Harlequin Heartwarming, $7.50, ISBN 978-1-335-42676-5
Contemporary Romance, 2022

In Janice Sims’s A Family for Keeps, we head over to Port Domingo, Florida. If a piece of real estate crashed down from the heavens onto Earth, and the Care Bears pee happy beams of love onto the soil, one can’t find a more perfect, sunshine-y place.

Kindergarten teacher Marley Syminette has always carried a torch for her BFF, Sebastian Cantreras. He’s a single father, totally available, and his kid isn’t some wild, screaming stumpy monster so the only thing stopping our heroine from grabbing the guy and humping his leg is the fact that she is afraid of ruining their friendship. Well, that and there are over 370 pages before everyone is allowed to waltz off into the sunset.

Sebastian is a fisherman, but don’t worry, he’s not the sweat-soaked, sunburned kind that hauls fish like some middle-class worker, eeuw. No, he has a big boat and his fishing enterprise is so successful that the new tycoon in town wants to buy the whole thing.

Yes, there are new rich visitors to Port Domingo, which is always the best kind of visitors. Daichi Nakamura’s pancreatic cancer is in remission, so now the old man wants to spend what is left of his time on earth buying promising business ventures and transforming these ventures into multi-billion dollar success stories. Damn it, why am I not living there? I could have sold my house to this old fool for ten million dollars.

The old coot has the eyes for Marley’s mother because octogenarians need love too. Daichi’s son Akira seems interested in Marley, and this makes Sebastian jealous. Oh, so now the man starts getting the horny horns for the heroine.

Still, no matter, because Marley is more interested in pairing up Akira with her other BFF, Bonita Faye Miller.

With a plot like this, this story could have been either some raunchy sex comedy or a small town romance full of sunshine. Alas, this is Harlequin Heartwarming, not Crotchburning, so it will be the latter.

The characters are fine. They are likable and smart people with lovely personalities. The men are hot and, most importantly, loaded, while the women are nice folks that get along well with one another. There is no catty jealousy, mother issues, father issues; Marley has her own life and friends even before she hooks up with Sebastian, and she is competent and fully capable without having to be some broke-ass dummy needing the hero to save her with his money and baloney.

Conversations feel natural, and the secondary characters having fun relationships and interactions with the main characters without coming off too much like sequel baits begging for attention.

So, what could be wrong with this one? Why is it not a five-oogie read?

Well, things go so swimmingly for everyone in this story that I have a hard time believing that they would even burp at the wrong moment, much less mess up anything else in their perfect lives. Hence, it’s difficult to truly get invested in these characters’ lives.

These people are so, so perfect that they end up crossing over into the land of the bland. It takes me over a year to finish this thing, because it’s very easy to put down when I get distracted, and it’s even harder to find the urgency to pick up from where I stopped.

It’s like dating the hottest and richest guy ever, only, during the dinner, everything goes swimmingly and nothing can be better… well, except that I’m very bored and my attention keeps straying to the tapestry, the curtains, the ceiling, and that odd smudge on the floor. Now, had this thing been a super rich guy, I’m sure I can muster enough enthusiasm to at the very least get him to take me on a no-credit-limit shopping spree. Alas, it isn’t, so I’m far less inclined to work up the necessary enthusiasm.