Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Audiobook: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Spice: 🌶️🌶️

by Elliot Fletcher – This book had been on my TBR for a while, and when I saw the audiobook on @everand, I took it as a sign. I am so glad I did! The ebook is also currently available on KU!

Although many dream of a life on the idyllic Isle of Skye, April Sinclair spent her childhood wanting to escape and become a famous actress. Well, be careful what you wish for because fame can be fickle. Once famous but now floundering, April returns to Scotland to distract herself by attempting to save her family’s failing distillery, which she has recently inherited. Once there, she finds distiller Malcolm Macabe, who, despite his grumpy exterior, also wants to save the distillery. Opposite to April in every way, Mal would rather live quietly in the shadows with his whisky and dog but can’t seem to get April out of his head – or his business! It doesn’t help that their dogs have become fast friends, and as April infuses herself into his life, Mal begins to want anything she’ll give him before she returns to her life of fame and fortune.

What a fun book! Although, on the surface, they have the fun grumpy/sunshine dynamic, both April and Mal have much more complexity. From how April’s career fell apart to Mal’s complex relationship with his father and their feelings about April’s uncle, this book has a lot of emotion. There’s also a lot of family in this one, which adds so much to the story, but at the core is the evolving relationship between April and Mal as they partner (begrudgingly at first) to save the distillery. Fletcher’s writing makes you root for these two to succeed personally and professionally. Plus, their dogs are downright adorable! This is the first in a series and does a fantastic job of setting up secondary characters who you want to become main characters in the future. I’m all in on this series and excited for the next book, Scotch on the Rocks, coming in the summer of 2025!

The audiobook is perfect – no notes! Narrated by EmmaClaire Brightlyn and Martin Quinn, it transports you to the Isle of Sky!