He was raised by an emotionally abusive father and now suffers from that upbringing. She’d just practically had sex with a tray full of tacos, and now the postcoital embarrassment set in. She is awkward and has finally found someone in Ben that will just let her be who she wants to be. She is so like me in that she avoids conflict and it gives her a stomach-ache. She is self-conscious and only wants to break out of the box she has been put in.

Crap happens to them and they figure out ways to deal with it and move on. They aren’t perfect or always put together. Probably my favorite part of Ruthie’s writing though is how easily I identify with her characters. Forget your billionaire or CEO, a beekeeper! An angry, rage-filled, over-emotional beekeeper! Now this is my kind of hero. This aspect of the story was incredibly interesting to me. Ben is a beekeeper and the reader is taught so much about bees.

Ben tries to show May the city of New York from a different side and in doing so the reader is given a tour of New York, the stories behind it and the crazy every day hustle that happens there. In Truly I learned so much about New York.

First is the fact that there is so much more going on beyond the love story. I adore so many things about a Ruthie Knox story. What he doesn’t count on is time spent with May being the best thing that has happened to him in as along as he can remember. He can be May’s temporary hero and prove to himself, and everyone else, that he can be something other than an angry jackass. After some quick soul-searching Ben decides this might be his moment to try and be a better man. So when May approaches him, to say he is less than friendly to her is an understatement. He has no idea if he will be able to cut it in the business again but he has plenty of time to think about. He has one year left on that agreement and he only wants to be surly and left alone until that time. After a nasty divorce, which could have been mostly his fault, he signed a non-compete agreement that will last two years. Ben is unhappy and biding his time until he is able to open his own restaurant again. In her fantasy world some man will come in a sweep her off her feet, offer a place to stay and all the help she needs however that isn’t what life has in store for her. Now she is sitting in a Packers bar with five dollars to her name, no cell phone to call a friend and nowhere to go. As if that wasn’t bad enough, during her attempt to leave him, she is mugged. Her instinctive response is to stab the man proposing with a fork, not a good thing since he is the quarterback, and then leave him.

May Fredericks is having a rough day, rough week, well….rough couple of months? After moving to New York to be with her famous football boyfriend she is proposed to in a less than acceptable way.

Truly by Ruthie Knox