Review: Gateway to Love by Sarah Hadley Brook

Title: Gateway to Love

Series: States of Love: Missouri

Author: Sarah Hadley Brook

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Length: 98 Pages

Category: Contemporary

At a Glance: This one was just OK for me overall. Craig and Mitch were likeable and had pretty good chemistry, but the characters could have been fleshed out a bit more, and the story needed some tightening up.

Reviewed By: Jules

Blurb: Ten days to finally make the leap from friends to lovers….

Craig and Mitchell have been friends for years, but each of them reached a point where that camaraderie became… more. Mitchell’s kept his feelings close to his chest. So has Craig, but now that they’ve graduated from UMKC, he knows it’s his last chance to show Mitchell they’re meant to be before their careers take them to opposite sides of the country.

He insists they can’t leave Missouri behind without one last adventure. Mitchell agrees to a road trip to visit all the touristy spots and say goodbye to their home state.

As they spend their days and nights together, buried feelings rise to the surface and hope blossoms. When their journey ends with a dance beneath the Branson stars, will they find love and a future together at the end of the road?

Review: Gateway to Love by Sarah Hadley Brook, part of the Dreamspinner Press States of Love series, is a short and sweet friends-to-lovers romance. The blurb sets the story up perfectly… Mitch and Craig have been best friends since community college, moved to UMKC together, and have been living together for the past year. They’ve both been offered jobs post-grad, but it means them moving to opposite sides of the country. Craig has been secretly in love with Mitchell for years—not knowing that Mitch feels exactly the same way about him, of course—and the impending separation has him wanting to act, so he proposes a road trip to see their state before they both have to leave.

Mitch and Craig are both very sweet, and they have several very cute moments together. They had good chemistry, especially, I thought, during their softer, more tender moments. And, I liked the idea of their road trip and them potentially ending up together, either in Californian or West Virginia, rather than apart. (And, here comes the but…) BUT, unfortunately, there were some issues with the story execution. The flow isn’t great; it feels choppy and repetitive in quite a few places. And, their declarations and resolution felt unnecessarily drawn out. They must have said, “We need to talk…” like six times. Ok, I just looked it up…it was TWELVE times. No wonder I wanted to bonk their heads together! As I said, they really were sweet together, though, and I found myself rooting for them despite the story’s flaws.

Brook did do a pretty good job of showcasing Missouri, which was nice. My favorite States of Love books have been those that also did their part in making the story’s respective state a co-star. And, here we got a good cross-section of scenery, including Lake of the Ozarks, Branson, Silver Dollar City, and Hannibal, the childhood home of Mark Twain.

This one was just OK for me overall. Craig and Mitch were likeable and had pretty good chemistry (and their friend Adam made me laugh a couple of times), and there were some nice Midwest scenes, but the characters could have been fleshed out a bit more, and the story needed some tightening up. Other readers may enjoy it more as a quick, easy read.

You can buy Gateway to Love here:
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