ARC REVIEW: Signs Of Trouble – by Anna Alkire

Title: Signs Of Trouble
(Montgomery Brothers #2)
Author: Anna Alkire
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
First published: December 27th 2022
Publisher: Water’s Edge Publishing
Finished reading: January 20th 2023
Pages: 252

“It’s pretty crazy where life takes you sometimes.”

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by BookSirens and Water’s Edge Publishing in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

REVIEW

I was recently invited to join BookSirens, and of course I couldn’t resist the invitation… After some quick browsing, I decided to pick up a quick romance read with Signs Of Trouble; there was just something about the blurb that spoke to me, and I liked the sound of the two single parents being forced together by sharing the same vacation rental. Now that I’ve had a chance to read it, I definitely liked what I found! True, there were a few niggles, but overall this turned out to be a very solid romance read for me.

Signs Of Trouble is actually the second book of a series, but it can be read as a stand-alone without any issues. The story uses a dual POV structure, where we switch between main characters Ellie and Austin as we slowly get to know them better. Both characters have a complicated past that ended up with them being single parents, and it was interesting to learn more about how they ended up in the current situation. There is quite some focus on family and parenting apart from the romance, which helped balance the story out for me and gave the plot more dept.

As for the characters… Ellie and Austin have great chemistry, but I especially loved little Ryder and Kinley and the bonds that formed between Ryder and Ellie as well as Austin and Kinley. Those growing bonds were so sweet to read about, and it was part of the reason this story worked so well for me. Ellie can get a bit frustrating though with her not being able to make decisions and taking so long to realize what is right in front of her… I also didn’t particularly like her friendship with Mari; it almost seemed like her friend didn’t care about her new role as a mother and just wanted the ‘fun friend’ to hang out with at parties back. I understand that they are young and in college, but still.

I liked the writing in general, which was engaging and made it easy to fly through this story. Sure, I could have done without the sexy scenes, which were too much for me, but I know most romance readers won’t mind them. There is also a love triangle vibe I could have done without, but as a whole I did enjoy spending time with Ellie and Austin.

In short, if you are looking for an engaging contemporary romance read that mixes the romance with some family drama and (single) parenting, Signs Of Trouble is a great match.