Hopeless by Elsie Silver - A Book Review
Synopsis:
Beau Eaton is the town prince, a handsome military hero with a tortured past.
I’m the outcast bartender, a shy girl from the wrong side of the tracks.
He’s thirty-five and all man, I’m twenty-two and all . . . virgin. He’s also my fiancé. Correction: my fake fiancé.
We start out as a bet. He doesn’t believe that anyone holds my last name against me. So he offers me his to prove a point.
It’s a win-win. He gets a break from his concerned family’s prying, and I get a chance to shed my family’s reputation while I save up to ditch this small town.
He says all I have to do is wear his ring, follow his lead, and pretend I can’t keep my hands off of him in public.
But it’s what happens between us in private that blurs all those carefully drawn lines . . .
It’s what transpires behind closed doors that doesn’t feel like pretending at all . . .
This engagement was supposed to be for show. This agreement? It has an end date.
He once told me he’d never fall in love.
And yet here I am, head over heels for my fake fiancé.
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Tropes:
- Fake Dating / Fake Engagement
- Tortured Hero
- He Falls First
- Age Gap
- Touch Her and Die Vibes
- Military
I held off reading Hopeless because I adored the Chestnut Springs series and I truly didn’t want it to end. I was worried that finishing this book and putting this series to a close would mean all other cowboy romances wouldn’t come near to the love I had for this series.
Elsie Silver released the first two books of her new Rose Hill series and I knew I wanted to read them, BUT it meant I had to finish the chestnut springs series because they’re all interconnected standalones and I didn’t want to risk spoilers.
Hopeless was a book I was very nervous to read – it had gotten very mixed reviews online and I hadn’t seen any that were positive. I loved majority of the Chestnut Springs books – didn’t massively love Powerless, but it was a sports romance and they’re not my thing. So I was hoping that Hopeless wouldn’t disappoint and ensure the series went out with a bang.
I loved everything about Hopeless, despite my initial concerns. I fell in love with Beau and how attentive he was and how he genuinely cared for Bailey. I equally loved Bailey and how she was such a spitfire with no filter – equally loved Beau’s reactions to her one liners.
I loved the tension in this book and how it built in such a perfect time frame – it wasn’t too long or too short!
Hopeless had me giggling to myself at Bailey and Beau’s banter and interactions – it really brought back my love for reading and made me remember that this is what I love about reading romances. I enjoy feeling the character’s connection and being in on the funny banger. I feel like a lot of books miss that and I struggle to care or connect with the characters.
I think Hopeless got a lot of negative reviews because of Beau’s previous behaviour in other books and also because of the age gap between Beau and Bailey. In Hopeless, Bailey is 23 years old and Beau is in his mid 30’s I want to say (I can’t remember). Personally, I don’t think this was that bad of an age gap and that’s because I’d previously read Virtuous Lies which had the FMC as a freshly turned 18 year old with a 30 year old who had been pining after her for a while. I had not long finished that book before starting Hopeless, so in comparison I didn’t think it was as bad as that. Would my opinion be different if I’d read Hopeless before that? I don’t know. As a 23 year old myself, I can’t say whether I would or wouldn’t date someone older, but this is just fiction and I read a lot of things I would not do in my life.
This isn’t a Chestnut Springs book without the much loved family dynamic, but I felt like we didn’t see as much as we have previously and I missed it.
I felt so many emotions for Bailey, especially how she’d never received genuine care and love before Beau. It truly had my heart breaking for her and I was so happy when she got to experience not only romantic love from Beau, but also from the Eaton girls.
My only criticism is that I wish we saw more into Beau’s backstory of when he went missing in the military. It was made a big theme in Powerless and Beau’s behaviour was mentioned frequently in Reckless, that I thought we would’ve seen some flashbacks detailing what he went through to cause his change in character.
Now that I’ve finished the Chestnut Springs series, I know for certain I’ll definitely be revisiting it in the future, especially since I read Flawless so long ago.
I am excited to delve into the Rose Hill universe of single dads, but I think I’ll miss the cowboy setting.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 (very close to being 4.75)
Georgia
🌷
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