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A review by kerrys_bookshelf
Wilder With You by Serena Bell
4.5
This book is the third in the Wilder Adventures romance series, however, it can 100% be read as a stand alone.
In the first two books you don’t really learn much about Clarke; all we really know going into this book is that he’s a widower that’s not really dealing with his grief very well despite the fact his wife passed on a few years ago now.
Jessa is a completely new character; she’s a wedding planner who knew Clarke’s late wife and has recently split with her (now ex) husband. She has decided to take herself and her best friend on a ‘Gilderness’ Trip (a lighter wilderness survival trip where you learn the very basics of surviving in the wilderness and still get smores at the end of it all – think normal people camping where you still learn some pretty important survival techniques). At the very last minute, Jessa’s bestie has to cancel, which leaves her to face this trip on her own. Not so bad, right? There’ll be other people she can socialise with and maybe it’ll be quite nice to spend some time with just herself and nature. Wrong. Very wrong. Jessa’s ex-husband and the woman that he cheated on her with are also on the trip.
For some unknown reason, the very grumpy Clarke decides he can’t stand seeing Jessa being picked on by her ex and his new partner and decides to fake-date her to get the guy off her back.
And, like all good fake dating stories, it kinda spirals a little out of control.
This was probably my favourite of these Wilder Brother stories; and that’s really saying something because I loved the first two – a lot.
Clarke is presented as a Grumpy McGrumpFace throughout the first two books and it so lovely to get his inner monologue and reasoning behind his less-than-happy exterior. You can kind of infer from the other books that Clarke would be a massive softie, but its lovely getting to see that come to light in this book.
I remember remarking through the first to books how the representation was getting better and better; the first book is mainly and all white, straight cast with a few very minor characters thrown in that aren’t. The second book follows and Latinx love interest and there’s definitely more representation within it.
This book, however, was markedly more represented; Jessa is half Korean and there is so much talk of her Korean heritage and culture (which was clearly researched well and had me craving so many yummy foods I’d honestly never heard of before this book), she has a non-binary sibling that goes by they/them pronouns, and (spoiler - it is something that happens quite a bit of the way through the book, but doesn’t have any bearing on the story at all) Clarke’s mum – the mother of all the Wilder siblings – comes out as being in a relationship with her close female friend; among quite a few other little tidbits I didn’t manage to note down.
I often find with romance novels, once the story has done it’s thing and the love interests have had their reunion, the book ends so quickly that you never get to have any kind of insight as to what their HEA is actually like. I really liked with this how we got some time after their getting back together, as well as a little epilogue of events that had been hinted at in the main story. It’s also lovely to pick up hints of the next book(s). Knowing which brother the next book in the series is about and having a small synopsis - being able to pick up small easter eggs about how those events started in this book was great.
The only negative I have about this book, is that it seems as though each of these Wilder Adventure novels follows the same base story; there is some reason the Wilder Brother can’t/shouldn’t/won’t fall in love > enter, female that is leaving town/not staying for long > there is some kind of forced proximity > they do the do > she has to go > they realise they’re actually in love > he chases after her. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and let’s face it, it’s the basis for a LOT of romance novels. But I just so happened to read the three existing books back-to-back and they did feel quite samey. And that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy them, I did. It would just be interesting to have some variety (and for this exact same reason I SO hope that Hannah gets her moment to shine in one of these novels as I can’t wait to read about a not-so-feminine heroine!)
Overall, this book was great. It really showed the progression Clarke’s grief and (although I haven’t had to face this kind of grief before) it seemed as though it was a really realistic representation. Clarke and Jessa were extremely likeable protagonists, and it was really lovely to see characters from past books pop up in this one.
I am very much looking forward to following the Wilder family through their next stories!
With thanks for Net Galley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
In the first two books you don’t really learn much about Clarke; all we really know going into this book is that he’s a widower that’s not really dealing with his grief very well despite the fact his wife passed on a few years ago now.
Jessa is a completely new character; she’s a wedding planner who knew Clarke’s late wife and has recently split with her (now ex) husband. She has decided to take herself and her best friend on a ‘Gilderness’ Trip (a lighter wilderness survival trip where you learn the very basics of surviving in the wilderness and still get smores at the end of it all – think normal people camping where you still learn some pretty important survival techniques). At the very last minute, Jessa’s bestie has to cancel, which leaves her to face this trip on her own. Not so bad, right? There’ll be other people she can socialise with and maybe it’ll be quite nice to spend some time with just herself and nature. Wrong. Very wrong. Jessa’s ex-husband and the woman that he cheated on her with are also on the trip.
For some unknown reason, the very grumpy Clarke decides he can’t stand seeing Jessa being picked on by her ex and his new partner and decides to fake-date her to get the guy off her back.
And, like all good fake dating stories, it kinda spirals a little out of control.
This was probably my favourite of these Wilder Brother stories; and that’s really saying something because I loved the first two – a lot.
Clarke is presented as a Grumpy McGrumpFace throughout the first two books and it so lovely to get his inner monologue and reasoning behind his less-than-happy exterior. You can kind of infer from the other books that Clarke would be a massive softie, but its lovely getting to see that come to light in this book.
I remember remarking through the first to books how the representation was getting better and better; the first book is mainly and all white, straight cast with a few very minor characters thrown in that aren’t. The second book follows and Latinx love interest and there’s definitely more representation within it.
This book, however, was markedly more represented; Jessa is half Korean and there is so much talk of her Korean heritage and culture (which was clearly researched well and had me craving so many yummy foods I’d honestly never heard of before this book), she has a non-binary sibling that goes by they/them pronouns, and (spoiler - it is something that happens quite a bit of the way through the book, but doesn’t have any bearing on the story at all) Clarke’s mum – the mother of all the Wilder siblings – comes out as being in a relationship with her close female friend; among quite a few other little tidbits I didn’t manage to note down.
I often find with romance novels, once the story has done it’s thing and the love interests have had their reunion, the book ends so quickly that you never get to have any kind of insight as to what their HEA is actually like. I really liked with this how we got some time after their getting back together, as well as a little epilogue of events that had been hinted at in the main story. It’s also lovely to pick up hints of the next book(s). Knowing which brother the next book in the series is about and having a small synopsis - being able to pick up small easter eggs about how those events started in this book was great.
The only negative I have about this book, is that it seems as though each of these Wilder Adventure novels follows the same base story; there is some reason the Wilder Brother can’t/shouldn’t/won’t fall in love > enter, female that is leaving town/not staying for long > there is some kind of forced proximity > they do the do > she has to go > they realise they’re actually in love > he chases after her. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and let’s face it, it’s the basis for a LOT of romance novels. But I just so happened to read the three existing books back-to-back and they did feel quite samey. And that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy them, I did. It would just be interesting to have some variety (and for this exact same reason I SO hope that Hannah gets her moment to shine in one of these novels as I can’t wait to read about a not-so-feminine heroine!)
Overall, this book was great. It really showed the progression Clarke’s grief and (although I haven’t had to face this kind of grief before) it seemed as though it was a really realistic representation. Clarke and Jessa were extremely likeable protagonists, and it was really lovely to see characters from past books pop up in this one.
I am very much looking forward to following the Wilder family through their next stories!
With thanks for Net Galley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.