A few good scenes aren’t enough to raise this novel above okay.

Several years after abruptly dumping his college girlfriend, fighter pilot Luke has realized that he’s still in love with Sara, who’s also an air force officer. He gets himself assigned to the duty she’s supervising—a recruitment tour in southern California—so he can apologize for the arrogant and unfeeling way he ended their relationship.

Sara spent years getting over Luke, and now he’s shocked her by joining her tour, leaving her unbalanced and struggling to keep control over the project. Luke has a tough road ahead of him to convince Sara that’s he’s not the jerk he used to be, especially when he still has so much to be arrogant about.

Hotshot starts off with promise, but soon starts to plow the same ground over and over until it eventually feels like it's stuck in a rut. Sara doesn't want Luke to be on her team. He says something humble, and she realizes he's changed. She's attracted to him and wishes she wasn't his supervisor. He says something humble...and repeat.

I didn't feel a real connection between the characters until about two-thirds of the way through, when Luke finally apologizes for the way he dumped Sara the day after they graduated. The emotion between them as he tries to put into words why he'd been so selfish, and as she struggles with the reminder of how crushed she'd been, feels painfully real. I appreciate that Sara doesn't let him off the hook easily. She doesn't forgive him immediately, and she takes time to process all he's told her, which makes the situation even more realistic.

But this is essentially a story about a man who has already changed—before the story begins—and just has to convince the heroine he’s done so. It feels as if there isn’t enough conflict arising from their characters to keep the story going, so another character is introduced to cause some rather bizarre problems for them in a way that never felt convincing.

I really wanted to like this story, but in the end I struggled to engage with it.

~ Katrina Latham