This is an OK romance, and I mostly liked Walker and Avery -- but it irritated me that he didn't tell her why he couldn't propose to her for so long. This book gets 3.5 stars from me, rounded down to 3 stars.
It really bothered me that Walker waited so long to tell Avery why he couldn't propose to her. I get that he thought it would be resolved soon, but Avery didn't know that, and didn't know why he wouldn't commit to their relationship. It would have served Walker right if Avery had given up on him, since he kept her in the dark for so long. There was so much angst because of Walker's secret, and there really didn't need to be that much. It bothers me when authors do that, as it seems they are just adding unnecessary angst.
It also bothered me that Elizabeth didn't tell everyone why she was really there for so long. I get that she was afraid, but it wasn't fair to any of the Base Camp folks that they didn't know what was going on.
I also thought the whole plot line with Brody's surprise appearance was silly. I won't give spoilers, but it seemed like it was added just to make the book longer and provide more unnecessary angst.
One problem I had with this series was that there was so long between books. Since it had been so long since I read some of them, it was difficult to remember all the characters or details. So when this book mentioned other characters or events from the earlier books, I got a little lost. That was frustrating, and I really wished the books in the series had been published closer together.
My rating system is below.
1 star -- Hated it, or did not finish. I usually only give this rating if some of the content is truly objectionable to me, like if one of the main characters does something really awful, and gets away with it.
2 stars -- Didn't like it. This rating usually means that I thought the writing wasn't very good, the editing was terrible, I didn't like the characters, or it had other major flaws.
3 stars -- I liked it, but had some minor issues with it. This rating means that there were minor editing issues, the story needed more character development, it was just too unrealistic, or had some other fairly minor issue. The majority of books I read get this rating – I do not consider it a bad rating.
4 stars -- I liked it a lot. This is a high rating for me, and I rarely give a higher one.
5 stars -- I loved it, and will probably read it again. Very few books are good enough to get this rating from me. The ones that do are usually classics.