*I received a free copy of Trouble on Tap from Selfpublished via Netgalley. This has in no way influenced my voluntary review, which is honest and unbiased *

Trouble on Tap by Avery Flynn
Series: Sweet Salvation Brewery #3
Published by Selfpublished on 14 July 2015
Genres: Contemporary, Adult, Romance
Pages: 155
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley

What fun is life without a little bit of trouble?

Retired supermodel and forever wild child Olivia Sweet is nothing but trouble. The youngest Sweet triplet is back in her hometown, but instead of a triumphant return it’s a parade of humiliations. She’s broke, homeless and dealing with the fallout from her scumbag ex-boyfriend publishing naked pictures of her to a revenge porn website.

Staid and stalwart veteran Mateo Garcia has seen more trouble than a man ever should in his lifetime. He’s gone from pretty boy Marine to a small town police chief with a chip on his shoulder and scars covering the left side of his face. Now his former lover, Olivia, is back in town and living next door.

When the two are forced to work together to fix up the crumbling veterans’ center, the sparks fly between the beauty and the man who sees himself as a beast. Not everyone is happy that Olivia is back home though and Mateo has to choose between the town who wants her gone and an uncertain future with a woman who he thinks could never love him…

In Trouble on Tap we finally get to meet the third triplet, and the second chance trope that is prevalent made my heart happy.
As with the first two installments in Sweet Salvation Brewery, I buddy-read Trouble on Tap with my friend Brandee @ Bookworm Brandee, and our e-mail exchange is basically my review. We had a lot of fun chatting about this, and it makes us feel like we didn’t live on opposite sides of the world when we read the same book at the same time – and then chat about it afterwards.

My Trouble on Tap review / book chat with Brandee:

Brandee: I finished this morning. I’ve already had an early morning cry. *sniff* I’m so happy we read this together. You know I was worried I wouldn’t like this one as much because I didn’t feel as connected to Olivia. It felt like we hadn’t been exposed to her enough. And we’d never met Mateo. BUT this is my favorite one in the series! Olivia and Mateo are definitely hot together. And as I’m a sucker for second chance stories, this one rocked! You’re right – it is a second chance for them…at life, really.

Me: I definitely agree that Trouble on Tap is a favorite in the series! Even if we didn’t know Olivia and Mateo before this story started,I think that both the prologue and their inner dialogues made it very easy to both know, understand and love both of them – flaws and all! And they both needed those second chances, both when it comes to life and when it comes to love – I think that’s partly why I loved this so much – apart from how extremely hot their chemistry was 😉

Olivia wanting to make things ‘right’ for her family, to make the Sweet name bring about more than gossip and snickers, and to prove she is more than meets the eye…all of that just made me adore and respect her.

My heart broke for Olivia, the way she just wanted people to leave her family be, and also to make her sisters truly proud of her. It was as if she had put herself in the role of the air-headed model, and because she had done it so well, she had started to believe it herself.

Mateo’s living with his fair share of regrets. And it broke my heart that he felt like he wasn’t a person worthy of people depending on him. And ironic considering his job. That he finally realizes (with a little help from a little spitfire of a woman) the error in his thinking made me smile.

Mateo seemed like he had forgotten how strong he was after what happened in Afghanistan, as if he had left a big part of himself, his confidence and his heart behind, and now thought he wasn’t really worthy of belonging or being cared for at all. You are right that Olivia and her strong attitude, as well as her capability for real love showed him the error of his ways.

Ruby Sue is her usual scene-stealing self in this one. I actually think this is her best performance yet. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your big grumpy-man feelings, but you need to suck it up.” That was priceless. Haven’t we all needed someone to say “suck it up” at some point in our lives?

LOL Ruby Sue was the best! And I agree, her little speech to Mateo was priceless.

They mayor makes my blood boil. I’d been wondering how he kept his office when he made enemies like he does, but Mateo explained it. 🙂 It seems like there is more to his hatred of the Sweets besides that documentary. I wonder if we’ll ever find out?

Olivia’s ex made me just as mad as the mayor did! And I actually hated that Mateo gave the mayor the heads-up and got him to be all slimy and smarmy in front of a crowd, even if it ultimately helped Olivia in her quest for the veteran center.

That ending – funny that the girls said Ruby Sue said it was expected of them because I didn’t expect it. But it was a nice way to wrap things up.

Do you know if there will be another Sweet Salvation Brewery story? I would love that! Or at least something else happening in Salvation! You are right that we need to know more about Luciana, and definitely about why the mayor is so hell-bent on hating the Sweets… It’s almost as if he wanted a Sweet girl for himself, and didn’t get her 😉

If I were going to complain about anything, I guess I would have liked the story to be longer – get to see more of the other couples, be in the brewery again, get better acquainted with Luciana. But overall, I was delighted with Trouble on Tap.

The ending was cute, but also a little bit abrupt. I could have done with another 20-30 pages before that, I think. So yes, a little longer, to see more of the other couples and the brewery. But like you, I was happy with Trouble on Tap overall.

Olivia and Mateo really did need a second chance at life – what they’d gone through, they both needed a chance to prove to themselves, as well as others, that they were more than their looks and their actions. And I was so happy a second chance at love was part of the deal. 🙂

I really like that sentence: being more than their looks – because they were both kind of hung up on their looks, but for the completely wrong reasons! There was so much more to both of them than the exterior package, you know?

Olivia’s ex was so slimy. He was almost worse than the mayor because he wanted to capitalize on Olivia. It wasn’t enough to have taken so much from her…he wanted to take more. Ugh!

We totally agree about Olivia’s slimy ex! I’m actually happy Mateo went to town on him.

I don’t know if there is going to be more in this series. I certainly hope so, too. I don’t know that I could handle a book on the mayor but I’d really like to know why he’s so sour on the Sweets. And getting to spend more time with the triplets, their men, and the brewery would be even more fun!

I don’t think I could handle a book on the mayor either, but maybe at least a short story about Ruby Sue? She knows everything, right? And she would be a hoot to read about, especially because she explained a little bit about her privileged relationship with the Sweets. My heart broke for her and her pecan pie in Trouble on Tap!

I’ve so enjoyed our buddy reads in Salvation, Lexxie! What are we reading next?!? 😉

I have loved buddy-reading Salvation with you as well, Brandee. We really do need to find something else we can read together – and soon!

Some of my favorite Trouble on Tap quotes:

Sitting here trying to pull words, let alone ideas, out of Mr. Grumps-A-Lot bypassed all of that.

Olivia moved to the large window in the bedroom and stared out. Mateo slunk back from the window far enough that he wouldn’t be seen but not so much he couldn’t watch her. Just because he was acting like a perv didn’t mean he wanted her to think he was a perv.

It may have been years since they’d done this, but he hadn’t lost a step. The man loved to torment her as much as he liked to take her higher than she’d ever been with anyone else.

This book counts towards the COYER scavenger hunt item #30: Read a book with more than 125 pages and less than 215 pages in its paperback format (2 points)

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• 2015 New Release Challenge
• Summer COYER 2015

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