The Bluff by Emma St. Clair: When his family bought the town of Sheet Cake, James thought his dad 
was losing it. After his brother convinced him to open his brewery there, he employs Winnie as a temp to help get the building and the business ready. As someone who keeps everything closed off to the world, James is dumb founded when Winnie keeps telling his family about the progress of the business. Because of her, they keep showing up when he doesn’t want their help.
Winnie doesn’t know what stick is up James’s butt, but she feels like she finally found the place she belongs with Dark Horse. As she focuses on multiple tasks within the business, she thinks she’s found her niche. She just has to convince James that she should stay, which is hard when he keeps wanting to fire her every 5 minutes.
As the two of them spend time together preparing for the grand opening, they learn about a lot more than running a business, they learn about how to open their hearts, trust each other, and communicate. What neither of them expected was to fall for each other. Even though James can seem unchanging, he finds himself trusting how Winnie is handling the customer side of the business which he never planned to enjoy to begin with, and Winnie finds herself wanting to contribute even more. When the two of them end up going to a conference to learn more about their field and find there’s only one room, will they finally be ready to give in to their feelings?
I wasn’t a huge fan of James at the beginning, but I completely warmed up to him. I completely related to Winnie when she kept referring to him as a grump, because I felt the same way. When I learned as a reader everything that he had been through, my heart shattered for him. It wasn’t just a superficial grumpiness, but instead was deep cuts that had festered for so long. My favorite thing about his relationship with Winnie was how much she understood him. He’s finally able to let her in when he realizes just how much she gets him.
Winnie was dealing with battles of her own when it came to her family. When her thoughts of what her family had been were shattered, she steeled her heart and only allowed people to see the surface level of it. When she finds out that she was betrayed by her ex in the same way, she crumbles, but James is there to help her out of her hole.
Full transparency: I didn’t think this one was as good as the first book in the series… HOWEVER I thought that James has one of the most interesting character arcs in a romance novel. Most of the time the guy is just grumpy because he’s a guy, but James has a huge internal struggle that he is dealing with. My favorite part about this series is the fact that it focuses on the guys’ perspective just as much as the girl.
Book Info:
Publication: June 13, 2022 | Emma St. Clair | Graham Brothers #2
I won’t be winning any employee of the year awards. But only because my boss is the grumpy boss to end all grumpy bosses. Did I mention he doesn’t trust me to do my job?
Challenge accepted.
Not only am I going to help James launch a successful brewery, but I’m going to find out what makes him tick … and what makes him go boom.
All this has nothing to do with the fact that the man is unbearably, unfairly, unignorably (is that a word?) attractive. Or that he lost his mom when he was young, same as me.
The more he pushes me away, the more I’m pulled into his orbit. It’s a battle of stubborn wills, and I don’t plan to concede anytime soon.
Except the more time I spend around James Graham, the more I start to lose the one thing I refuse to give to any man … my heart.
The Bluff is an enemies to lovers, grumpy boss rom-com set in the fictional small town of Sheet Cake, Texas. You’ll find plenty of laughs and sizzling chemistry in this closed door romantic comedy. It’s the second in a series, but can be read as a standalone.
