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"Current 2025 rating: 4-stars
Original 2014 rating: 5-stars and a keeper. 

📸 Stone Man MacKenna - 39 yrs old, runs a trading post in a tiny, muddy Yukon Territory mining town in the year of 1896. He is a big, surly, foul-mouthed loner of a mountain man that loves silence and to just be left alone and read books quietly in the evening. His only enjoyment in life is to photograph the Yukon wilderness. To find more time to be able to partake in his hobby, he places an advertisement in a variety of newspapers looking for a partner to help run his trading post. He was thrilled to receive a letter in the mail from a ‘Devon O’Shea�� that was replying to his ad. Stone couldn’t wait for him to arrive.

🧼 Devon O’Shea - 29 yrs old, answered the ad in hopes of going somewhere new and starting life over now that she’s finished helping to raise her younger sister. She’s prim and proper, needs things clean and organized, she’s perky and tries to always stay positive, not afraid of big burly Stone Man at all, constantly outwits him in a charming grumpy-sunshine way and tries desperately to win him over to let her stay until at least spring.

⛏️ Upon arriving to the trading post, they have a fun meet-cute. Well, I don’t think Stone Man had fun. He was furious to realize the name Devon was a unisex name. And then Devon herself was realizing that Stone Man (and his mining friends) was a complete stranger to soap, spittoons, and basic social manners. She got to work right away cleaning the 10x10 pigsty tent that she needed to share with Stone Man. A good portion of the story was their battle of him wanting her to immediately leave and return to St Louis and her wanting to stay and help until Spring time when the next return boat would arrive.

“She offered him a bright smile. He smiled back, and she felt an almost blinding sense of joy��
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Underneath his gruff dirty exterior, beat a heart lonely and aching.��

💰 Of course, during the long winter they fall in love. But due to their individual backstories and sad life experiences, they each refused to set thems up to be hurt by letting the other turn them down first. They have long periods of silence that got frustrating for me. Especially the last 20% of the story. One simple sit down talk with a “please don’t leave me in the Spring, I love you, stay with me!�� would have resolved everything so much quicker.

Despite my 3rd act silent treatment frustrations, it was still a great grumpy x sunshine western read with a good amount of grumpy grumbling and steamy and/or sensual scenes. I enjoyed rereading this, and will look into other books by this author.

Random Thoughts:
💅 I hate reading of MCs gnawing at their fingernails, gives me the shivers.
🛌 They shared a bed for the longest time before actually becoming romantic, but nothing was ever mentioned about it. It would have been awkward to share a bed with a stranger of the opposite sex, and talking about it would have helped build of sexual tension in the story.
🥶 I have respect for the early inhabitants that could survive -40’F winter temps while living inside a non-sealed canvas tent. Blows my mind that it was possible.

Bingo Reading Challenge 2025
Square #13 - a book with a meet-cute
Progress - 39/100
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original 2014 review:

I loved this book. I love when the hero and heroine do not like each in the beginning, or at least when the hero does not want a relationship... but they slowly fall in love anyways. This book had a great story of just that happening. This author, Kristin Hannah, took her time telling the story so that you got to thoroughly know each character and could actually see and feel their individual emotions as they slowly fell in love. She is a great story teller! I loved how the heroine was a strong, independent woman, yet not bitchy at all. She was very likeable, as was the hero (even though he was a very rough and gruff mountain man). The ending was super sweet, my eyes did tear up a little. But... I would have thrown the gold overboard!"