Truly Madly Montana by Fiona Lowe

Truly Madly Montana by Fiona Lowe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I feel as though I should start my review by explaining that Truly Madly Montana was not on my review list. While the book sounded interesting, the bulk of my to-read list is scheduled 3 months out and I rarely have a chance to add such a lengthy book at the last minute. But as the person who sets up the blog posts, I found myself intrigued by the excerpts for the book and really wanted to see if it was as good as they made it sound. So I queued the review copy up on my Kindle, turned on the text-to-speech function, and crossed my fingers that Truly Madly Montana was the kind of book that lent itself to being read out loud while I worked on setting up other posts. For the most part it was, and when it wasn’t it was because I found my attention being pulled away from working and into the story – great for the author, not so great for the blog posts. ;)

What I really liked about Truly Madly Montana was that Ms. Lowe gave us two love stories in one book. The primary romance is between Will and Millie. As Millie is the first character we meet in the book (and the one whose excerpts snagged my attention most), I connected with her most. I don’t have diabetes so I cannot even imagine what it’s like to live Millie’s life and yet despite being “chained” to her continuous glucose monitor – aka Dex – she maintains a rather upbeat and cheerful outlook on life. This is why I loved how she approached being Josh’s best man and understood her frustration at the wedding reception when the usurper – Dr. Will Bartlett – showed up and assumed he was still the best man because he made it to the wedding. Adding insult to injury is when Will (the guy she was crushing on last summer) assumed she was gay; while that conversation and the interactions that later stemmed from it were not funny from Millie’s point of view, I found them quite laugh worthy. As Will embarks on being friends with Millie because he’s finally found a woman who has similar interests and isn’t trying to hit on him, she is torn between enjoying her time with him and frustrated because she has been relegated to being “just one of the guys” yet again. But sparks fly when Will learns that he was wrong about her sexuality and the scene that follows is emotional, funny, and hot. The best part is that we’re almost halfway through the book before Will and Millie embark on a romantic and sexual relationship, which allowed their friendship to build first. I enjoyed watching their relationship bloom and develop over the summer, which is what made the conversation that preceded Millie’s return to school so heartbreaking. As hard as it was to watch unfold, I was glad to see that Millie didn’t pull any punches with Will and called him out on his cowardice.

Because of how real the characters felt, I found the romance between Millie and Will to be a bit overwhelming at times. This is where the secondary romance comes in handy as it not only helped to keep Millie and Will’s romance from being “too much” for me to read, it also offered quite a bit of comedic relief and a totally different type of emotional depth. To be frank, when Tara first appears in the book I had no idea why the author had gone off on a tangent as there was nothing in the blurb that pointed to the secondary love story. But Ethan’s arrival on scene and his good natured self-deprecation and friendly personality were the perfect complement for the aloof and far too serious Tara. I loved watching their friendship develop and then progress to more just as much as I did Millie and Will’s. Ms. Lowe did a wonderful job of working Tara and Ethan into the story without pulling the focus away from Millie and Will.

I really enjoyed Truly Madly Montana and will be adding the first book in the series, Montana Actually, to my to-be-read list. Not only did I enjoy the author’s style of writing, I also learned something new. Via conversations and Millie’s actions over the course of the book, the author shows just how all-encompassing managing her diabetes is and just how little control she can have over it despite doing everything right and this left me in complete awe of Millie and every person who has to live with diabetes. This was a great read and I absolutely loved the reality check Ms. Lowe gave Will’s character at the end and how it led to the perfect resolution for Will and Millie. I look forward to reading more from the Medicine River series.

I received a free copy of this book to read and review for Wicked Reads.
Check out the Truly Madly Montana by Fiona Lowe Blog Tour post on Wicked Reads.


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