Hopeless

The last of the Chestnut Springs series was a delight, and Elsie Silver has cemented her go-to status with me. I was never a fan of small town romance before last year, but with the US becoming a bastion of hate, exclusion, and warmongering, I find I want gentle stories about rural Canadians who support one another and also have a lot of good sex. I will say that Chestnut Springs seems to be disturbingly White, but I will assume that is not by design.

This book brings us Beau, the last Eaton left unhitched. He was always the happy-go-lucky, the suave special forces guy, until he is injured and lost on an ill-fated mission and is returned with serious injuries and PTSD. He finds a reason to live in silently supporting the town pariah (she show more comes from a criminal family and is therefore an outcast despite trying to get out of her circumstances). Bailey is 15 years younger than Beau, but in many ways, she is an older soul than he is. She is also a person who has never been loved and supported, and Beau wants to do that for her. I liked these characters a lot. This is not a perfect book, but it is swoony and sexy. Bailey is a great character, super strong, and Beau is a difficult man, both felled and empowered by love. We also get cameos from all the Eaton clan. What more can a romance reader ask for? show less

last book in the series and it was absolutely amazing. Elsie silver has a great way of taking an overused trope and making it special and unique. I liked how Beau and Baileys relationship developed and how she touches on PTSD from the war. Overall great story and great series.

I really enjoyed following Beau and Bailey. It was a near perfect ending to the series, and I think I cried the last like 30 pages knowing we were leaving Chestnut Springs. There's a few little things that kept me from a 5 star, but overall it was wonderful and everything I hoped for.

Bailey Jansen can't get away from the stigma of being part of the notorious Jansens. The only job she can get in Chestnut Springs is bartender. Her fondest wish is to move out of town and start a new life where nobody knows her family. Beau Eaton wishes he could start over too, but he can't seem to break out of a crippling depression that has taken over his life ever since his return from Afganistan where he saved another soldier's life and seriously injured his feet. Bailey and Beau start to find common ground at the bar where she works, and decide to fake an engagement in hopes of enhancing both of their lives.

Hopeless starts out as a fairly typical fake dating situation with most of the differences relating to Beau's mental state and show more Bailey's family. Bailey is quirky as the young bartender with no filter who raises Beau's spirits. Both characters are well developed as they deal with depression, PTSD, and non-functional families, while their romance jumps right into a heavy physical relationship, so much so, that the scenes become tedious and repetitive. The best parts of the story include those in which the banter between the main characters and with Beau's family are emphasized. Overall, Hopeless is a good ending to the Chestnut Springs series, bringing back all of the characters from previous books and giving Beau a happily ever after. show less

Chestnut Springs has come to an end. How bittersweet! I Loved all the characters in this series.
Here we are again Beau and Bailey have to be my favorite. There was so much vulnerability and acceptance that how can you not fall in love with them. ❤️
Beau is an ex military man with PTSD, Bailey comes from a no good family and the town seems to hate her just because of her last name. So when Beau offers up changing her last name to Eaton to see the difference in how she is treated. How can Bailey pass that up?
Chefs kiss to this series. I'm sad it has come to an end. 🥲

Afraid this was my least favorite of the whole series by far. Their age gap of 22/35 didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would because she’s lived a lot of life and so has he. The problems I had with it were that he kind of treated her like she was too young to know her own brain and I didn’t love it.

I really like this series because of how the characters carry through from book to book. This book was missing that. It makes sense why, in all of the other books Beau kept the details of his life to himself, even from his family. But I still missed the other characters, they were there but not as much as the other books.