Title: Hard Hart

Series: Hart’s Bay 01

Author: E. Davies

Narrator: Greg Boudreaux

Genre: Contemporary

Length: 7 hrs, 19 mins

Publisher: E. Davies (3rd October 2019)

Heat Level: Low

Heart Rating: 💖💖💖💖💖 5 Hearts

Reviewer: Prime

Blurb: I felt all wrong until I met you.

Jesse Stone is rebuilding his life. He’s ditched his no-good ex, sworn off men, moved to a new town with his four best friends, and started the pottery business of his dreams. And then he slept with his hunky new neighbor. Oops. Jesse needs to focus on work, but all he can think about is getting Finn between his hands like a perfectly-shaped work of clay.

Trouble just blew into town, and his name is Jesse. Finn Hart knows that pursuing Jesse will ignite old family tensions, but he can’t stay away. The construction foreman has never built a lasting relationship. He’s too busy keeping the peace in a town that was founded by one Hart, but is slowly being strangled by another – Finn’s grandfather.

Finn and Jesse are on the same page: they want to save Hart’s Bay, and it starts by bringing tourists in with Jesse’s new art gallery. But their hearts are bruised, and taking a chance comes with a price. Not everyone in Hart’s Bay wants change. For a few narrow minds, nothing good should come to Finn’s branch of the Harts, and that includes love.

Can love wash away 20 years of bad blood and bring a new dawn for Jesse, Finn, and all of Hart’s Bay?
Hard Hart is the first book in the new Hart’s Bay series about a small town full of nosy but well-meaning neighbors and brotherly banter. It’s a stand-alone novel with a happily-ever-after end-ing, and plenty of smiles and steam along the way. If that cove could talk…oh boy, has it ever seen things.

Purchase Link:  Audible US | Audible UK | Amazon US | Amazon UK

Review: Hard Hart is the first book in E. Davies Hart’s Bay series, set in the small, beautiful town of Hart’s Bay. The author, E. Davies, is completely new to me, so I didn’t know what to expect, but was drawn in by the blurb.

In two ways, this book was a series of first times for me. This is the first E. Davis I’ve read/heard the audio for and this was also the first time I’ve heard narration by Greg Boudreaux. And in the end I really enjoyed both the story – as well as Davies writing style – and the narration. Boudreaux has a great tone and speed which perfectly matched the characters and their emotions. It helped me to effectively connect with the characters, particularly Jesse.

The story introduces is about Jesse Stone and Finn Hart.

Jesse recently went through a rough break up which ended in he and his friends swearing off men and leaving the big city for the small idyllic town of Hart’s Bay. Jesse and his friends are artists and their dream is to launch an art co-op, which could also bring in other local artists. They got the house, now they needed a place to set up their co-op/gallery and their workspaces. It’s a lot to do and while on the surface Hart’s Bay seems like a charming town, there are tensions that the newbies don’t understand. However, Jesse learns all about the town’s darker secrets when he gets close to his neighbour, Finn Hart.

Finn has lived in Hart’s Bay all his life. He was only young when the family – the richest family and who own most of town – had a fight, which was something of a mystery to the younger generation of Harts but nonetheless maintained. Along with the argument there was the collapse of the Hart family’s fishery and associated processing plant, which had kept much of the town employed. Now the town was considered a quaint, if dying town, and it seemed that one side of the Hart family – Finn’s grandfather – would rather see the town die and the tourists.

The Hart family argument is the main cause of most of the issues in this book, and in that way Hard Hart is very stereotypical of what you’d expect from a small town whose founding family is locked in a years old, bitter fight. However, the romance between Jesse and Finn is a really sweet contrast to all the tension. Jesse and his friends are the new men in town and they have big plans that Finn supports but his fears of going up again his grandfather and “the other side” of the family is a really important point for Finn’s development.

Great story and great narration. Whether in book or audio, I can’t wait for book 2!