Rootbound by Tarah DeWittStar Rating:
Spice Level:
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin on 05/02/2023
Genres: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary Romance
Format: Kindle (336 pages)
Source: Purchased
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You really can't go home again.
Tait Logan is proud of the life she’s built for herself. Despite her world-shattering divorce, not having any genuine connections with other humans apart from her sister Ava, and the fact that the remainder of her family is estranged from her life, she’s happy…happy-adjacent, at least. She’s rebuilt herself through her photography; her dream career, the one thing she does still have. When that career contracts her to do an assignment on her estranged family's home, Logan Range—a now famous ranch functioning as the setting for a popular TV show—she’s left with no choice but to agree. It’s only a six-week assignment, after all. She has no plans to set down roots, or get to know the family that, seemingly, has had no interest in a relationship with her since her parents' divorce when she was seven.
Henry Marcum is a cowboy who has dedicated his life to the Logan family and to their ranch. He owes them for raising him, rescuing him, and giving him purpose… He also owes them for every hardship he’s inadvertently brought their way. So, when Tait Logan shows up after 20 years of near total silence, he takes it upon himself to protect the people he knows and loves.
It’s a rocky start when Tait and Henry first collide; he is naturally wary of her intentions, and she is more than perturbed by their literal collision - which results in her broken camera, during her first night on location, no less. But as the pair get to know each other better, they’re thrown off balance time and time again by their growing feelings, and by the story of the Logan family as it becomes increasingly less clear from their perspectives.
Set in the mountains and valleys of Idaho on a rustic ranch, Rootbound is a steamy romance with a warm country feel that touches upon family, heartbreak, and whether the potential for disaster is worth the risk that accompanies love.
Tait and Henry’s relationship is so wholesome and healthy—from strangers to friends to lovers. I loved everything about them. Tait is creative, strong, and independent. Henry is patient, loyal, and gentile. Both carry baggage they’ve needed to put down for much too long.
But this book is so much more than Tait and Henry’s romance. This book is about facing your fears, finding your footing, breaking through the limitations you’ve imposed on yourself, opening your heart, untangling your roots, and finally letting yourself grow.
“When you buy a new plant, you often have to cut the roots when it comes out of the pot. That way, when you put it into the ground, the roots will reach outward, and it will thrive. If you left it in that plastic pot, in that compacted shape it’s in, the roots would grow around and around in a tangled mass until it’d choke the life from itself. It would become too rootbound to grow.”
Being an ex-wedding photographer, I was confident I would connect with Tait. But I had no idea Rootbound would affect me the way it did. Tait’s struggle to process her divorce while coming to terms with all the misconceptions she had about her family spoke to me and reminded me of things I had long forgotten. I wish I had a Henry while going through my “Rootbound” phase of life.
Once again, Tarah DeWitt made me fall in love, cracked my heart in two, put it back together, and made me gasp, cry, and laugh with delight. It’s been several weeks since I finished Rootbound, and I still think about it daily. Sometimes, it makes me cry; sometimes, it makes me laugh; sometimes, it makes me blush, but it always makes me happy.
Bravo.
PS – That is definitely how you make an exit.
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