Beg, Borrow, or Steal by Sarah Adams
- Jun 9
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 29
Sarah Adams has written about a dozen or so novels with the aim of leaving the reader happier than when they started reading. Beg, Borrow, or Steal is the third of four books in her series based in Rome, Kentucky. It is a New York Times Bestseller and one of Amazon's Editor's Picks for best romance. It is lighthearted for the most part, but deals with alcoholism, emotional abuse, grief, trauma, and the death of parents.
Things are going great for Emily Walker - she really has her life together. A second grade teacher at the local elementary school, she gets to live in a community that she loves (and loves her), close to (most of) her siblings, and best of all, her worst enemy, Jack, left halfway through the school year to move to Tennessee and get married. He didn't even say goodbye, not that she cares. Jack Bennett's life has always seemed to move parallel to hers. In the same college classes, in the same extracurriculars, gunning for the same student teaching position, teachers in the same grade at the same school, but Jack seemed to do everything just a little bit better than Emily. Thank goodness he's gone, except he's not. Emily has just heard that his wedding is off, he's newly single, and he's back in town to stay. In fact, he just unknowingly bought the house next door to her. And now Emily needs help... and the only person who she can ask is Jack Bennett.
If Sarah Adams wants to make people happy while they read, mission accomplished. This book was so charming. The rivalry between Jack and Emily was a bit much at first, but as I learned more about them, it was pretty fun to watch play out. Even more fun was to watch the main characters realize that maybe hate was a bit too strong of a word to use as they become hesitant friends. The writing was good, nothing spectacular but not difficult at all to read. The pacing was quick, I read it within a couple of days. I liked reading about Emily's relationship to her town and to her siblings. I liked as she dealt with the trauma stemming from the death of her parents for the first time and grows from it. I enjoyed Jack singing to "Pony" by Ginuwine, it's one sure fire way to get me to like something. The characters are well fleshed out and the romance did not feel contrived, and I was in a better mood when the book ended (and while I was reading it).
I'm giving Beg, Borrow, and Steal by Sarah Adams 4.25 out of 5. I really liked it. In fact, I'll be reading the first two books in the series, about Emily's oldest and youngest siblings respectively, before the last sibling's novel comes out in January of next year. And for those of you who don't like steamy scenes, there was very little of it and it included a warning so you could avoid them if you wanted to, it gets a 1.5 spicy rating.
For more from Sarah Adams, see her website at https://www.authorsarahadams.com/
Pairs well with vanilla bean bourbon apple pie filling and "catching feminism".
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