I very much enjoyed this author’s last book, Starting Over, and was looking forward to Appalachian Awakening quite a bit. The story of wanting to discover oneself while hiking the Appalachian Trail was intriguing, and I was in the mood for an adventure! Sadly, I found this book has very little in common with Starting Over and was ultimately disappointed and lost interest about halfway in.

My main complaint is that it felt rushed and was lacking in character development and chemistry/romantic buildup between the two leads. I’ve read some very good books under 200 pages (Curious Wine, Georgia Beers) so the fact that it’s on the shorter side isn’t necessarily a deterrent. However, this book lacked any emotional impact and after a while I realized I just didn’t care what happened next and stopped reading about halfway in.

I understand that not every book can be a winner so Nance Sparks is still on my list of authors I enjoy. Sadly this book was a miss for me.

Amber has it all figured out—until the rug is pulled out from under her and she realizes just how much she doesn't know about herself. A snap decision leads her to (for her) the unlikeliest of places—the Appalachian Trail.

I have wide but generally predictable reading tastes, and this was only ever going to be right up my alley—lesbian romance on the Appalachian Trail? Sign me up. Here, the heroines are near polar opposites: Amber has spent decades working her way up the career ladder, and her position as a wealthy and powerful CEO is all she's ever been told that she should want. Leslie, meanwhile, has spent roughly the same amount of time working whatever seasonal jobs will let her pursue her true passion, long-distance hiking.

The book stays in Amber's POV throughout, which is interesting—Leslie is the more relatable character to me, and since the author is (like Leslie, not so much like Amber) clearly well versed in hiking, I might have expected Leslie to take the reins on occasion...but staying in Amber's head keeps her more relatable, I suppose. Although she doesn't have experience in the woods, Amber *does* have research skills, and she avoids a lot (not all!) of the pitfalls that novice hikers stumble into. Better, she takes it all in stride—I'm not a huge fan of pratfalls and bumbling heroines, so I appreciate how willing Amber is to go outside her comfort zone and learn something so foreign to her.

The side characters aren't quite as fleshed out as I'd prefer, and the dialogue gets stilted in places (you can take the woman out of the boardroom, but you can't take the boardroom out of the woman?), but you just can't go wrong with romance in the woods. A solid addition to my AT/CDT/PCT/etc (read: long hikes) shelf.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.