Paradise Hops by Liz Crowe

Grade-B
Hotness Level-Inferno
Kink Level-None
Genre-Contemporary
Reviewed by Kay

Lori Brockton is the sole heir of Brockton Brewery and she takes this responsibility seriously. She has worked in almost every area of the brewery from the ground up. She is also a very scarred woman with a very tragic past. She lost her mother to cancer at a very early age and was the victim of a brutal rape as a young woman.

Garrett Hunter is a numbers guy. He even has the suit and tie to prove it. He helps run the brewery with Lori and her dad. He is crazy about Lori.

Eli Buchanan is a master brewer and he's fantastic at it. His methods are immature and hateful, if you ask me. He's also a man-whore and of course, he is attracted to Lori.

This is a very complex novel. A lot happens in a book that is less than two hundred pages. You like and dislike the characters a lot. Examples of this are below:

Like- Lori has pulled herself together after her brutal rape and beating.
Dislike- Lori starts dating Garrett but has sexual encounters with Eli.

Like- Garrett loves Lori and wants to help her through her issues however he can.
Dislike- Garrett cheated on his first wife and he's a control freak.

Like- Eli loves Lori and even recognizes Garrett is the better man for her.
Dislike- Eli has sexual encounters with Lori even though she's kind of with Garrett.

This novel jolted me badly. A lot of tragedy in this book for me. After sleeping with both men at different times but with in days of each other, Lori decides to study brewing abroad and moves to Germany. Garrett and Eli have it out over a discussion. Oddly enough, a friendship starts. They both accept the fact that Lori could pick one of them or not.

Lori comes to the realization that she really loves both of them but only freely admits it to herself about Garrett. She and Garrett Skpe and talk on the phone still. She also realizes that she's pregnant and convinces herself it's Garrett's baby. She then falls at a brewery tour and hits her head.

Garrett and Eli decide for Garrett to go to her in Germany when they find out. While unconscious, Lori has a very odd dream about her life with Garrett. Eli gets a message that says Garrett was killed in a accident on his way to the airport, so a devastated Eli goes to Lori. Lori's reaction to Garrett's death is tear-inducing, I admit it, I bawled my head off. Lori goes home to her family's brewery and after wallowing in her misery, starts trying to adjust. Eli creates a beer Garrett described as his favorite kind of beer. He dedicated to his friend, which again made me bawl.

This was not your typical romance or HEA. I struggled with my own acceptance of the characters and their situations. I detest cheating in any form, so that was a tremendous struggle for me. I gasped out loud at the description of Lori's rape and at the shock of Garrett's death. Eli and Lori do end up together. They have two children and one on the way. This is my first book by Ms. Crowe and a little too heavy for me, although I enjoyed it. It is a book worth reading. And, just for the record, Lori's first child was a boy named Hunter, after his father, Garrett. And yes, it made me bawl again.