BOOK REVIEW for "Hope Burns (Hope, #3)" by Jaci Burton

***(3) out of 5 stars!

SUMMARY:

Molly Burnett dreads returning to her hometown of Hope for her sister’s wedding, especially knowing she’ll have to endure a weekend with the one man she never wants to see again. It’s only a couple of days, so Molly will try to forget her painful past with high school sweetheart Carter Richards. Because despite the bitter memories, she still can’t forget what they once meant to each other.

But when Molly is forced to extend her stay, Carter sees this as his second chance to do things right, to start over again with the only woman he’s ever loved. This time, he isn’t going to let Molly run. Together they’re going to confront the past and put it behind them, and hope for a future as bright as the flame that still burns hot between them.

REVIEW:

This is a decent addition to the Hope series, but certainly not my favorite.  Carter and Molly just didn’t speak to me as much as some of the other couples have.  Carter, while in many respects a seemingly great guy, was often not as sympathetic as he should have been; and Molly was pretty much just an annoying whiner.  That she stayed away from her family, friends and home for 12 years while not getting over him seemed to speak volumes.

The relationship that (re)develops between the two is sweet, and the love scenes are, of course, spicy.  But there just wasn’t a lot of outside story to go along with this volume, and it had a hard time holding my interest.  Also, I felt like they never did adequately address what happened in the past, as well as why they were both so upset about it.  And it was just sad that they wasted over a decade of their lives having their feelings hurt, with neither of them making any effort to resolve things prior to this.  But I guess that at least they did finally get their happily-ever-after at least.