Check out my review for the prequel novella Pact with a Heartbreaker!

Goodreads: Captain Heartbreaker (Havenbrook #4)
Publisher: Bright Publishing
Published: 31 March 2020
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Panda Rating:

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Adventure’s in Captain Hudson Miller’s blood. For the past ten years, he’s spent his days in the sky, serving as a pilot for the Army. But where adventure called him away, something—someone—else is calling him home. On post-deployment leave, he escapes to the one place he hasn’t been since he enlisted: Havenbrook, Mississippi. Hometown of his momma’s peach cobbler, enough memories to last a lifetime, and the only girl who ever left an imprint on his heart.

Mackenna Haven thought she’d have her life figured out by now. Instead, she’s a twenty-seven-year-old college dropout who works at her soon-to-be brother-in-law’s bar and lives on her parents’ land. No husband or kids to her name. Not even a consistent weekend booty call. She’s been pretending she’s happy working dead-end jobs in an even deader-end town, but she can’t stop thinking she was meant for more than this.

After a childhood as best friends and a single weekend exploring more, Mackenna and Hudson haven’t seen each other in ten years. But they made a pact that long ago weekend, and Hudson’s coming to make good on his promise. Except she has no interest in it or him. After all, he walked away from her once already, and she’s not interested in opening her heart and allowing him a second chance at destruction. 

TL;DR: If you’re a fan of friends-to-lovers romances and second-chances between two people who have a wonderfully goofy friendship and sizzlingly hot chemistry, then I would definitely recommend this book! This couple is my favourite in this series and probably one of the best friends-to-lovers couples that I can remember reading! Also, if you’re a fan of small-town romances with a memorable cast of supporting characters, then I’d highly recommend checking out the Havenbrook series!

The Havenbrook series is fast becoming one of my all-time favourite romance series and Brighton Walsh is an auto-buy author because at this point I’m pretty sure I’d read anything by her! I’ve loved all the Haven sisters and the couples in the Havenbrook series but Mac and Hudson are definitely my favourites so far! The life-long friendship, sexual chemistry and emotional connection between them was absolute perfection and although things did get a little bit angsty (and drawn out) towards the end, I was fully engaged in their story and couldn’t put this book down, even when I knew I should. This second-chance romance had me swooning and definitely had me all-up in my single feelings (😂) and I loved every minute of it.

Mac is such a relatable heroine. She’s smart, sassy, loyal AF and has such a big heart, but she’s also a little lost and has insecurities that I related to on a deeply emotional level 😅 She’s a middle-child and as a fellow middle-child, I definitely identified with her feelings of being looked-over because her siblings took up more attention, but I also identified with her willingness to do everything to help the people she cares about, even when she doesn’t get acknowledged or anything for it. Despite her feelings of inadequacy and her loneliness and insecurities about her place in Havenbrook and amongst her family, she always kept trying and I admired her grit. Seeing her grow and come to trust and believe in herself, as much as others do in her, really had my heart soaring with happiness for her!

Then there’s her perfect counterpart, Hudson. Her BFF and the guy who also broke her heart when he changed their plans after secretly signing up for deployment ten years ago. I gotta tell ya, friends, Hudson was one swoontastic hero! 😍 He’s not only ridiculously sexy (like, ridiculously sexy) but he also has a delightfully dirty mouth and heart-thumpingly swoony words that are backed up by his actions, and you know we’re hella here for that! I admired his determination to keep his father’s dreams alive, even though it came at the expense of his own happiness, but I’m also glad that he came to the right realisation at the end of the day. I loved how much he cared for his mum and sister, but I swooned hard at how much he loved Mac! While they were open about their feelings for each other, he’s definitely the one that’s all the way in first, and I loved the way he support and cared for her and provided her with a comforting space to let go at the end of stressful days.

Needless to say, their chemistry from ten years ago that we witnessed in Pact with a Heartbreaker did not lessen a single bit in the years they’ve been apart, but got even more explosive in all that time! I mean, naturally so 😉 Theirs is the perfect kind of friendship where you’re so comfortable with each other that you can pick up where you left off, and their love is definitely the kind that grew more intense despite the years of separation. Ugh, my heart and all my feels—these two had me all up in it! Plus, holy hotness, my Kindle was pretty much set on fire by their very steamy scenes 🥵 They had a whole lot to work through, especially with their own tumultuous thoughts and feelings about where they were in life, which resulted in some low-level angst leading up to the end, but with their chemistry as strong as it was, their romance was inevitable.

Overall, this was another fantastic addition to the Havenbrook series. There’s one more sister left and I’m a little ambivalent about her story cos Nat hasn’t always been my cuppa in the few glances we get of her in the series so far, though I’m sure Walsh will set me straight by the end of her book!

Have you read Captain Heartbreaker or is it on your TBR?

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