This one had a lot more go to it than the first in the series, being about twice the length, and having subplots and such. I really enjoyed our grumpy badger mechanic heroine, who just wants a spa weekend to be a fluffy badger princess and get a break from the sexism at work. Esker often writes about women who are too much, and the ways they manage cultural pressures to conform. She's great at the nuances around how that can hurt or shape a life.

I'm also enjoying the trend in this series of not telling us what the other love interest shifts into, and leaving it up to a guess. So far I've been two for two.

The romance was sweet, too, fairly straight forward, but also had a couple reasonable communication problems. I like miscommunication as a trope when it's believable for the characters to be talking past each other, especially if they're both not great at people.

Enjoyed this more than the first one, and you can read it on its own.