Ok so setting aside let's move onto the actual story. they're probably pretty damn rich and if they aren't, their land is worth a lot of money. And seriously? farm girl? In all the years I've gone to school, not once have I ever heard of anyone being insecure about being a 'Farm girl/boy,' due to the fact that if they have some sort of property in this area. I would understand it more if it was in the central valley or next to Napa Valley or Paso Robles but it wasn't and the feel of how real the town felt just dissipated. I understand that Melissa Brayden creates fictional locations so that she can be malleable with her creativity but in this case, it's unjustified for where she placed Tanner's Peak. As a resident in SB, I found it incredibly hard to picture any sort 'Small Town'anywhere near where SB is. Due to this fact as well as the facts of having great weather and ideal location for seaside homes, any area surrounding SB has become more and more populated over the years and the rent/sale price of homes and apartments have sky rocketed to an astounding amount, making SB a very pricey area to live.

Since the setting is based upon the Santa Barbara area, I just couldn't get through the fact that the people were 'small town' people in this book, simply because Santa Barbara is a coastal town with an extremely high rate of college students coming in and out of it, more specifically due to UCSB and SBCC both being extremely well known colleges. Strawberry Summer is a 2nd chance romance based on a town right next to the one I live in: Santa Barbara. This, however, was not one of those titles. I was expecting something on the level of Melissa Brayden's 'Soho loft series' or Jae's 'Just for Show' or Lee Winter's 'The Brutal Truth,' or 'On The Record Series', these titles are just some examples of what great writers can convey through their writing and really embed an amazing story into my heart. Alright so what brought me to this book was all the hype and the references from other reviews and websites such as goodreads.

Strawberry Summer by Melissa Brayden