Thank you to NetGalley and Headline for this ARC.

I like Jo Watson's books but there are two things you need to know beforehand:
1. They take place in South Africa and
2. They are sexually very explicit, from the first page.

The whole book centers around the fact that FMC Ash has had a bad first sexual experience with her high school boyfriend Logan and now seems cursed to never have good sex. She is a cinematographer with a big circle of friends and somehow their WhatsApp group discusses nothing other than her unsatisfactory love life.

Logan now runs a film location agency, and because he has changed his name to Max and Ash is Leigh in a professional capacity, they have professional (and flirty) email dealings without realising who the other is. Until they need to do a location tour in Africa together.

While Max is happy to see her again, Ash is in a nightmare. There is mud, snakes, mosquitos, thorns, a storm, a free roaming leopard, rickety old planes and her ex. It couldn't get any worse. And she will not have sex with him. No sirree. Absolutely not. Never. Out of the question.

I loved Love at First Flight but this didn't gel with me in the same way. It's far too predictable and uses tired old tropes like forced proximity and miscommunication. Max was a bit too intense for me and there was no real reason to me why he loved her other than he found her beautiful and got very jealous when she spoke to other men. I don't like it when men talk about what they are going to do TO a woman sexually, like she has to endure it. Why not talk about doing something WITH another person?

I liked their travels through Africa though, Max's mother's dementia was portrayed realistically and it's always nice to read a second chances love story. I think Jo Watson is very talented and I will be curious what she writes next, though I might skip the steamiest pages again.