Review and Release Tuesday: 18 Hours to Us by Krista Noorman

Amazon  Goodreads  Barnes and Noble

Standalone to date

Goodreads Blurb:

"When Natalie Rhodes left her house early that fateful morning to catch the bus to her senior class trip, she never expected to end up in a car with Colton Daynes--the guy she's had a crush on since first grade, the guy who has no idea who she is. But when Colton's irresponsible driving causes them both to miss the bus, the unlikely pair set off on a road trip from Michigan to Virginia Beach to catch up with their classmates.

From the little village of Middleville, the popular football star and the quiet gymnast will navigate back roads and highways, travel from lake towns to waterfalls to mountaintops and beyond, all the while fielding texts from Colton's friends and mean girl, Lexi, who also happens to be Colton's girlfriend and Natalie's former best friend.

Hours spent together on the road will lead them to places they've never been, discovering hidden talents, revealing secrets and fears. And they just might realize they have more in common than they know."

Review:

I received an advance copy of 18 Hours to Us from the author.  All opinions expressed are my own.

This is just such a cutesy and quick read!  While the romance had a few sticking points for me, I just can't get over how cute it is!

1.  The plot.  If you've ever read Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins, this plotline reminded me a lot of that book.  The two main characters end up going on a road trip together after they miss the school bus that is driving them to a beach a couple of states away.  One thing this book doesn't have going for it is unpredictability.  Just from reading the blurb, you can tell exactly where it's going and how it'll get there.  That's kind of why I love contemporary romance novels, though.  You don't worry about what will happen, you just enjoy the character interactions and the bond that's forming between them.  To that end, I read this book in one night because of how absorbed I was in their relationship.  It's quite lovely and the author doesn't try to shove in an action plotline or anything of the sort.  The purpose is clear and sweet.  Now that I think about it, this book is basically cotton candy.

2.  The romance.  If you couldn't tell, the romance is the plot and while that is adorable and sweet, it also places any problems with the romance front and center.  While it isn't exactly instalove, I found myself repeatedly asking why Natalie was so swoony around Colton when she starts out so antagonistic towards him.  The first couple hours of the road trip are a little sickly with her swooning every time he does something human.  That being said, I did like getting to know their relationship more as they themselves were discovering it and watching them stop and do cute things together during the trip is adorable!  Honestly, this is basically a fairytale.

3.  The characters.  In general, the characters are lovely.  We really get to know Colton and Natalie (obviously) and we learn about their pasts as they discover it from each other which I found to be a great way of conveying the necessary knowledge without an info dump at the beginning.  I do wish there was more of their friends, though, because they're painted as rather two dimensional.  The book is focused on the two MC's, but I could have used more.

4.  The setting.  Because the premise is a road trip, the settings describing each place are basically mandatory and overall, they're very important.  The settings here fit that purpose and I enjoyed following along with Colton and Natalie's journey through the middle eastern part of the US.  The author uses several landmarks to mark each point of the journey and I think that was a very smart decision.

The Final Verdict:
Fluffy, sweet, and exceptionally cute.


Note: There are a few religious undertones although it isn't super prominent (Christian).