✰ Bianca ✰ Janeane ✰ 
★★★★★
4.5 Stars
Down in Whynot, NC, there are three things that hold true:
1) life moves just a little bit slower,
2) family means everything, and
3) you don’t mess with history.
1) life moves just a little bit slower,
2) family means everything, and
3) you don’t mess with history.
When his family decides to sell a home that’s been part of their history for over a century, Lowe Mancinkus is madder than a hornet. To add insult to injury, the woman who purchased it is some fancy pants, city girl looking to fix it up and sell it off. Doesn’t matter that she’s sexy as hell or that just being near her gets his blood racing like never before. That home belongs to his family, or at least it did until she came to town.
Well that just won’t do, now will it?
From the moment that she laid eyes on the historical home in rural North Carolina, Melinda Rothschild knew Mainer House was something special. The perfect escape from life in New York City, Melinda signed the papers and set to work restoring the house to its natural beauty. That is until an angry Lowe showed up on her doorstep one day. With a scowl on his handsome, chiseled face. And a shotgun in his strong, muscular arms.
Is it getting hot in here?
We all remember 33 year old Lowe from his sister's Trixie's book.
He's one of 5 Mancinkus siblings living in Whynot, North Carolina. His siblings are a vet, a lawyer, a farmer and a bakery owner.Carpenter/town handy man Lowe has recently been arrested for trespassing and destroying private property!
The family had to sell the old & empty Mainer House in town, because renovating it would've been too expensive. But Lowe loved that house. He hates that some stupid New York lady bought it to destroy all the old charm and sell it again.
But that's not Mely's plan. She's in town to stay. She fell in love with the house and its history.
And she also might fall for the carpenter who has been ordered by the judge to work on her house for 250 hours!
She hates his guts .... but he's not really all that bad, now that she's getting to know him and his reasons for doing what he did.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MELY & LOWE?
WILL THERE BE A HEA???
READ THE BOOK TO FIND OUT ☺
WILL THERE BE A HEA???
READ THE BOOK TO FIND OUT ☺
Another adorable romance in this great series!!!
Such a sweet and cute and hilarious love story!
Everything is sweet in that town! (Especially Lowe's sister Larkin's bakery! ☺)
And now a stranger from New York is in town - and she brought her extremely colorful gay bestie with her. Hilarious!!!
Lowe's adorable grandpa and some other gossiping townspeople get their own POV every once in a while! LOL!
Lowe's whole family is awesome too. There are still lots of siblings with interesting stories to tell!!!
This was a great southern romance, about the cutest town and its people! I loved it!
Also - even though I knew going in that it was a sweet little romance ... I missed the sexiness. It's done like that on purpose of course, but I don't like that fading-to-black thing once we get naked! ☺
I had some tiny problems with the writing...as with every Sawyer book. It's Sawyer's and my thing ☺ It's only me who has those problems with her writing. So please don't be worried or just scroll down and don't read the following...
I have a HUGE AS problem! Sawyer always uses way too much of those ☺ You know the AS's I'm talking about? The AS that could and should be exchanged for a SINCE or BECAUSE ☺ It's a British thing (if it's a thing at all!) and it doesn't have anything to do in an american book by an american author!
I really don't want to insult Sawyer. I love all her books, and maybe nobody ever told her she does that.... Sawyer....please stop doing it. But pfff who am I to tell her what to do, so just forget I said anything! It doesn't stop her books from being great! I have NO idea why this is bothering me so much, but as soon as I see one AS in Sawyer's books, I get sooo annoyed! Grrr.
STUBBORN AS A MULE was such an adorable & sweet & funny love story! Run to your nearest amazon for your own Lowe - this one is MINE - and the whole town btw. is MINE too!!!! Without the mosquitos, you can have those! ☺
ARC received for an honest review
We met our protaganists Lowe and Mely in the first book in the first book, Ain't He Precious, however you could read Stubborn As A Mule as a standalone, but why would you want to?
Our lovelies are both pig headed and stubborn, which makes for a lot of fun - for those outside their range of fire.
I adore Lowe - in the first book I felt he was a little bit of a spoiled brat, but in this one we get more of why he acts like he does, and it is all kinds of great.
Mely is the outsider moving into town - gah, do I know that feeling, having moved from the city to a small town a while ago. You can't help but like her thought. And when her gay best friend comes to visit, oh he is al sorts of awesome. Reminds me a little bit of LaFayette from True Blood (may he RIP) crossed with RuPaul's Drag Race.
I love the small town vibe, the cute and quirky characters - especially Lowe's family- they just crack me up.
I know Juliette Poe is the sweeter side of Sawyer Bennett, but I did miss the heat that we come to expect from her writing - but that is just me and my pervy side!
Stubborn As A Mule is sweet and cute and adorable, and I can't wait to see what comes next in Whynot.
♥ EXCERPT ♥
♥ EXCERPT ♥
“Looking good, Lowe Mancinkus,” I hear a woman call out as I stretch upward to paint the top of the frame around the window. Turning my head to look over my shoulder, I see Lynette Carnes getting ready to walk into Sweet Cakes across the street. She’s our town’s very own Daisy Duke. By that, I mean she struts around in miniscule jean shorts, high heels, and a sleeveless blouse tied off just underneath her very ample chest.
She’s definitely nice to look at, although she doesn’t have much going on above the cleavage.
“Morning, Lynette,” I call back. “Lookin’ good yourself.”
She grins and blows a kiss at me before walking into Larkin’s shop.
The front door opens and Mely steps out onto the porch, carrying a cup of coffee. There’s no doubt in my mind she witnessed that exchange from the other side of the doorway. It’s obvious by the pinched expression she has on her face. Still, she brings the coffee over to me and sets it on the porch rail.
“Thanks, darlin’,” I tell her as I go back to brushing paint over the layer of primer I’d put on a few hours ago. I’d decided to work half a day here at Mainer House, not because I was anxious to get the work done, but because I wanted to be around Melinda Rothschild.
She may not be strutting around in little shorts and a low-cut blouse, but she is most definitely a prettier picture than I’ve ever seen around these parts. She’s wearing a white sundress with a halter top, and her shoulders are lightly tanned with tiny freckles. Her legs are long, bare, and perfectly adorned with nothing more than a pair of simple white sandals. Her silky blonde hair is pulled away from her face at the top of her head and she looks like a breath of fresh air.
Mely leans against the porch rail, crosses her arms low under her breasts, and watches me work for a minute. I wonder if she likes what she sees.
I think so.
There was going to be another kiss last night if Morri hadn’t managed to ruin that little moment. And while I’d never stoop to mention this to Mely, I’m pretty sure he’d been hovering at the top of the stairs, just waiting to ruin it.
“Much better than hot pink,” Mely says as I continue to apply paint to the casing. I have no clue what the hell I was thinking when I painted her house pink. It was an attention getter and since the two people whose attention it got were Mely and Judge Bowe, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out I might have been pulling on her metaphorical pigtails a bit.
“I should have this finished by tomorrow,” I tell her. “Then all will be right again.”
“Odd since it took you a single night to do the damage,” she quips. I don’t look back at her, but I hear the laughter in her voice.
“Well, neon pink isn’t all that easy to cover up,” I tell her with a laugh.
She snickers and I can’t believe she was trying to get me thrown in jail last week. My how the mighty have fallen.
“When in Rome and all that,” Mely says and I turn to look at her from my perch on the ladder. She jerks her chin over her shoulder in the direction of Sweet Cakes. “Is that the standard southern girl uniform?”
Chuckling, I cut my eyes over to Sweet Cakes where sexy Lynette just disappeared into. I’m not about to tell Mely that I have actual carnal knowledge about that southern girl, even if it was back in my younger years.
Looking back to Mely, I take in her stylishly sweet dress that doesn’t reveal much but is still sexy at the same time. Giving her a wink, I say, “There’s nothing standard about you, Melinda Rothschild, so I’m advising you to stay away from that look. I think you’re mighty fine just the way you are.”
↓ LINKS TO THE BOOK AND AUTHOR ↓
Book #1
#3 – Barking Up the
Wrong Tree
14 September 2017
Things in Whynot, NC have gone to the dogs, and that’s just the way the town’s only veterinarian, Laken Mancinkus, likes it. But she’s about to have her hands full when the new dog in town, and his gorgeous, Yankee owner, show up at her door needing help chasing down some wily, run away sheep. Barking Up the Wrong Tree will have you howling with laughter when it releases on September 14, 2017!
#4 – Pretty as a
Peach
7 December 2017
There’s a new farmer in Whynot, NC, and she’s proving to be
quite the forbidden temptation for Colt Mancinkus, the youngest of the
Mancinkus clan. As pretty as she is sweet, Colt can’t help but be drawn to
her…peaches. No really, she’s a peach farmer. Get that mind out of the gutter
and down to the farm in Pretty as a Peach, releasing December 7, 2017!
#5 – Gimme Some Sugar
8 March 2018
In case you haven't read any of Sawyer's books before - try this one:
