Review: “Chasing Down the Dream” by Jaymee Jacobs

Series: Blue Collar Romance, #1

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Steam: 🔥🔥

Release Date: September 3rd, 2021

Add to Goodreads | Amazon.in (Available on KU)

When Kasey Ruggieri returns to her hometown after her fashion design business implodes, she barely recognizes the handsome guy with a smokin’ body who comes to fix the HVAC as her brother’s best friend. The skinny teenager she once knew is gone, and when Asher strips off his shirt to work in the boiling heat, Kasey can’t take her eyes off his glistening, muscular chest. Now she needs more than air conditioning to cool her desires.

Asher Wallace has had a crush on Kasey ever since he realized girls don’t have cooties. She’s beautiful, talented, and fun. But as his best friend’s older sister, she’s completely out of his league. Once Kasey left Oak Bend to pursue a fashion career in New York City, Asher shelved his boyhood crush and moved on from his college hockey days and into the family’s heating and cooling business.

When Kasey and Asher finally connect, there’s enough heat to melt a Michigan winter. But when Kasey stumbles onto a new, profitable fashion venture, will she leave Asher behind for the bright lights of the big city once more? Or can Asher prove to Kasey that love and success can be found close to home?

Chasing Down the Dream is part of the Blue Collar Romance series, a multi-author series of standalone novels. Welcome to Oak Bend, where blue-collar hotties work hard and love even harder, especially when it comes to landing their happily ever after.

Chasing Down the Dream is the first book in a new series featuring various different authors as they tell stories of couples living in the small town of Oak Bend, Michigan. The 8 book series sounds like it’s going to be a fun time and I’m looking forward to meeting different residents of this small town!

The first book is a best friend’s sibling and age gap romance. Asher and Kasey have known each other their whole lives, thanks to Asher and Owen’s friendship. And if that’s not enough, Asher has also always been not so secretly in love with Kasey. I really liked that Owen was aware of it and not hating the fact that his best friend liked his sister. As Owen’s older sister, Kasey hasn’t always hung around with Asher, but she’s known him enough to have something of a friendship with him as well. So when she comes back to Oak Bend after running out of there the first chance she got, the last thing she expects is to see Asher and feel things for him.

Chasing Down the Dream is a quick and light read. We don’t really get to see much of the town of Oak Bend since the story is focused on these two main characters. There were some elements that I liked – I loved Kasey’s drive and passion to make something of herself, I liked that she inspired Asher to go out and follow the dreams that he put aside after college, I liked how Asher didn’t hold back with his feelings for Kasey.

But there were also a lot of things that didn’t work for me. I felt like Kasey was far too selfish about the relationship and didn’t respect or appreciate how hard Asher was working to find his way through the chaos. Afterall, she did inspire him to do more, to try out for hockey again and to put a hold on working in the family business. But when he made it to the end, she started finding fault with his choices and made it all about her. At first, I liked that Owen wasn’t hating on Asher and Kasey’s possible relationship, but by the time he comes home, his tune has changed and he behaves really weird, which put me off.

While I didn’t fully enjoy this story, I am most certainly looking forward to the rest of the series to see what shenanigans and excitement the town of Oak Bend has to offer!

Thanks to Jaymee Jacobs and Indie Pen PR for providing me with an advance copy. I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.