I’ve been texting the wife I lost, the woman I loved beyond measure … Now someone else has answered back.

Gunnar Bond is broken.

Three years ago, he lived through the car crash that took his wife and twins away from him—though “lived” barely describes his current state. Giving up professional hockey, going off grid, and drinking himself into oblivion are his coping mechanisms. Another is texting his dead wife about his days without her. Therapeutic? Doubtful. Crazy? Definitely. But those messages into the ether are virtually the only thing stopping him from spiraling to even darker places.

Until someone texts back …

Sadie Yates is losing it.

Suddenly guardian to a little sister she doesn’t know and a misbehaving hound she’d rather not know at all, she’s had to upend her (sort of) glamorous life in LA and move back to Chicago. The nanny has quit, the money’s running out, and her job is on the line. The last thing she needs is her sister’s hockey camp counselor, a judgmental Viking type, telling her she sucks at this parenting lark. Thank the goddess for her sweet, sensitive, and—fingers crossed—sexy text buddy who always knows the right thing to say. In the same city at last, they can finally see if their online chemistry is mirrored in real life. She just needs to set up a meeting …

A ruined man who claims to have used up all his love is surely a bad bet, but Sadie’s never been afraid of a challenge … even one that might shatter her heart into a million pieces.

Review:

Charming, sassy, and heartfelt!

Man Down, the latest novel in the Rookie Rebels series, is a slightly more emotive tale about the grieving, shattered Gunnar, who’s still struggling to come to grips with the loss of his entire family three years prior and whose only solace is the texts he receives back from a stranger with his wife’s old cell number, and the feisty yet frazzled Sadie, who may finally meet the man behind the phone who has been the one glimmer in her chaotic, everyday life.

The writing is sincere and seamless. The characters are patient, wary, and supportive. And the plot is a delightful mix of life, love, friendship, family, self-discovery, grief, attraction, tender moments, awkward situations, forgiveness, misunderstandings, and steamy romance.

What more can I say, once again with Man Down, Meader has proven that she is not only one of the best writers of contemporary romance stories that are witty, light, and bursting with sexual tension, but also emotionally compelling ones too.

This book is available now.

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