I absolutely LOVED this book!!! I adored the characters :)

I enjoyed Roberts’ style of writing. I thought her descriptions were eloquently written. I liked the settings, and I liked the main character, Shane. However, I felt like the beginning & end of the book were both rushed. There were also parts that made me a bit uncomfortable, like when Vance decided he would just pick Shane up and “take her” whenever he wanted to ~ seems a bit old-fashioned and brutish in my eyes.

3.5 Stars

First Impressions was an enjoyable read featuring a romance between a woman who returns to her hometown and her new reclusive neighbor.

Shane Abbot is finally returning home after working as a teacher in the big city for four years. Her first order of business is to start renovations on her grandmother's old house to convert it into a museum and antique shop. Vance Banning escaped to rural Maryland to get away from the pressure of running the family empire so he buys a house and begins renovating himself. When his neighbor Shane thinks he's out of work and offers him a job working on her house, he's amused and agrees. But as Shane and Vance work together closely on the renovations, unexpected feelings begin to surface.

Vance is wary of relationships after his late wife treated him poorly and made it clear she only wanted him for his money. Due to their relationship, Vance has a lot of trust issues and has no interest in entering into a new relationship. After the death of her grandmother, Shane left her job as a teacher and returned home. She has always dreamed of doing something with antiques and with the inheritance from her grandmother, now is the perfect time. Shane is very knowledgeable about her work and what she doesn't know, she researches to find out.

Shane and Vance's first interaction doesn't go well and Vance is actually quite rude to Shane. Eventually after the pair have been working together for a while, they form a friendship of sorts. The two work well together and I liked that Vance understood what Shane wanted with the renovations. Shane is pretty open about her interest in Vance but with his trust issues, he fights the attraction for a while. I will say my main issue with this book comes after their relationship progresses beyond friendship. Vance continues to let Shane believe he's an out of work carpenter rather than the very wealthy man that he is. Once she does find out, she's rightfully upset and it causes issues in the relationship. I just felt Vance's reasons for not telling her didn't hold up after he knew the kind of person Shane was. Outside of that issue, I did enjoy their romance.

Overall First Impressions was an entertaining read and I would recommend it if you're looking for a quick contemporary romance to read.

This might be considered spoiler-y. Technically, I haven't given away real details, but some folks are pickier. So be warned.

So here's the thing. The Big Misunderstanding trope is used constantly in this book. And it's always because Shane absolutely refuses to allow Vance to finish a fucking sentence. He tries to explain things numerous times, but she always talks over him. She just plows right on through and completely misses the mark - half the time she's flat out wrong, but she's like a runaway train and nobody can stop her. I wanted to grab her, shake her, and demand that she shut the hell up for two seconds so Vance could give her the explanation she's demanding so violently.

And then there is a scene where Shane lets her mother break her heart again. Like, you know this woman is poison and wants to hurt you. You've been preparing yourself for her to show up and pull some shit. So how the hell are you so surprised and gullible when she shows up and pulls some shit?

So she falls for her mother's bullshit and goes tearing off, screaming for an explanation, which she won't shut up long enough to get. She does this whole "I trusted you and you were laughing at me the whole time! You were laughing at me! How could you laugh at me?!" Which mostly reminds me of the movie n  Carrien, when she's having that psychotic break and hearing her mother's voice in her head saying "They're all gonna laugh at you! They're all gonna laugh at you!" On and on with this laughing shit with Shane, when it's horribly obvious that nobody would find it funny. It's not a prank or con somebody would pull because it makes no sense, there is no payoff to doing it. I could have understood if she was just upset about being misled, but I don't get her thinking at all. Of course he wasn't laughing at you, dumbass. Be quiet and let the man speak!

She was so melodramatic while ranting and raving, totally incorrect and illogical, but entirely unwilling to allow anyone to speak long enough to correct her. I hated her by the end of the book.