Anything for You (Blue Heron #5) by Kristan Higgins

Anything for You book coverEven though usually the main main character of an mf romance is the female lead, Anything for You is Connor O’Rourke’s story. Jessica Dunn is important, but we start and end with Connor and it was kind of fun that way.

Connor’s been in love with Jess ever since she rescued him from being mauled to death by her family’s mean pit bull when they were both twelve. But she was never interested in him back when they were kids, too busy handling her own tough life to really consider him.

And Jess has had a very tough life. She grew up in a trailer park with criminally neglectful and drunk parents and a younger brother (Davey) born with fetal alcohol syndrome. She has taken care of him basically all his life. And it hasn’t been easy. She felt the need to seek external protection for him from the boys in her high school, and her approach to this was to sleep with them to earn a favor. So she became known as the Manningsport town slut, all while being probably the most decent, hard-working person in the whole town and not remotely interested in “a good time.”

Connor, on the other hand, hasn’t had it too bad. Although he’s never been close to his jerk of a father, said father’s a well-off lawyer and Connor’s been pretty comfortable. He has disappointed his parents by going to culinary school, however. But then he and his twin sister received an inheritance that allowed them to open a new restaurant in Manningsport so he moved back.

When the book opens, they’re both thirty-two and Connor is proposing. Jess doesn’t take it seriously, calling him a “doofus” and “big guy” in the process of saying no. They’ve been secretly dating on-and-off for ten years and he’s done. He wants their relationship to be real and in the open. But the way Jess sees it, she has responsibility for her brother, who hates Connor. Because Davey blames Connor for the death of Chico, the dog that mauled him, and Davey loved Chico more than anything. So, since Davey comes first, that’s that.

Although the story starts there, in the next chapter, we drop straight back to the mauling incident twenty years earlier. Then we see the first time Connor and Jess hang out and hook up, at a wine class he’s teaching at the culinary institute (her boss at her waitressing job sent her). He ruins it by saying something stupid and hurtful. She says goodbye and that’s that for a while. The book proceeds by telling the rest of their history before jumping back to after the proposal.

As usual for a Higgins book, there’s a lot going on in both Connor’s and Jess’s lives. Jess has worked so hard and is living in a rental house working toward buying her own. She’s managed to go to college and even get a master’s in marketing. And now she works at the Blue Heron winery in Manningsport and is well-loved there. Connor’s busy with his restaurant and attempting to get a brewery started up. Then he finally comes up with an idea to win Davey over, which he believes will change everything for him and Jess. It’s not a bad idea, even if it doesn’t go quite as planned.

The book’s loaded with humor that doesn’t come at anyone’s expense and a fair amount of sexy times. Higgins is a master of details that appear to effortlessly pull the reader into the story. Her dialogue is crisp and entertaining. There are numerous interesting side characters—most notably Colleen, Connor’s twin, and a new hire at the winery.

Overall, it’s a great read that any fan of a good romance will enjoy.