Vino & Veritas Book 12: Daybreak by Kate Hawthorne

Vino & Veritas Book 12

When a sunny young musician gets stranded with a grumpy mechanic during a snowstorm, a lack of heat is the least of their problems…

Liam Luckett is on an adventure. He's dropped out of his Master's program without telling his overbearing parents and set off on a road trip across the country. Armed with little more than his guitar, he’s looking for his best life. He never expected his car to break down in the middle of nowhere Vermont with a huge storm pending, leaving him stranded and at the mercy of a hunky local mechanic.

Jasper Cunningham is in a holding pattern. Three years after the death of his husband, he still hasn’t moved on. A hot, younger stranded tourist is exactly the sort of complication this mechanic has been avoiding. But he also can’t leave him in the snow. He brings Liam home and lets him sleep on the couch. The air is heavy with more than snow, and when the power goes out, the two men become closer than either of them expects.

Every silken note Liam sings on that guitar thaws Jasper’s heart a little. Suddenly, Liam’s itchy feet aren’t so eager to move on. When their feelings get too big to ignore, the bond they’ve formed is tested. Will daybreak leave them going their separate ways?

This opposites attract, hurt/comfort romance features a grumpy widower who is only soft for one specific blue-eyed musician, a remote farmhouse, a friendly dog, and enough snow to knock the power out until love catches fire.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56278586-daybreak

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My Review: 5/5 Stars 

I was so glad to see that Jasper was one of our main characters for this book. We met Jasper in Unguarded. He was a friend of Emmett's who we learned had lost his husband three years earlier and was still grieving for that loss. Jasper is still in many ways grieving but when he meets Liam, he finds himself drawn to someone for the first time in a long time. Liam left California without a word to his parents and just drove. He can't find a way to tell them that not only is he gay, but he doesn't want to take the path his father pushed him on. He's been happy to find himself on the road, playing the guitar and singing in bars. And when he arrived in Vermont, he finds he has no choice but to stay when his car breaks down. But despite the unlucky break, it is actually more than he could have hoped for. He didn't think it would be possible to fall for Jasper, who is a bit of a grump and a man of few words. But little by little he sees past the armor Jasper has on and finds himself falling hard. And it doesn't hurt that the two of them are stuck together in Jasper's house with a snow storm. I really enjoyed their story. This one brought back a lot of characters we met in previous books and I definitely wanted to see Jasper get a happy ending after learning about him in Unguarded. And Liam was also another great character, who was this ray of California sunshine but had his own problems of trying to figure out what he wants in his life. Another great addition to the Vino & Veritas series.  

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.