ARC REVIEW Beginner's Luck by Kate Clayborn

This is Kate Clayborn's debut novel, really? Damn girl you are good! The feel and the flow of the book makes it feel like she's done this for a long time. It was entertaining and emotional and Kit and Ben are so cute together. The secondary characters are just as good. Kit's best friends Zoe and Greer, at the best friends a girl can have. Ben's Dad, Henry, and Sharon even the kid River they add so much to the story it wouldn't be the same without them. At one point the story did seem to slow just a little but that could have just been my impatience to find out what was going to happen next.

They never really knew whose idea it was, or even why but Kit, Zoe, and Greer nonetheless still bought that lottery ticket and won. They all had dreams of what they wanted, Kit's dream was to have a real home, some place she could settle and put roots down. After her hectic childhood and constant moving she wanted a place she could finally call her own. Six months later she finally takes the plunge and buys the house of her dreams, it's a fixer upper but she doesn't care just more ways to make it her own.

Ben Tucker was suppose to be taking time off work to help take care of his dad who he fell and injured himself but Ben's best friend and business partner asks him to do one job while he is there. The company they work for is looking to recruit this metallurgy scientist who also just happens to live in his home town. Ben is so good at his job he thinks it will be easy. He realizes just how ill prepared he is for this when he walks in and realizes Kit is the scientist he's looking for and then blows it even more when she realizes he's never even read her work.

Not off to a good start but when Ben gifts replacement handles for her cabinets at work he found his in, well at least a way to spent more time with her since his Dad owns a salvage yard and has plenty of antiques and original pieces she needs to fit her house. Ben and Kit are both hesitant to start anything because they both know it would be temporary since she's not going to take the job and Ben still plans to go back to Texas. In spite of that they can't stop spending time together, pretty soon Ben admits his love. Kit's life starts to fall apart, first an argument with her brother then she finds out the company Ben works for still wants her and is willing to extort her boss to get her to work for them and she thinks Ben was behind it all and used her, top it all off with a medical emergency with her Dad and Kit pretty much mentally and physically exhausted and heart broken. It takes two to mend a broken heart but who will give in first?

Overall, so good, it had me bawling at the end. The characters were all so real and I loved the nerdy side of Kit and how she wanted to do work on her own. But one question, Did Ben ever go back and finish the chandelier or did he seriously just abandon it?