Book Review | Smooth As Whiskey – Lyra Parish (Valentine Texas Series, Book Four)

Smooth As Whiskey
By: Lyra Parish

Series: Valentine Texas
Book # in Series: 4 of 7
Genre: Small Town Southern Style Romance
Trope: Forbidden, Age Gap (8 Years), Best Friend’s Younger Sister, Second Chance, He Falls First
Publisher: Self Published
Publication Date: February 6th, 2024
My Rating: ✮✮✮✮✮
My Reading Format: ARC received for an honest review

Synopsis:

Top three reasons why I shouldn’t eff around and find out with my older brother’s best friend.

1. He’s eight years older than me.
2. My family would never approve.
3. He’s hiding something.

So we become roommates. And I become his greatest temptation.

I play his game of cat and mouse until we collapse between the sheets with a promise to tell no one.

The only problem is that secrets don’t stay hidden in our small town for long—not our forbidden relationship or the pasts we’re both running from.

Smooth as Whiskey is book 4 in the Valentine Texas Series. Each book can be read as a stand-alone, but they do interconnect. This is a small-town, older brother’s best friend, secret relationship, contemporary romance book with a happily ever after.

honey-script.light

Smooth As Whiskey by Lyra Parish is the fourth standalone romance novel in her Valentine Texas Series. This is the one I’ve been waiting on!! It’s now time for Remington ‘Remy’ Valentine to finally claim her happily ever after!!

Remington Valentine has spent the past seven years hiding the scars wrapped around her heart, and although most of those scars were self inflicted, they still have her fearing the possibility of a forever with her infamous one who got away.

Cash Johnson gave his heart away a long time ago to someone he had no business messing around with. But you know the saying, the heart wants what the heart wants. And in Cash’s case, his heart fell hard for his best friend, Beckett’s younger sister, eight years ago.

Sadly, their time wasn’t for the past. Cash found himself building a reputation for himself as a veterinarian in a different town.

Now, with Beckett’s help, he’s back in Valentine, Texas, building a new name for himself as the top vet in the county. Hopefully, he’ll end this chapter with a ring and an epic happily ever after. It’s his top mission to strip that fear of the unknown Remy has living deep in her heart.

My thoughts:

I don’t know what it is about the Valentine Texas Series that has my heart falling desperately in love with every character featured. Lyra Parish continues to surprise me with her words and her storytelling skills. One thing is for certain, she’s quickly making her way to the top of my favorite authors list! I can’t get enough of this southern style, small town series.

I just finished Smooth As Whiskey, and one thing I noticed about this novel, and the ones that came before is that Lyra Parish has a skill of taking a trope and putting her own twist on it. I’m starting to become a fan of the age gap trope, and I’ve already been a fan of the best friend’s younger sister trope. This one came as a surprise to me and had me falling hard and fast for Cash Johnson and the ‘he falls first’ nature of this story. If those tropes are on your auto-buy list, believe me when I say you won’t be disappointed with Smooth As Whiskey!

Let’s dive into the characters. Starting with Remington ‘Remy’ Valentine. This woman is considered the ‘Wednesday Addams’ of the Valentine family. She’s basically the black sheep, keeping her secrets to her heart kind of character. I loved this facet to her personality. She seemed very outgoing on the outside, but deep inside, she lived with the fear of losing everything in the name of love. My heart broke for her over and over and over again. In all honesty, I wanted to reach into my Kindle and tell her that everything will work out! But, of course, I can’t do that because she’s a fictional character and all. At the end of the day, I had faith that Lyra Parish would give Remy her epic happily ever after, and I wasn’t disappointed.

And then we have Cash Johnson. Cash fell in love with Remy years ago, but that love wasn’t meant to play out at that moment in their lives. So he moved away and became a master at his craft of becoming a veterinarian. I loved the fact that Cash Johnson bared his heart in this novel. There was never a moment when I thought he was going to walk away. This man was in it for the long haul no matter the fight, the struggle, or the letdown. He was in it, and that is why Cash Johnson is my favorite hero to step foot in the Valentine Texas Series!! This man was so much more than I initially expected!!

Overall, this story of finding love and trying again was sweet and sometimes very spicy! I loved Remy’s emotional journey of finding her true heart, and I loved Cash’s journey of finding his patience. My heart is so happy right now, and that is why I gave Smooth As Whiskey a five-star rating! Any novel that can make my heart feel so much through the reading process deserves all the stars in the sky. A huge thank you goes to Lyra Parish for taking me on this emotionally wonderful journey! I can’t wait to see what’s coming next!!

The section below contains amazon affiliate links. This is a way for my site to earn advertising fees by advertising or linking to certain products and services.