Melanie O’Bryan knows life is too short to be afraid of taking chances. And former Air Force sergeant Bennett Hart is certainly worth taking a chance on. He’s agreed to help her students with a school project, but she’s hoping the handsome handyman will offer her a whole lot more. Yet despite his heated glances and teasing touches, Mel senses there’s something holding him back . . .

Bennett Hart is grateful to be alive and back home in Mirabelle, Florida. Peaceful and uncomplicated-that’s all he’s looking for. Until a spunky, sexy-as-hell teacher turns his life upside down. After one smoldering kiss, Bennett feels like he’s falling without a parachute. But with memories of his past threatening to resurface, he’ll have to decide whether to keep playing it safe, or take the biggest risk of all.

Mel and Bennett have been dancing around a possible relationship, claiming to just be friends but everyone knows their feelings go deeper than that. The romance between the two is slow and sweet, the perfect friends to lovers transition. I think that is one of my favorite plotlines, because the couple has such a strong bond before they decide to get involved deeper. Together they are sassy and touching, and it is a realistic transition into something more.

Once they get that out of the way, though, they still have problems to overcome. Bennett has emotional scars from his time as a soldier and he’s not comfortable opening himself up to Mel and his feelings for her. He has to decide if he can give their relationship everything he has … and like a typical Alpha, he’s going to fumble along for a while before he gets it right.

I loved Shannon Richard’s Undeniable, the story of Grace and Jax, and I impatiently waited for the next story. Well-paced and poignant, Unstoppable brings to life a heart-warming friends-to-lovers story that will have readers smiling and sighing and cheering for everything to work out in the end … and impatiently waiting for more.  With the “Country Roads” series, Richard has given readers a fantastic group of friends and I can’t wait to see each of them get their happy ending.

(If you’ve not read either Undone (Book 1) or Undeniable (Book 2), you’ll be fine. You might miss some of the smaller details but Unstoppable can definitely stand alone. You’ll probably just add some more books to your To Be Read file.)