Review: Beauty and the Bayou by Erin Nicholas

Posted August 31, 2020 by Shari in Reviews / 2 Comments

Tags: Beauty and the Bayou, Boys of the Bayou, Contemporary Romance, Erin Nicholas

Beauty and the Bayou

by Erin Nicholas

Series: Boys of the Bayou #3
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Published by Small Publisher
Released on August 13, 2019
Pages: 283
Format: eBook
Source: Kindle Unlimited

The Delight

A wrong righted, a heart on the mend, a soul learning to move on, and a family there to catch you when you fall. This is one of my favorite Boys of the Bayou romances as it didn’t fluff, but deep on healing, reality, and falling hard.

Review

At the end of Sweet Home Louisiana, a few drunk frat boys stole a boat and wrecked into the Boys of the Bayou dock, causing them to be down a boat and down a dock. But one of the frat boys has an older sister that really cares whether he becomes an asshole or not. Juliet makes a deal with the owners of Boys of the Bayou, minus Sawyer, for her brother Chase and her to rebuild the dock over two weeks.

Sawyer Landry knows he hasn’t been in the greatest tour guide for the last few months, but losing your best friend, Tommy, and being injured messed with his whole sense of safety. Growling at customers can’t continue and the scar on his face just makes him even scarier. He knows he is over protecting everyone, but knowing and being able to change isn’t easy when danger on the bayou is a real thing. So when he sees a very shapely behind hanging off the wrecked dock, he immediately gets growly and protective dragging the beauty from danger.

Juliet isn’t your typical 20 something heroine. She’s so much more. At 10, Juliet has a tragic health issue/near-death experience that shaped her into someone who plans for every type of outcome. A game of what if is needed for anything she takes on and she has an accordion file folder to keep all her research tidy. So when she wanted to do anything, she planned everything to make sure she knew all the pitfalls before starting. So when a man drags her back on the wrecked dock, she is wearing a life vest, hard hat (well it wasn’t on her head but beside her), and a safety vest oh, and waders! (not sure I spelled that right)

Can you see where this is going? A hero who worries about everything and everyone wanting to protect them from everything for fear of losing them and a woman who almost lost everything learning to overcome her deficits so she can live life even if it takes her longer to get there. Also, she wants her brother to see real people doing really hard work instead of becoming the rich asshat as her older two brothers have become.

Now, I know Juliet is smart and can google the hell out of instructions, but even I wouldn’t dream of trying to replace a dock. But that is what she does. She measures twice, nope I mean five times and cuts once. Careful is just who she is, but she doesn’t back down from the fear of being close to water, using power tools, and helping Sawyer see people are going to get into trouble, but he needs to trust that they can fix it or get out of it.

What I also loved was how Juliet is an introvert. This Landry family is really a bunch of extroverts, so it was heartwarming to see they didn’t force her to be like them but loved her for who she was and respected her need to be alone. They knew she would come to them in her own time. Juliet is also a lawyer from a rich family, but they were not rich in what the Landry’s are: love and family. Not to say Juliet’s mom wasn’t loving. Heck Juliet’s mom would have wrapped Juliet in bubblewrap if she could have. We don’t get to meet Juliet’s family though, except for her younger brother, Chase.

What I loved as well, is while Chase wrecked the dock and his sister was making him work off the debt, the Landry family also showed him acceptance, hard work, good times, and respect. In the end, Chase was adopted into the Landry family and regarded Ellie and Leo as his grandparents.

Just because Juliet may have had some issues, that didn’t stop her and Sawyer from getting hot and heavy. Sawyer has a little dominant streak to him and I am not saying that in a kinky way. He just knows when to lead and tell her what he wants. And the Boys of the Bayou office is getting a lot of action in this series for being so dusty and having moonshine in the file cabinet.

This is probably my favorite story so far. When something tragic happens in your life, it just doesn’t go away. You may not realize you have even changed, or you do but you can’t do much about it. This showed how even if you can’t get over your feelings, you learn to adjust and put them in the right boxes in your mind. And learn to smile and joke when you realize you don’t have to protect everyone.

Oh, and Maddie from the last books…she may have tempered her wild side, but she still gets into trouble. It will make you smile, laugh, and just shake your head, and what something innocently said can turn into a heap of trouble.

This is the bayou and the Landry family at their best. A must-read for 2020!

Challenges Met

Reading Challenge #138
Review Writing Challenge #43
Bad Boys of Romance Challenge #16
Literary Pickers #39 – Helmet
Books ‘N’ Tunes #26 – Days in the Sun from Beauty and the Beast

Series

My Best Friend's Mardi Gras Wedding by Erin Nicholas

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Shari

Owner at Delighted Reader

Shari is the Delighted Reader. Married to her Prince Charming and mother to two Princesses and one Prince. When she is not slaving away as Cinderella she loves to get lost in the pages of a good book. Never without a reading device and a few good paperback books, because she never knows when she might get 5 minutes to read!