The Heartwood Beach: when a bodyguard/fake boyfriend comes very real

The Heartwood Beach is the third book in the Carter’s Cove series by Elana Johnson. Sheryl Heartwood loves tending the grounds around The Heartwood Inn. She finds peace among the plants, flowers and trees. She’s content with the beach-side life she has always known. However, she is not happy with the ex-boyfriend who keeps showing up where he’s not wanted: at her house, at the inn. Every time she turned around, there he was. She hires Gage Sanders, a retired Marine, as a bodyguard but he has to act as her boyfriend. Gage works various security jobs on the island. Acting as Sheryl’s bodyguard/boyfriend should be easy peasy. The lines quickly become blurred as the attraction between them becomes very, very real. Will the stalker leave her alone? Will Sheryl and Gage act on their attraction? 

The Heartwood Beach is a sweet, clean romance. Sheryl was hard to like. She ran so hot and cold with Gage, I often wondered what she was doing. And Gage was so secretive about weird things that it was odd. And their conflicts were over stupid things. The stalker plotline was poorly done. The reason he was stalking Sheryl was ludicrous and her solution to resolve it was just as ludicrous. A man stalks her, scaring her so much that she hires a man to act as her fake boyfriend and she does what?!?!? I did like that the story overlapped a bit with the previous book, so readers get to see the other perspectives from those events. Overall, I did enjoy The Heartwood Beach and it was a great book to read on a lazy afternoon. 

The Heartwood Beach is available in paperback, eBook, and audiobook