A Review by Someone Who Read It Instead of Doing Anything Useful

Well, actually I wrote it and then read it and then told you about it.

Patty Swenson has spent seven years waiting for her real life to start. Seven years. You know what else takes seven years? Medical school. Patty, honey, this is it. Nobody’s coming with the good version.

We meet her on her thirty-fourth birthday eating Cheerios out of a coffee mug, because at some point in this woman’s life, a bowl stopped being an option. Not unavailable. Just no longer on the menu, like joy, or a two-week vacation. Her husband is “a charming man who never grew up,” which is the gentlest possible way of saying he is living proof that the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. And the price, I regret to inform you, has gone up considerably. It used to be a Hot Wheels. Now it’s a virtual bass boat with a name.

Enter Ethan Brandvold. Site director. First in, last out. “A company man to the bone,” which is a hell of a thing to put on a tombstone. Here lies Ethan. Great at logistics. He can’t date her, so he leaves a chai on her desk every morning before anyone shows up. Not a note. A beverage. The man is conducting an entire courtship through hot liquids, like a Victorian ghost with a Starbucks app.

Meanwhile Birch Harbor is tearing itself in half over the data center. On one side: jobs and a new roof for the school. On the other: the groundwater, a hum in the night, and fewer stars every year. Fewer stars every year. That’s the whole century right there. We traded the sky for faster downloads and nobody called a meeting.

Then Patty’s numbers come in and the campus is drinking way more water than the nice men in windbreakers promised. Shocking. Who could have guessed a corporation would round down? Next you’ll tell me the PowerPoint rendering had more trees than the actual site.

Now she has to choose between her job and the truth, her sister and her employer, the life she settled for and the one she’s scared to want. That’s a lot of choosing for a woman who twelve pages ago couldn’t find a bowl.
Ethan’s got a choice too. It’s been in a drawer since September. A drawer, buddy. That’s not a cellar. Nothing in there is aging into anything.

Here’s my problem: I came in ready to be a jerk, and the book got me. One kiss. ONE. In a world where everything arrives in two days and in bulk, this author made me wait, and I liked it, which is embarrassing. No cheating. Happy ending. A town full of people you’d actually want coffee with, unlike the people you currently have coffee with.

There are also recipes. Lefse. Tater tot hotdish. So after you finish crying about the stars, you can build a casserole out of frozen potato objects and feel something close to peace.

Plus a book club guide, which is thoughtful, since book club is just wine with homework.
Odds are good. Read it. Then go outside and count what’s left up there.

So Why a Romance Novel About Data Centers?

Look, I’ll be honest with you. Writing about data centers and the quiet havoc they can wreak on rural communities sounded, on paper, like the least sexy thing a person could do. Groundwater tables. Megawatt load. Tax abatement schedules. Try whispering “effective cooling tower evaporation rate” into someone’s ear and see where that gets you.

But then I looked at it again and realized the thing practically builds itself into a romance. You’ve got a grumpy company man who hasn’t smiled since the Bush administration. You’ve got a sunshine heroine who still believes people will do the right thing if you just show them the spreadsheet. The grumpy sunshine dynamic works precisely because the friction is built in and the payoff lands harder once the grump finally cracks and shows his marshmallow center

. You’ve got forbidden, because he signs her performance reviews and HR has opinions. You’ve got a small town picking sides in the parking lot of the Loon Cafe. You’ve got a secret in a drawer and a number in a report that nobody wants published.
Honestly? It checks every single box. Grumpy sunshine plus forbidden love is an entire recognized category of its own at this point, and I simply backed a 300 megawatt campus into the middle of it and let everyone fight.

Your Part in All This

Grab Odds Are Good here and find out what’s in the drawer.

That’s the whole ask. One click. Less effort than finding a bowl.

And if you liked this review, do the thing. Like it. Share it. Send it to the one friend who reads four books a week and the other friend who keeps saying they’re “getting back into reading” and never does. Leave a review if you finish it, because reviews are the only currency indie authors actually get paid in, and I cannot make rent on good vibes.
Thanks for reading, thanks for sharing, thanks for clicking. You know the drill.
Now go count the stars while we still have a quorum.