Someday I will finish a book by Katherine Center and not be crying like a baby at the end; today was not that day.

Hannah Brooks is a certified bad-ass, but you'd never know that: her job as a protection agent means she's an expert in staying in the background (until she needs to kill you with a wine opener, of course). But after a devastating breakup comes on the heels of the death of her mother, her boss is reassigning her from the glamorous international details to something a little closer to home. Reclusive Hollywood hero Jack Stapleton is emerging from a self-imposed break from the spotlight to spend time with his ailing mother and to make his last contracted movie. The studio is worried that his 50-something corgi-breeding stalker will catch wind of this and escalate past simply knitting photorealistic sweaters of his face, so Hannah steps onto the scene to act as his bodyguard - and act like his girlfriend. Everything's fine, as long as she doesn't get attached. And she's a professional - she can handle that, right?

Every time I open a Katherine Center novel, I know I'm in for a good time. I'm going to laugh, I'm going to cry, I'm going to thoroughly enjoy myself. Center's heroines are competence porn to the nth degree, eminently capable and sometimes drifting into Mary Jane category but just so, so wonderful, and Hannah is no exception. And look, this book has everything: bodyguard heroine! Sunshine hero! Fake dating! Forced proximity! Only one bed! A piggyback ride because you're wearing the wrong shoes!

There's something about the way Center lets her über-capable heroines fall in love, too, that is so perfect. They don't fight it, but more sink into the inevitability of it: of feelings, of love, of the knowledge that this could end in pain for them. And so of course, there's angst, but it feels more manageable, in a way, than many other angsty romance novels because the heroine has approached this in a really adult, rational way, but recognizes that love isn't ever rational. This always feels so validating, to know that you can be at the top of your game and still fall in love, and to know that it could be devastating and that you'll pull through it. 

Jack, too, is super freaking delightful, and feels more fleshed out to me than some of her other heroes. He's a goofball and able to find sunshine at a point in his life where he's feeling mostly bad. Even though he's a non-narrative character, I think he's one of my favorite instances of someone with anxiety; the way he deals with his bridge phobia was incredibly real to me, a person who also really hates bridges.

The ending is what breaks me in a Katherine Center novel, and this was no exception. When I realized what was happening, my heart was truly beating out of my chest, and what had the potential to be a really not-great scene was equally humorous and gentle. Instead of treating a character as a plot point, Center works through the ending with incredible tenderness and thoughtfulness, ending where some authors would with a real lambasting of mentally ill people with nuance and kindness.

I love this book, and I can't wait to make a bunch of people read it. Thank you St. Martin's and NetGalley for the ARC!

CWs:

narrative character has lost a parent to alcoholism-related causes, was abandoned by a(nother) parent, witnessed domestic abuse as a child, experiences a non-life-threatening gun injury. main non-narrative character has a parent fighting cancer, has lost a sibling, has had a sibling fighting alcoholism, is experiencing familial estrangement. general warnings for guns, bad exes, stalkers, mental illness.