Review: Nothing But Trouble

Nothing But Trouble by Amy Andrews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Overall, "Nothing but Trouble" by Amy Andrews was a sweet, amusing story featuring likeable main characters and a well-crafted slow burn romance. I especially enjoyed the male lead character, former NFL quarterback Wade, and his addiction to Nerds candy. He was a lot of fun, and watching him slowly realize his romantic feelings for his long-suffering personal assistant, CC, was delightful. I also enjoyed CC's lively, independent personality and the way she always stood up to Wade. Their banter made me laugh out loud a number of times as I was reading.

The characters were really the strength of this book, with Wade's childhood friends from his hometown of Credence, Colorado adding a lot of humor and nearly stealing the show in a few places. The way they teased Wade was really funny, and I loved that they treated him like a regular guy despite his celebrity. I really liked the secondary romance involving Wade's older brother Wyatt and the new girl in town, Jenny, too. Wyatt was such a sweetheart, and I was happy for him to find someone who was able to see past his shyness to the good-hearted person inside. I usually hate relationships based on insta-love, which could definitely describe Wyatt and Jenny's relationship, but I was able to give it a pass here because they weren't the main couple. Besides that, Wyatt was just so darn sweet and likeable that I would have forgiven him almost anything.

That said, there were some things about the story that didn't quite make sense to me, which is why I was unable to rate it 5 stars. First, did CC have a relationship with her father while she was growing up or not? At first, it seemed as if she never saw him at all, but she later told Wade that she felt "fought over" by her parents when she was a child. She also told him that her father had never told her he loved her. Why would her parents have bothered to fight over her if her father didn't love her and want to see her? I guess it could have been related to child support payments or something similar, but even so, that doesn't fit with the initial impression that her father wasn't in her life at all. Second, I was confused about when CC's father actually left the family. At the time this story takes place, CC is 32 years old, and we're told that her father left her mother when she was 3 to be with a woman who already had children of her own from a previous relationship. However, when he dies CC notes that her father left behind "bewildered teenagers" who would miss "the only father they've ever known." How could that possibly be the case unless he went on to have more kids with the other woman? That woman's older children couldn't possibly still be teenagers; they would have had to be around CC's age by then.

I was also confused by some of the details surrounding Wade's experiences with Jasmine. For example, how does Wade know where Jasmine is and what she's up to now? Did they keep in touch? Given everything she put him through when they broke up, it seems strange to me that he would have kept in touch with her, but how else would he know about her current life?

Finally, Wade's objections to the plan to invite women to move to Credence were very weak, and it didn't make sense to me why he wouldn't just go home to Denver if he was so unhappy about it. Wyatt didn't need any help managing the farm, and even if he had, Wade easily could have hired someone to help him out. He had plenty of money to do so thanks to his lucrative NFL contracts. In addition, if there were too many distractions for Wade to write his book in Denver, his money would have allowed him to go anywhere in the world to write. After he knew his father was going to recover, the only thing keeping Wade in Credence was stubbornness, and it was kind of annoying that no one bothered to point that out to him.

In any event, I did enjoy this story and look forward to reading future installments in the series, some of which will hopefully feature Wade's childhood friends. Tucker, Arlo, and Drew seem like pretty great guys and I would love to see them get stories of their own.

*ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are my own.

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