Hedging Your Bets

Gillian is quite content with her love life, or lack thereof. She has her career, her friends, her garden, and absolutely no desire to reenter the dating world with its body-shaming and broken hearts. That’s why, when her new neighbor Noah starts tearing out her beloved landscaping, she can ignore the fact that he’s absolutely gorgeous and focus on the fact that he’s an arrogant jerk. Noah isn’t one to go down without a fight, and the two set their sights on besting each other in the town’s annual gardening competition. As an unexpected friendship blossoms, however, it sows the seeds for something more. Denker’s (The Rom-Com Agenda) second installment in her “Willow Cove” series returns readers to its small New York town and heartwarming, funny inhabitants. Narrators Katelyn Levering and Nick Mondelli are an engaging and expressive duo. Their performance of this closed-door contemporary romance enhances the flirtatious chemistry and yields an entertaining listening experience.