How the heck is this supposed to be part of the "Wynette, Texas" series? There's no Wynette in it. There's no hint of the previous couples. It was written before any of the others, as well. I have to believe that is a mistake and since being part of the series is why I read this bomb I feel more than a little cheated. ETA: Ah. Turns out Fleur and Jake are parents to a lead in a book later in the series. Bah.
So anyway, the biggest problem with this book is the awful people at the heart of it. And while I don't mean Fleur and Jake, you still see way, way, very much way too much of Alexi and Belinda. Worse, SEP seems enamored of the selfish idiot Belinda so we get to spend whole sections (including the stupidest epilogue of any of her books so far) from her PoV. Alexi is an obnoxious sexual predator who practically spends the novel rubbing his hands together, cackling while hatching his zany plots. That he actually manages to vex Fleur was pure authorial fiat and having him drive so much of the plot grated on me like, uh, a grater. Belinda is a manipulative moron who displaces her worst narcissistic fantasies on movie stars and whose success depends entirely on authorial intrusion and the conceit that a middle-aged one-time beauty can have her pick of celebrity trysts despite decades of dissipation.
These people were awful, but SEP also spreads this story out over decades of time so we get to watch poor Fleur wander around a plot that could have been mapped out by following an ADD kid hopped up on sugar and let loose in Santa's electronics warehouse. Which means she spends half the book (and half a decade) nowhere near Jake as she runs around Europe finding herself. Or losing herself. Both, really. SEP is talented enough that it's not boring. Except in retrospect.
And while I liked Fleur, and even Jake (when he wasn't being an emotionally constipated idiot), they still manage to fall into half the romance clichés that ever took a shot at the respectability of tropedom (but failed). Ugh.
I made it to the end because, uh. I don't know why, now I think on it. She threw enough secondary characters at the reader that I suppose I just got distracted. Fleur's friend Kissy and her brother Michel were tons of fun and I guess they kept me entertained while Fleur and Jake explored every romance cliché they found cut from SEP's good novels. So the book isn't a dead loss, I suppose. Still, I'd definitely give it a pass if I had it to do over.
A note about Steamy: I dunno. There was explicit sex. I find I don't care and I lost count. Not that it was tons. Middle of my steam tolerance, tops. I just can't be arsed to go into it. It doesn't help that Jake's a selfish idiot and his emotional constipation completely undermined most of the intimacy in the story. Seriously, the man's a trainwreck and Fleur would have been better off romancing fire hydrants. Or boxcars. You know, things more likely to be emotionally open and reliably honest.