Foolish Hearts by Synithia Williams

 

Welcome Back, Booklovers! August is just flying by and there's so many new releases I'm still looking forward to over the next couple of months. The Jackson Falls series by Synithia Williams is one that I got hooked on this year. Every book has been better than the last and I'm so invested in the Robidoux family. It's the soap opera goodness I've been missing since I stopped watching soaps. So I was very excited after reading Careless Whispers that another book would be released this year.  And I was lucky enough to receive a finished copy from Synithia Williams and Harlequin in exchange for an honest review.

Foolish Hearts follows Robidoux cousin Ashiya who owns a designer thrift store in Jackson Falls. She's happy away from the corporate drama of the Robidouxs. One day she finds out that her estranged grandmother on her father's side willed her majority shares of her multi-million dollar company The Legacy Group. Though Ashiya has never been interested in corporate powerplays she's determined to prove to her estranged family that they're wrong about her.

Russell is still nursing his broken heart from when Ashiya shattered it a few years ago. He has hopes of moving into the CEO position at Robidoux believing that the power that comes with that title will help him find a lead in the case of his missing brother. When he's assigned to work as a consultant for Ashiya he must put his old feeling of hurt aside. 

So they ditch Jackson Falls for Hilton Head, South Carolina where Ashiya has to prove herself to the Waters family. She immediately classes with her cousin Levi who believes she's stealing the company out from under him when he worked so hard with his grandmother to keep it thriving. As Ashiya and Russell work together they try to fight old feelings.

I liked that Synithia gave me something different than what I usually see in romance books. Russell was the one who had put his all into a relationship with Ashiya and wound up getting his heart broken. So he had to be a lot more guarded this time around. And she had to work a little harder to get him to trust her again. Plus outside of helping her, he is determined to find out what happened to his brother when he disappeared years ago. So there's a mystery element involved in the story as he searches for clues. 

Ashiya is dealing with PSTD from a childhood incident that she's never been able to move past. Her parents aren't helpful because they should've been divorced years ago but decided to stay together for the sake of their child but they can't stand to be in the same room together. Plus Ashiya's mother is a Robidoux so she's just as ambitious as Grant and Elaina and sees this as a big opportunity to get her hands in the company she missed out on and the only reason she married into the Water's family in the first place.

Like the other books in this series Foolish Hearts is fast-paced and balances drama with steamy scenes to keep you hooked.