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The Deputy's Perfect Match
His Librarian Sweetheart
Still nursing old heartache, deputy sheriff Charlie Pruitt vowed he'd never get close to another woman again. But that's easier said than done when librarian Evy Shaw arrives in his small coastal Virginia town with a secret—one Charlie's determined to uncover. When Charlie joins Evy's all-female book club, he gets more than he anticipated when the romantic reads stoke a real attraction to Evy. Falling for the pretty librarian wasn't part of the plan, but when the truth behind Evy's suspicious behavior comes to light, will love be enough to bind them together?
Still nursing old heartache, deputy sheriff Charlie Pruitt vowed he'd never get close to another woman again. But that's easier said than done when librarian Evy Shaw arrives in his small coastal Virginia town with a secret—one Charlie's determined to uncover. When Charlie joins Evy's all-female book club, he gets more than he anticipated when the romantic reads stoke a real attraction to Evy. Falling for the pretty librarian wasn't part of the plan, but when the truth behind Evy's suspicious behavior comes to light, will love be enough to bind them together?
- GenresLove Inspired
288 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 21, 2017
22 people are currently reading
83 people want to read
About the author
Lisa Carter
52 books248 followersWriter. Book Lover. Avid Gardener. World Traveler.
Lisa Carter is the Publishers Weekly bestselling and award-winning author of more than thirty books. She writes the contemporary Truelove Matchmaker romance series with Love Inspired. She also writes romantic suspense—best described as “Sweet Tea with a Slice of Murder.” When not hard at work on her next fictional adventure, she enjoys reading and spending time with her family. A native North Carolinian, she has strong opinions on barbecue and ACC basketball. www.lisacarterauthor.com
Follow Lisa on BookBub for the latest book news at https://bit.ly/3G2iWGv.
Join her newsletter mailing list for book happenings at https://rb.gy/2ilkh7.
Lisa Carter is the Publishers Weekly bestselling and award-winning author of more than thirty books. She writes the contemporary Truelove Matchmaker romance series with Love Inspired. She also writes romantic suspense—best described as “Sweet Tea with a Slice of Murder.” When not hard at work on her next fictional adventure, she enjoys reading and spending time with her family. A native North Carolinian, she has strong opinions on barbecue and ACC basketball. www.lisacarterauthor.com
Follow Lisa on BookBub for the latest book news at https://bit.ly/3G2iWGv.
Join her newsletter mailing list for book happenings at https://rb.gy/2ilkh7.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 8, 2017
Romantic comedy perfection! I'm totally fan-girling over the librarian heroine! And the fact that she wears glasses (get a load of that cover!) because myopic girls deserve love too. :-) Especially with heroes like wise-cracking Superdeputy Charlie.
The banter in this novel is so outrageously good. And that's because Charlie takes great delight in pushing Miss Librarian's buttons. "It was kind of fun to wind her up and set her off -- like watching a jewelry box ballerina go all dashboard hula girl." (p. 40) There are so many awesome scenes -- the kind you see in a classic romantic comedy -- that are sheer delight to read. I laughed so much! And the ending -- stupendous fun. I'm still grinning.
But there are touching scenes too as Carter explores the long lasting effects childhood experiences hold. Evy is held captive by the past, to the point that she has become a chameleon, quick to blend into the background. Charlie has a hand a drawing her out and watching Evy grow into her true self makes for an inspiring read.
If you love to laugh and swoon simultaneously while wiping away a tear or two then this is the perfect book for you.
The banter in this novel is so outrageously good. And that's because Charlie takes great delight in pushing Miss Librarian's buttons. "It was kind of fun to wind her up and set her off -- like watching a jewelry box ballerina go all dashboard hula girl." (p. 40) There are so many awesome scenes -- the kind you see in a classic romantic comedy -- that are sheer delight to read. I laughed so much! And the ending -- stupendous fun. I'm still grinning.
But there are touching scenes too as Carter explores the long lasting effects childhood experiences hold. Evy is held captive by the past, to the point that she has become a chameleon, quick to blend into the background. Charlie has a hand a drawing her out and watching Evy grow into her true self makes for an inspiring read.
If you love to laugh and swoon simultaneously while wiping away a tear or two then this is the perfect book for you.
December 12, 2018
This was truly a very sweet and inspirational story...great author.
May 15, 2017
The Deputy's Perfect Match by Lisa Cox Carter. Evy Shaw arrives at a small coastal Virginia town following her brother, Sawyer. Evy took a library job in the town. They were separated as children to different foster homes. Evy was always one town behind Sawyer in locating him. Evy just wanted to make sure he was happy. She didn't want to mess up his life by telling him who she was. Sawyers wife didn't trust Evy nor did her sisters. They wanted deputy sheriff Charlie Pruitt to check her background and keep and eye on Evy. Charlie likes Evy and hates that he is checking up on Evy. Sawyer realizes Evy is his sister. Evy finds out Charlie has kept secrets from her and leaves town. A good read
June 21, 2017
This is a fun little book. I really liked the characters.
October 27, 2017
This book was my favorite length, low 200s. Another Adult Clean Romance that I enjoyed.
April 29, 2022
First, this is book 4 in a seven book series. Maybe. I'm not sure how many books there are. And I don't know the order - the author isn't kind enough to do a series list for us. I do know that there's:
1) Coast Guard Courtship
2) Coast Guard Sweetheart
3) Falling for the Single Dad
4) ***THIS BOOK***
5) The Bachelor's Unexpected Family
6) Hometown Reunion
7) The Christmas Baby
All of them involve either members of the Pruitt or Duer families... the books before #4 being Duer, the books after being Pruitt. This one seems to be the hinge upon which the tale swings. Since I haven't read any of the others, I can't tell you what order or who or how or what or why. It sucks. I'm taking a star for the author being utterly uninformative. I apparently have the last 4, so... yay? I've got the Pruitt part of the series? Why am I more annoyed than anything?
Anyhow, about this book. Apparently, Charlie Pruitt was all-his-life in love with Honey Duer, until in a previous book she meets Sawyer, then breaks up with Sawyer and goes back to Charlie, then breaks up with Charlie to go back to Sawyer in a permanent kinda way. So Charlie's kind of burnt on love. Yet when Honey comes to him and says the new librarian is stalking her family, Charlie's still so tied up in her strings that he jumps in to 'investigate' the librarian at her behest.
Evy is the librarian. She's in town looking for her long-lost foster brother, Sawyer. She doesn't want to ruin his good thing (if it IS a good thing, which she's hoping it is), so she's trying to be discreet about her quest to reconnect, but obviously that isn't happening. The Duer sisters are all up in arms, there's a deputy sheriff who's following her around to the point where he's joined her all-woman BOOK CLUB... she's got problems.
And by the way, this book totally steals from the 2004 novel (2007 movie) 'The Jane Austen Book Club'... because that's what the author does with this: has a Jane Austen club and inserts a man into it. I took a star for unoriginality, too. It loses something when things are stolen from other authors. Although with the sheer numbers of 'unexpected baby' books in the Love, Inspired series, I... guess nothing is sacred.
Charlie was kinda cute, kind of annoying, and very Dudley-Do-Right. I wanted him to be more Charlie Swan ('Twilight'), but he ended up being more Frank Crane ('Vampires Suck'). Which did NOT work for me.
Evy is a hot mess for no good reason - she was adopted so young, she doesn't remember much from before that, and was raised in a stand-offish but not any different than most people's upbringing... although the author wants d.r.a.m.a., so there's a lot of overblown history crap thrown in here. She's also another Love, Inspired short girl who 'fits perfectly' with a six-foot-plus guy. Which makes no sense, but you don't question these things. It's the third one in a row I've read with a tiny little heroine and a tall, massive guy. Because awkward rawkz.
As for the spiritual, there's some God references, some verse references, but mostly Evy has NO faith (and it's never rectified), and Charlie's faith is... weird? I don't know. Pg 186 says he's "a believer in a second chance God and in second chance love", but when did he ever walk away from God? It's not in this book. As for second chance love, this contradicts what he says on Pg 23: "I don't lose things I go after." Tell that to Honey Duer, babe. (((shakes head))) He's deluded. On too many levels.
There are some story issues. There are some WRITING issues.
Like when Evy is helping Charlie downstairs, and wraps her arm around his waist. He has bruised ribs - as someone who had multiple fractured ribs, let me tell you - she would *N.O.T* be touching his waist. Or anywhere NEAR it.
The author has Charlie reading to the boys and Evy reading to the girls at a summer camp before bed, but then pg 182 she has Charlie watching her read to the kids... and then the next time, the camp brings the kids together for the final story. How could Charlie be watching her read if he was reading to the boys at the same time... and this BEFORE the kids were co-mingled?
I did enjoy the story. Sort of... mostly. Aside from a bunch of weirdness and issues and copycatted ideas and... okay, I had trouble with the story. But I *WANTED* to like it. Does that count?
1) Coast Guard Courtship
2) Coast Guard Sweetheart
3) Falling for the Single Dad
4) ***THIS BOOK***
5) The Bachelor's Unexpected Family
6) Hometown Reunion
7) The Christmas Baby
All of them involve either members of the Pruitt or Duer families... the books before #4 being Duer, the books after being Pruitt. This one seems to be the hinge upon which the tale swings. Since I haven't read any of the others, I can't tell you what order or who or how or what or why. It sucks. I'm taking a star for the author being utterly uninformative. I apparently have the last 4, so... yay? I've got the Pruitt part of the series? Why am I more annoyed than anything?
Anyhow, about this book. Apparently, Charlie Pruitt was all-his-life in love with Honey Duer, until in a previous book she meets Sawyer, then breaks up with Sawyer and goes back to Charlie, then breaks up with Charlie to go back to Sawyer in a permanent kinda way. So Charlie's kind of burnt on love. Yet when Honey comes to him and says the new librarian is stalking her family, Charlie's still so tied up in her strings that he jumps in to 'investigate' the librarian at her behest.
Evy is the librarian. She's in town looking for her long-lost foster brother, Sawyer. She doesn't want to ruin his good thing (if it IS a good thing, which she's hoping it is), so she's trying to be discreet about her quest to reconnect, but obviously that isn't happening. The Duer sisters are all up in arms, there's a deputy sheriff who's following her around to the point where he's joined her all-woman BOOK CLUB... she's got problems.
And by the way, this book totally steals from the 2004 novel (2007 movie) 'The Jane Austen Book Club'... because that's what the author does with this: has a Jane Austen club and inserts a man into it. I took a star for unoriginality, too. It loses something when things are stolen from other authors. Although with the sheer numbers of 'unexpected baby' books in the Love, Inspired series, I... guess nothing is sacred.
Charlie was kinda cute, kind of annoying, and very Dudley-Do-Right. I wanted him to be more Charlie Swan ('Twilight'), but he ended up being more Frank Crane ('Vampires Suck'). Which did NOT work for me.
Evy is a hot mess for no good reason - she was adopted so young, she doesn't remember much from before that, and was raised in a stand-offish but not any different than most people's upbringing... although the author wants d.r.a.m.a., so there's a lot of overblown history crap thrown in here. She's also another Love, Inspired short girl who 'fits perfectly' with a six-foot-plus guy. Which makes no sense, but you don't question these things. It's the third one in a row I've read with a tiny little heroine and a tall, massive guy. Because awkward rawkz.
As for the spiritual, there's some God references, some verse references, but mostly Evy has NO faith (and it's never rectified), and Charlie's faith is... weird? I don't know. Pg 186 says he's "a believer in a second chance God and in second chance love", but when did he ever walk away from God? It's not in this book. As for second chance love, this contradicts what he says on Pg 23: "I don't lose things I go after." Tell that to Honey Duer, babe. (((shakes head))) He's deluded. On too many levels.
There are some story issues. There are some WRITING issues.
Like when Evy is helping Charlie downstairs, and wraps her arm around his waist. He has bruised ribs - as someone who had multiple fractured ribs, let me tell you - she would *N.O.T* be touching his waist. Or anywhere NEAR it.
The author has Charlie reading to the boys and Evy reading to the girls at a summer camp before bed, but then pg 182 she has Charlie watching her read to the kids... and then the next time, the camp brings the kids together for the final story. How could Charlie be watching her read if he was reading to the boys at the same time... and this BEFORE the kids were co-mingled?
I did enjoy the story. Sort of... mostly. Aside from a bunch of weirdness and issues and copycatted ideas and... okay, I had trouble with the story. But I *WANTED* to like it. Does that count?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 3, 2021
This is a sweet, charming, and heartwarming book. It is a clean Christian romance that isn't preachy. The author achieved a good balance. The ending was perfection, it made me smile and left me feeling happy. My criteria for a 5-star rating.
Evidently this is a part of a series, it didn't say so in the title or description so I read it out of order. It reads like a stand alone so it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book. I doubt I'll go back and read the stories of the sisters, I hated all three of them and how they treated Evy.
I can't remember the last time I read a book with the female MC wearing glasses. It was a refreshing change. I adored Evy and Carter. There were moments in the book where I found myself smiling. The parts where Carter loved to push Evy's buttons because it was "like watching a jewelry box ballerina go all dashboard hula girl" were hilarious.
I enjoyed watching their relationship grow. The ending was heart stopping. I did notice a couple of errors, being familiar with the area, but I was willing to overlook them.
What I had hard time overlooking was Honey. She's a manipulative, selfish cow and got away with her misdeeds too easily. She should have suffered more, like Carter did. Grrrr. I felt that resolution was too quick and brushed aside. It didn't make me want to lower the rating though, it was a mild annoyance. The rest of the book is so good that I was willing to overlook this.
Evidently this is a part of a series, it didn't say so in the title or description so I read it out of order. It reads like a stand alone so it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book. I doubt I'll go back and read the stories of the sisters, I hated all three of them and how they treated Evy.
I can't remember the last time I read a book with the female MC wearing glasses. It was a refreshing change. I adored Evy and Carter. There were moments in the book where I found myself smiling. The parts where Carter loved to push Evy's buttons because it was "like watching a jewelry box ballerina go all dashboard hula girl" were hilarious.
I enjoyed watching their relationship grow. The ending was heart stopping. I did notice a couple of errors, being familiar with the area, but I was willing to overlook them.
What I had hard time overlooking was Honey. She's a manipulative, selfish cow and got away with her misdeeds too easily. She should have suffered more, like Carter did. Grrrr. I felt that resolution was too quick and brushed aside. It didn't make me want to lower the rating though, it was a mild annoyance. The rest of the book is so good that I was willing to overlook this.
January 22, 2019
Another new author to me and surprisingly I did really enjoy it. I kind of wished that I had read this in order, but since it was a new author I really just wanted to try the book I wanted. But for all those who like to read things in order. Read this one because I think you would enjoy how it is connected to the rest of the series (basically it was more connected than I thought).
Anyways, I did actually really like it. I could definitely relate to Evy. And I actually like how she was portrayed as a librarian. Also, her romance with Charlie was super sweet all spying aside. Also, you could just see how this town fit her and she grew more into her own there.
However, it was a short book, without a lot of faith content (I just wish there was more). But the story was sweet and hopeful. I will say the ending felt a little too happy and I like happy endings. I just felt like it was too picture perfect, but that's just my opinion.
Anyways, I did actually really like it. I could definitely relate to Evy. And I actually like how she was portrayed as a librarian. Also, her romance with Charlie was super sweet all spying aside. Also, you could just see how this town fit her and she grew more into her own there.
However, it was a short book, without a lot of faith content (I just wish there was more). But the story was sweet and hopeful. I will say the ending felt a little too happy and I like happy endings. I just felt like it was too picture perfect, but that's just my opinion.
March 4, 2017
Meh. It wasn't necessarily bad but I really didn't care for it. The 180 multiple characters took in a snap was frustrating. The climax was annoying and cliche. Cover art is absolutely beautiful though.
February 27, 2019
I loved this book way more than I thought I was going to! I was hesitant to read it based on the back cover but it has a lot more depth and personality than is often found in the Love Inspired books... A must read!
July 27, 2020
A ticket of loveeeee.
July 27, 2022
A sweet and clean small-town romance.
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September 2, 2022Enjoyable Read
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March 16, 2017received 4 stars @ harlequin.com (as of 3/15/17). To view reviews, go HERE> http://www.harlequin.com/storeitem.ht...
June 25, 2018
Highly disappointing.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews