Into the Tide

Cottonwood Cove Series, Book 1

By: Laura Pavlov

Narrated by: Connor Crais, Mackenzie Cartwright

Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

She’s my best friend’s little sister. Completely off-limits. But every man has his breaking point.

Lila James is my best friend’s little sister, and I’ve always looked out for her.
She's five years younger than me, and when she left for college, she was just a kid.
But now she’s home for the summer—and she’s definitely not a kid anymore.
She’s beautiful, smart, and everything I didn’t know I needed.
Dark eyes. Long wavy hair. And legs that are meant to be wrapped around me.
I'm the guy who likes to have a good time.
Keep things light.
When her brother asks me to hire her at my restaurant, it's a no-brainer.
There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her.
Until she asks me for one more favor.
She wants me to be her first.
Take her V-card.
Go where no man has gone before.
Her words, not mine.
And damn, if I don’t want to go there more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
She's only here for the summer, and she says it will be our secret.
It’s temporary.
We’ll go back to being just friends at the end of summer.
She promises that she won’t fall for me.
She knows better.
But Lila isn’t the one I'm worried about.

**This is book one in the Cottonwood Cove Series. Each one can be read as a complete standalone. A HEA is guaranteed!**

Cottonwood Cove Series:
Into the Tide
Under the Stars
On the Shore
Before the Sunset
After the Storm

©2023 Laura Pavlov (P)2023 Laura Pavlov

Amazing Story

OMG, into the tide was absolutely amazing! Hugh and Lila are so adorable together and perfect for each other this is the perfect brothers best friend romance. I love every part of it. The narrations were perfect as well.

Fantastic Story & Listen🎧 Charming & Heartwarming!

This small town, brother’s best friend romance is a fabulous start to a new series, the characters are amazing and the storylines not only captivated my attention the entire time but tugged on my heartstrings too. Laura Pavlov is a gifted author, I enjoyed her writing style and her descriptive details takes you alongside the characters and into their heads, enabling your to see what they are seeing, thinking and feeling. The characters are realistic, easy to relate to and connect with, they are easy to care about too. Hugh Reynolds is a busy man, besides running his own bar restaurant, he took over his family’s businesses too. Luckily his friend Travis’ sister, Lila James, who just finished college is coming home before starting her new job in Chicago in a couple of months. While home she will work with Hugh to help him organize and manage his business more efficiently. Travis has mixed feelings about her returning home, he is happy to see her but not happy she is staying with their father who drinks too much and has been down on his luck. Travis has given up on their father, but she hasn’t and she plans to get him the help he needs while she is home. Lila is happy to be home and see her friends and she has one more thing she wants to do before starting her new career and life in the city, to lose her V-card. When Hugh sees Lila, he knows he is in trouble, she is not that a kid anymore she is a beautiful woman, and she is also off limits. It was great to watch these two spend time together and get to know each other again. I thought they were perfect together and for each other. The chemistry between them is undeniable, and they could only deny each other for so long before giving in. They both knew her time was limited and she would be leaving, but they agreed to a temporary fling, enjoy each other’s company, and bodies, but keep it to themselves. I loved how everything played out in this book, it is a wonderfully plotted story and has the perfect balance of drama, charm, witty dialogue and humor, heartfelt emotions, and steamy romance. Besides the fabulous lead characters, there are some amazing secondary characters, including the Reynolds family, the banter between them is hilarious. Laura Pavlov, thank you for the wonderful story and emotional rollercoaster ride. 

🎧📚🎧 And for the fabulous narration, Mackenzie Cartwright and Connor Crais are the perfect cast to bring these characters and story to life. They had a complete understanding of who they were portraying, gave each a voice that fit each of that character’s persona and were believable in every role they played. Crais nailed it as Hugh, swoon worthy and all, grasping all sides of his personality, and Cartwright did the same for Lila, playing her role with perfection. Both were great performing the roles of the secondary characters as well. They set the perfect tone for the story, captured all the character’s emotions and projected them into their performance and had you feeling every single one. These versatile voice artists are entertaining storytellers and a pleasure to listen to. Thank you for the amazing listen. 

Small Town Excellence!

Small town excellence!

Into the Tide is the start of a new series in Cottonwood Cove. Hugh and Travis have been best friends forever and when Travis' little sister returns to town to help out their Dad feelings start to fly between her and Hugh.

There were a lot of things happening in this story. Lila in particular with her need to slow down while everyone else tries to push her to bigger and better things. She also is trying to give her Dad the push he needs to get and stay sober even when her brother has all but thrown in the towel with that relationship. When circumstances land her staying at Hugh's home she gets the idea for him to assist her with crossing off items on her bucket list, and the big one is losing her v-card. Even when you know it's going to happen the good feelings that come when these two get together were just perfect!

I loved all parts of this story and am really looking forward to all the other characters books! I was provided an audio of this book and Connor Crais and Mackenzie Cartwright did an amazing job!

Sweet and swoony

“Into the Tide” is a sweet, swoony and slow burn delight that pulled me in with the underlying attraction between Hugh and Lila that was coming off the pages.

Lila is back in Cottonwood Cove after graduating college and completing her internship in Chicago. She’s spending the summer to help her Dad and also help Hugh manage his restaurants. Since Lila was so focused in college, she has a list of must dos while home. And that includes losing her v card which she asks Hugh to help with.

I loved Hugh and Lila from the very beginning. Hugh is protective, caring and loves his family so much. I loved how driven Lila was when she was in college and how that carried over to care for her Dad and help Hugh out. They had a deep friendship which led to the attraction that ignited when Lila came home. Hugh was gentle and caring with her and he was the best choice for her. The whole Reynolds was great and I enjoyed them so much in the story.

Oh how I love listening to Connor Crais and MacKenzie Cartwright together. They compliment each other so well. Connor was great as Hugh and brought all of his protective and caring to life. MacKenzie was the perfect choice to portray Lila’s sweet and genuine personality.

Good story

This was overall a good storyline but come on with the female narrator she was awful. No way did she sound like she was in her twenties. All I wanted to do was fast forward her chapters she was really hard to get through. No more Mackenzie Cartwright there are better female narrators out there.

Great

This was an easy listen and the narration was as perfectly done. I absolutely enjoyed Hugh and Lila!

New author, I’m hooked

I’ve been branching out, trying some new authors. While some seem run of the mill, I’m completely in love with Laura Pavlov’s writing!

LOVED IT

This writing!!! 😍😍😍 Comes to life in this audio!! This book was an absolute lyrical swoon fest. I’m so upset with myself for waiting as long as I have to read a story from Laura. I am always a complete simp for brother’s best friend and this one is *chef’s kiss* 🤌🏻 jam packed with angsty banter and the hottest forbidden spice. I LOVED IT. Lila was the perfect virgin heroine looking for an easy solution to solve that problem and Hugh was an even better knight in spicy armor, reluctantly agreeing to be her resolution. So many scenes in this book will literally be the spicy standard in my head for a long time to come and ani CANNOT WAIT to return to Cottonwood Cove in the installments to come. 5/5 shining stars!

Hugh is dreamy

Overall: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 /5
Spice Level: 🌶🌶🌶/5
Recommend: Yes
Re-read/ re-listen: Yes
Trope: Brother's best friend/ Boss-Employee.
Narrators: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟/5. Connor Crais and McKenzie Cartwright

Characters:
Hugh Reynolds (cousin if Dylan from Honey Mountain Series) & Lila James (Travis James, little sister and Hugh's best friend)
Story:
Hugh Reynolds is super amazing. He puts his family first. He puts pretty much everyone he cares about first. He runs his family businesses and does not hesitate to include Lila in whatever she needs. He cares deeply about her. I mean, it's his best friends little sister. How can he not care.... Lila James doesn't know how to live in the moment. She is so busy on the go and running from how people perceive her, too busy proving she made something of herself, she has forgotten to live.
Favorite parts:
The family banter, I loved how effortless and how fun the Reynold's family is. It really makes me super excited to read the rest of the siblings. I loved the check boxes that Lila had. ALSO!!! the nick names. Sigh** Snow and Bear! Loved this. It was so sweet. I really do enjoy how Laura uses unique nick names for her characters
Thoughts:
This book was super sweet. I was a little iffy with it. I didn't immediately love it like the Honey Mountain series. Which surprised me. I really enjoyed the connection between all the characters, the chemistry thT built between Hugh and Lila. There wasn't a lot of conflict, which I appreciated. It honestly was a sweet, fun love story. I did get slightly annoyed with the constant reference of hears best friends sister and virgin. And at one point, I did not like Lila's friends. BUUUTTTTT I still highly enjoyed this book. I can't wait for the next one. I will be revisiting this town again.

Narrators:
The Narrators were excellent!!! they are so fun and listening to Connors voice is so dreamy. McKenzie has such a sweet voice. I have zero issues listening to these two. I hope you enjoy

A lovely small-town romance with a dose of humour.

This is a lovely small-town romance with a dose of humour too. Laura sets the scene perfectly giving us plenty of descriptions so we know just what Cottonwood Cove is like. I definitely felt transported there. She writes about a family who just loves and supports one another and another that is fractured and falling apart. Lila and Hugh have known each other forever and after a situation with Lila’s dad, she goes to live in Hugh’s Casita. She’s just back in Cottonwood for the summer and is determined to work her way through her “Snow Day List”. There are plenty of fun things to check off and she enlists Hugh’s help. After fighting their attraction they finally give in and there’s heat and feelings galore.

I loved the family group chats. This is fast becoming one of my favourite things in books. You get a sense of the family and often the banter is hilarious. Hats off to Connor who had to voice a bunch of different characters in quick succession. That is no easy feat but he does it well. Connor brings this big ‘ol teddy-bear feel to Hugh, and I enjoyed his performance thoroughly. Mackenzie gives us the headstrong Lila determined to lose her V-card. She is youthful and sensitive but also accomplished and we see her confidence grow as the book progresses.

This was a great introduction to Laura’s writing with performances from two narrators I love to listen to. I am definitely keen to hear about the others in the family, so will be sure to hit more in this series.