Why Not Tonight
Happily Inc.
Susan Mallery
HQN Books
September 18, 2018
Blurb: Susan Mallery welcomes you to Happily Inc, where true love isn’t just for fairy tales…
Natalie Kaleta will do anything for the artists at her gallery, including risk life, limb and the effect of humidity on her naturally curly hair. Braving a downpour to check on reclusive Ronan Mitchell, Natalie gets stranded by a mudslide at his mountain home, where the brooding glass artist reveals his playful side, sending her inconvenient crush from under-the-radar to over-the-top.
After a secret tore apart his family and made him question his sense of self, Ronan fled his hometown for Happily Inc, but the sunny small town can’t fix his damaged heart. He won’t give in to his attraction for beautiful, perpetually cheerful Natalie. She’s untouched by darkness—or so he thinks.
Natalie knows that when a heart goes through the flame, it comes out stronger. Life may not be a fairy tale, but sometimes dreams do come true. Why not this one? Why not tonight?
SASCHA DARLINGTON’S REVIEW
I have a love/hate relationship with Susan Mallery novels. Usually it starts out love, love, love, and then something happens, and I want to toss the book aside. When I first started reading her stories, she had the heroine get pregnant at some point, which is always a bad prop for a romance writer to use as far as I’m concerned especially if it happens in more than two…three…four novels. Fortunately with the Happily Inc., she’s left out the props (or at least that one)…so far.
Natalie and Ronan’s story is sweet. Natalie gets stranded at Ronan’s house when a storm hits, which knocks down trees, totals Natalie’s car, and makes the road impassable. Since Ronan has become a bit of a recluse, spending most of his time at his home rather than the gallery/studio where Natalie is part-time office manager, they have never been in each other’s company much. This all changes.
Inspired by Natalie’s cheerful disposition (she’s almost manic pixie, but not quite quirky enough–maybe), Ronan begins to create again. And they fall in love.
But Natalie won’t enter a serious relationship with Ronan because she thinks he throws important relationships away, which she can’t abide because she lost her mother and wishes she’d been able to spend more time with her. Ronan, on the other hand, feels betrayed by the woman he thought was his mother. He doesn’t think that Natalie can understand where he is coming from. All true.
The problem here is that Ronan has multiple opportunities to give the situation some real thought, and it isn’t until he’s practically hit over the head with evidence that he caves. This is a shame because, for the most part, I liked Ronan, but brooding idiot can only be carried on so long before it becomes annoying.
However, that didn’t ruin the novel for me. The scenes that come after Ronan is “hit over the head,” so to speak, are well done. Those combined with the charm of Ronan and Natalie as a couple made this an excellent read. And, as we had in the other novels from this series, there’s a lot going on so the reader is never bored.
While this can be read as a standalone, I wouldn’t advise it. I missed the novella in the series and felt like I’d missed some important information–and that was just the novella.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
rating: 
4 out of 5 butterflies
“Brooding idiot.” Your reviews are some of your best stuff. But how does Susan churn out the books so fast??? Seems every few months, you’re reviewing another one.
There seem to be a number of writers who churn out a lot of books. There are some for whom it’s obvious and they should spend more time on them. For others, like Mallery and Jill Shalvis, there are few glitches despite being prolific.