protectiveness towards Dakota when he finds her at a sex club after her divorce.

I loved how Calder's niece set them up during the wedding (MCs from book 1) forcing them to share a room which kickstars their relationship. I adore a good matchmaking moment and this was it!

I do wish there was more of a plot besides them having sex all the time, but I was happy that both Dakota and Calder grew with this relationship. Dakota feeling empowered in her own skin and Calder breaking away from the mold he made for himself.

I've read several of Amy's books in the past and love her enemies to lovers banter, but this book was a bit much. They were fighting until THE VERY END and didn't have great communication.

Dakota is an amazing woman that's done so much with her life; she has her own successful business that's growing every day, owns her own home, and is an amazing friend. I felt while the book was hyping her accomplishments, bringing up that she was the responsible friend and didn't have casual sex in her twenties somehow made her "miss out on life" annoyed me. Yes, this is more of a social point and societal observation, than about the book, but having or not having casual sex doesn't make her a better or worse person and making it a focal point in the book, took away from the book and character in my opinion.

Mad at myself for coming in on part two of this series (I hate when I do that) but I needed some burly man fun in my life. It definitely can be read and enjoyed as a standalone though! I love a good destination romp and this was fun with a one bed trope. There was a bit too much miscommunication for my taste but YMMV. And how darling is this box!! @htp_hive knocked it out of the park!

A fun, flirty, and emotionally rich romance that blends emotions with the funniest banter. Amy Daws brings her signature humor and heart, while also exploring deeper themes of self-worth, desire, and what it means to choose yourself.

DNF. I absolutely hated the humor and bickering in this book. I find it hard to believe that anyone's inner monologue could be that vapid, and it came off to me as unintelligent and not funny. I understand some people like this style of writing, but its not for me.

3.5 stars rounded up for easy enjoyability. This blends enemies to lovers with lots of banter, but without a true true feeling of enemies. Yes, there was mutual dislike and barbs thrown, but it wasn't believable enough. I liked the powerpoint presentations, "cat daddy" energy, and PLAYFUL banter- at times the banter was a little cruel for my liking, We were able to see some growth, although it seemed to happen all at once- and some fun family antics. Everly is matchmaker extraordinaire.

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*

Out now!

This is the sequel to Nine Month Contract, this time following Calder Fletcher. An enemies with benefits story, Calder and Dakota are the bane of each other’s existence. They plan to avoid each other on the trip to a destination wedding until they are forced to share a room together. What happens in paradise stays in paradise until Dakota asks him the last thing he was expecting: be her wingman, so she can get her pre-divorce confidence back.

I read this one relatively quickly after Nine Month Contract. I did a combination of reading with my eyes from the e-ARC and listening to the audiobook once it came out. We see all the characters from the first book, so I do recommend reading these books in order.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. A lot of people do not like the miscommunication trope, however I do not mind it. We do get a lot of background information with these characters, which is great for the history they have due to being enemies. I did enjoy the banter in this book and Calder’s obsession with his cat (even though I am not a cat person). I feel like the cat humanized Calder a bit and made him a little more realistic than just a guy who doesn’t like commitment.

I do think this book was just a tad long. By the time I got to the end, it felt like forever had passed since they were at the tropical island in the beginning of the book.

Overall, this is a 4 star read from me. I am looking forward to the third book in the series to follow the next brother. I like the ‘mountain man” vibes these books have and am excited to see what happens next with this cast of characters.

Great read and awesome listen. I was sold on this book from the prologue, it’s that good.
Minor spoilers.
Seven Year Itch follows Calder and Dakota on their enemies with benefits journey. Dakota is recently divorced and trying to find herself again. Calder is a cat dad and perpetual bachelor (especially after a past relationship did him dirty) with “Peter Pan syndrome”. Story follows them both as Calder tries to assist Dakota in finding her confidence again; and maybe learn some things about himself on the way.
Great read and fantastic audio book, the duet narration does a brilliant job at bringing the story to life.
Thank you to Amy Daws, NetGalley, Harlequin Audio and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the chance to read and listen to this great book.

⭐️: 5/5

Dakota is trying to get her groove back and the last person she wants to run into is Calder. Calder the person who ruin her house and but more. Now he’s here to see her life in ruins after her divorce. After being forced to share a palapa at destination wedding, he’s now her wingman. With some spicy coaching tensions seem to smooth over, well maybe it changed to a different kind of tension.

💕 Enemies to Lovers
🐈‍⬛ Cat Dad
💕 Only One Bed
🐈‍⬛ Rural Mountain Town
💕 Spicy Coaching

There is something about the men of Fletcher Mountain that just makes you melt. I’m living for the grumpy mountain men right now and this definitely can scratch that itch (pun intended). The chemistry and tension between these too was great. Seeing their relationship go from high angry tension to spicy tension was everything. I love when the FMC knocks the MMC on their butt and rearranges all their notions of what they are looking for. If you are looking for a fun feel good enemies to lovers this is it!

Audiobook:

⭐️: 5/5

How can you go wrong with Teddy Hamilton. Hearing him as a cat dad was something I didn’t know I needed, but I did. The dynamics between him and Erin Mallon was fabulous. I could not have enjoyed it more, these two brought Calder and Dakota beautifully!

When I first started reading this book, it was a little bit cringey and I thought for sure I would DNF it. However, I decided to give it a chance and the characters grew on me! The banter between Calder and Dakota was everything and the sweet and tender moments really balanced out the spicy moments. This was a good time overall!

Amy Davis is amazing at writing the best books, I loved this one as much as I loved nine month contract. Her books fill me with happiness sadness and makes me want to laugh all at the same time.

After asking myself that age-old existential question - am I into mountain men? - and realizing the answer, only after reading the first book in Amy Daws's new(ish) Mountain Man Matchmaker series - Nine Month Contract - was a resounding and surprising YES, I've been eagerly awaiting middle child Calder's story. Introduced in Daws's Wait With Me series, in his eldest brother's Max's story, Calder Fletcher is your classic Peter Pan, tattooed bad boy, one who frequents sex clubs, goes with the flow, and generally seems to be stuck in a state of arrested development.

As we, lovers of books about love, know, however, we can't judge books by their (horribly AI-designed) covers. Calder contains multitudes. A devoted brother, son, uncle, and, most-importantly, cat daddy to Milkshake, one of the adorable furballs introduced in NMC, Calder's in his feels at the start of the book as he is sans plus-one to grumpy elder brother Wyatt's destination wedding. Of course, it's only the exposition, so he can't have the revelation that these feelings perhaps stem from jealousy that that he's rudderless, alone, and the walking definition of the pop-psych babble "You can't love someone else until you love yourself". So, in order to find his plus-one, he needs to find a woman who won't catch feelings and knows WYSIWYG with Calder. Where to find such a lady? The sex club, of course.

His search is cut short when he realizes that the hot blonde with the sassy mouth (a terrible sub, BTW) who first piques his interest when she's on her hands and knees and talks back to her dom is none other than Dakota, the woman who riles his temper and neither regions in equal parts. Going alpha caveman possessive, he essentially locks her in a closet to "save" her and gets his membership revoked when Dakota, showing that she's a bad ass who holds a grudge like nobody's business, pretends that she's never met him before. Let the enemies to lovers' shenanigans begin!

Flash-forward to the Mexican wedding where, gasp, there's an issue with Calder and Dakota's bookings and they're forced to share a (one-bed, of course) luxury palapa. This accident has been painstakingly planned by Everly, Calder's niece and titular matchmaker to her uncles in this series, but the enemies in question have no clue about that. After a renovation gone horribly wrong seven years ago, in which Calder's work ruined Dakota's dream house and wedding dress days before her nuptials and she was a raging harpy throughout the process, the two have been oil and water despite circling one another's orbits, as she is best friends with his sister-in-law. The ink barely dry on her divorce papers, Dakota is a single lady who's just trying to get her groove back, a la Stella. Needless to say, the enemies to lovers trope is (finally!) done right here. Calder and Dakota's ire is strong, as is their clear sexual tension. When the latter is nursing a post-bachelorette party hangover, Calder sticks around to take care of her (flexing that inner cat daddy) in a totally wholesome way (until he needs some alone time in their shared shower, really testing the acoustics of the palapa). One thing leads to another and, in his quest to find out why Dakota was at the sex club in the first place (not-quite-spoiler: her douchebag ex claimed she was bad in bed), they decide that they need to just bang it out, to help her in said quest to get her groove back and him, because, well, he's a dude.

The sex, of course, is life-altering and both avoid each other upon return to Colorado before things get too real. Until their paths cross, that is, when Calder, who's passion is in the crafting of one-of-a-kind woodworking pieces (he's artsy and handy, ladies) is tapped to create shelving for Dakota's T-shirt shop. One thing leads to another as they work together again, after the titular disaster of seven years ago, and he, in a well-developed PowerPoint (aw!), lays out his multi-tiered plan for some good ol' fashioned sexual healing, a sex bucket list, as it were. In their quest to discover Dakota's kink and return her confidence of yore, the two become more and more enamored with one another, without actually admitting catching all the feels to each other (duh) or even themselves (duh, again). Daws knows her way around a sizzling sex scene and doesn't disappoint here. Multiples are had by all! The bickering doesn't die down when their vitriol does, however, and we're provided with plenty of laugh out loud moments, as well as cutesy, romantic ones, as they get closer to completion . . . of the list. The final task on Dakota's list? Return to the sex club, with Calder in tow, as voyeurs, and then be on their merry and separate ways. Each is dragging his or her respective feet since they've both fallen pretty hard. Dakota wins a big-time award for local business of the year and, accompanied by Calder, who's brought out the entire Fletcher clan to support her, she's swept up in the glory of the night and propositions the man she (still hasn't admit that she) loves. Calder, equally caught up in his feelings for her, denies her request because he wants this night to be entirely about her and what she's accomplished. While both hearts are in the right place, Dakota spirals right back to her ex's body-shaming. Her self-doubt is compounded when the secret that Calder's been holding about her for the past seven years is revealed, at the sex club, of all places, by none other than her horrid ex. The past and present collide and she decides that Calder's who she always thought he was - a rudderless fuckboy - and he concludes that she'll always be the controlling harpy who can't let things go.

HEAs are had, however, when Dakota's friends / Calder's family help each see the light. She puts up one hell of a fight for a man she (thinks she) doesn't even like, let alone love, when they ambush her with a poker night, coming full circle to the moment he first laid eyes on her at the same poker game those seven years ago. The biggest reveal of all, however? Calder's sex-club membership, revoked a second time after the unfortunate encounter with Dakota's ex, led him to finally discovering his kink: true love. All told, I was in from the jump - I've yet to read anything by Daws that I haven't liked and I was already all in on Calder after he rescued Milkshake in NMC. I already want to read it again, after going back to big brother Max's story before revisiting Wyatt's, and am eager to see what's in store for the youngest Fletcher, Luke. Let it be known: Enemies with benefits needs to be more of a thing. More of that. More cat daddies! More kink bucket lists! More everything!

Amy Daws is one of the authors who helped me get back into reading several years ago. Her books are filled with real characters who experience real struggles but also have plenty of spice in them. Seven Year Itch was no different.

However, I did find myself feeling a bit frustrated with Dakota throughout the book. I felt like she really could have used some time being single and maturing some more prior to jumping into a situationship. To be honest, there were times when I found myself thinking that Calder deserved better. Additionally, some of the phrases that were throughout this book were just a little cringy. Like saying he loves his pussy, referring to his cat. This was just my personal preference. Despite these aspects, I will continue to read each of her books as I have loved the vast majority of her stories.

I was so excited to receive a copy of this ARC after reading “Nine Month Contract” earlier this year. In NMC you meet the Fletcher brothers, and while that book focuses on Wyatt, this one focuses on Calder.

Good ol’ Everly is back up to her shenanigans, this time changing Calders dating app profiles. Calder is looking for a plus one to Wyatt and Tristas wedding but when he’s coming up dry, he finds himself at the sex club he’s a member at. Once at the club, he sees his enemy - Dakota, his sister in laws best friend. The two are both going stag to the wedding and Everly has some plans up her sleeve …

I enjoyed this one, and needed a good romcom, but I feel like Calder and Dakota are just filled with lust and not necessarily a love connection. I’m excited for Luke’s book though.

Precious! I loved this book and it was a great addition to the series! It had a different vibe from 9 month contract , but it was still on fletcher mountain and I enjoyed that the same characters were present throughout the entire book as well. We were able to see characters we loved from previous Amy Daws books as well and that was joy! Was a sorta slow burn compared to the first book, but when the burn came it was super good! I honestly cannot wait to see how this story continues!

Enemies-to-lovers is not my favorite trope, but Seven Year Itch delivered a swoon-worthy story that easily hooks the reader into wanting to follow the wrest of the series. Loved reading characters that aren’t new adults and have lived some life already. Amy Daws always writes hilarious banter and really delivered with this latest.

Loved the first book in the series, so I was excited to read Seven Year Itch. I was pleased to find that it had similar vibes and was equally as enjoyable.

Amy Daws has done it again with another unforgettable Fletcher Mountain man! Just like Nine Year Contract, Seven Year Itch hits you right in the feels leaving your heart all warm and gooey while also reducing you to a giggling, teary-eyed mess. It’s absolutely delightful!

Calder and Dakota are pure comedic gold. Their banter is sharp, their chemistry electric, and their quick-witted comebacks had me laughing out loud more times than I can count. Beyond the humor, though, is a heartfelt story with real emotional depth. Getting to know them on a deeper level (the why behind their choices, words, and behaviors) made their journey all the more powerful.

Despite all the laughter, the serious themes in Calder and Dakota’s story are never brushed aside. What makes it truly special is how they confront their struggles together, growing as individuals while also staying true to themselves and their love for one another. Their constant support for each other is incredibly moving. They uplift, empower, and remind one another of all the incredible things they’re capable of. Oh, and yes… the spice is absolutely SPICING.

Also a huge round of applause for narrators Erin Mallon and Teddy Hamilton, who breathed life into Dakota and Calder so perfectly. I honestly can’t imagine anyone else voicing them. Top-tier performance!

And finally, a big thank you to Amy Daws, Harlequin Trade Publishing | Canary Street Press, Harlequin Audio, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and listen to Seven Year Itch ahead of release day!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.5/5 stars, 🔥🔥🔥🔥 romcom)

I enjoyed this mostly for the duet audiobook narration. That said, the dynamic is one that is very reminiscent of something written by Meghan Quinn or Tessa Bailey. The characters are fun, flirty, uplifting, and yet EXTREMELY unhinged. 🤣 This one definitely leans heavily on the latter. The two MCs already know each other when the book begins, however, their reconnecting meet-cute is….well, let’s just call it a bit dysfunctional than what I had expected to read.

If you’re open to blurring the romcom lines a bit, enjoy the ride.

Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing, NetGalley, and Amy Daws for providing me with a digital review copy in exchange for the honest thoughts.