Rogue by Olivia HayleMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Olivia Hayle's "Rogue" was an enjoyable read featuring likeable characters and a well-crafted second-chance romance. The basics of the story were relatively familiar: a boy from the wrong side of the tracks falls in love with a rich girl, but her family tries to keep them apart, motivating the young man to leave town and make something of himself before returning to win back his love. However, the story was saved from predictability by its interesting structure, which utilized an alternating past and present timeline and frequent changes in POV between the main characters, Hayden and Lily. The details of their romance were revealed rather slowly and I wasn't able to guess everything that drove them apart as teenagers or how they would come back together as adults, which kept me invested in the story.
My one big problem with this book is that I never understood why Lily's parents hired Hayden's uncle Gary in the first place, bringing their families together and creating the possibility for Hayden and Lily's youthful romance. It didn't seem like Gary had any special skills that made him more qualified for the job as groundskeeper than any other applicant. In addition, why did Lily's parents choose to pay for Hayden to attend the same private school as their own children? Was there no public school in town he could have attended? Or was paying for Hayden's education some kind of charity project designed to make Lily's father look better in the eyes of the community? Lily's dad did not seem like the type of person to do anything solely out of the goodness of his heart, so he must have had some ulterior motive for helping Gary and Hayden. It really bothered me that I could never figure out what it was.
Despite that relatively minor annoyance, I would recommend this book for all fans of emotional contemporary romance. I hope that there will be more books set in the town of Paradise Shores, perhaps featuring Lily's brothers, who were likeable supporting characters in this story.
*ARC provided by the author. All opinions expressed are my own.
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