Complicated

Hixon Drake is a small-town Nebraska sheriff holding his life together by sheer willpower — newly divorced, rebuilding a home for his kids, and refusing to become the kind of man who makes promises he can't keep. Greta Dare has stopped believing in promises altogether. She's traded hope for something quieter: a safe, predictable life in a sleepy town where nothing can hurt her or her brother. When these two collide, the attraction is instant and undeniable — and both of them have every reason to walk away from it. Kristen Ashley builds the tension not around whether they'll get together, but around whether two people this guarded can actually let each other in.

What sets this book apart is Ashley's commitment to emotional depth over pacing. At 628 pages, it earns its length — the slow burn here isn't a tease, it's a reckoning. Her prose is warm and direct, with a distinctly American vernacular that makes characters feel lived-in rather than written. Hix and Greta don't just fall in love; they negotiate it, resist it, and eventually choose it. Readers who appreciate romance with real emotional stakes and characters who feel genuinely complicated will find this one hard to put down.