This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by Rissa. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Mid-Length Contemporary category.

Here is Rissa's review:

I don’t usually read small town romances—though Nicholas Sparks’ stuff will call to me every once in a sick-in-bed while. Yeah, I’m more of an international beach paradise or big city setting kinda girl. But when I want cozy comfort…. Ironically, the cover of Dances Under the Harvest Moon is what caught me, as the couple totally resembled Sandra Bullock (Love!) and Harry Connick Jr. (Yum!) from Hope Floats. And flu or not, sometimes you’re in the mood for a good cry (and some good hot un-Nicholas-Sparks-esque sex!)

Joanne Rock’s sweet and sexy story pulled my heartstrings and pushed my hot buttons from the start of the read, when the “Good Head On Her Shoulders” heroine Heather Finley runs in to the hot mayoral hero, Zach Chance (Mmmm…more on Zach in a bit).

So…intelligent, loyal and lovely twenty-eight-year-old Heather Finely is finally leaving—or running away, depending on the perspective—from her hometown of Heartache, TN to become a singing sensation in Nashville. She’s been the dependable one for her siblings and her widowed and bipolar mother, but since the sudden diagnosis of her own debilitating affliction, it’s now or never to follow her forever-buried dream.

Pausing here for a note on the heroine and her condition. The story did such an unbelievable job drawing me in with regard to the challenges Heather faced with her body’s depletion. Not only did I feel the heroine’s pain, I lived it throughout the story. A tremendous feat, I think, on bringing to light the issues of rheumatoid arthritis and anything similarly debilitating, especially in such a young woman. It was heart wrenching and it added a much-appreciated level to Heather’s character, to the story, and to the couple’s triumph at the HEA.

Anyway, nothing can stop Heather Finley’s plan to achieve her goal: not her sister’s wedding or the business she shared with Erin, not the pull of the young music students she hates to let down, not the memory of her late father—nor the mayoral legacy and potential conspiracy he’d left behind…and not the young and delicious mayor of Heartache, Zach Chance because…

“The sooner she left, the better. Zach Chance could remain safely in her fantasies and well out of her life.”

Ahh, Zach Chance, supreme hottie, business man by night, mayor of Heartache TN by day, and…total procrastinator. The man hadn’t made his move on Heather during his decade-long thing for her. This detail was probably the only thing that felt a bit off for me, because, as the story went on and the characters developed, our hot-as-hell hero—a go-getting, hard-working, ultra-intelligent and confident man (my favorite kind of hero!)—would so have made his move on Heather, despite the life-crap he’d dealt with* in the past and his stints away from their small town.

But no big thing; I gladly got past it. Bottom line, he hadn’t snagged Heather and now only had a day and half to stop her and then court her.

Then the story adds a layer, and I love layers. Zach’s not only impressed and taken by Heather, having fantasized about Heather since high school. In addition to wanting her badly, imagining getting her into so many of his favorite positions, he sees her as the best and only option to…take over his mayoral position. Yes, the ulterior motive. After Heather’s father, long-time and beloved Mayor Finely died, Zach stepped up. But he only intended to be a stand-in mayor for a time, to repay the town for his own *father’s fraudulent scars on the sweet town by serving the community in a pinch. But now he is working around the clock, juggling his responsibilities to the town, his own digital-tracking business, and most importantly, the hunt for his kid sister’s cyber-stalker who is still at large.

I will pause again to say that the cyber stalker subplot weaved through the story was a definite high point for me, adding yet another layer, one of intrigue and true-to-life danger in these times of Internet-domination in all of our day-to-day (minute to minute) lives. Without spoiling the goods, the cyber stuff kept me on my toes for sure, with relatable and well-drawn secondary characters to dive into, while at the same time they bolstered the ultra-hot romance brewing between Zach and Heather. And thinking more on the secondaries, with the relevant topic of teen-hood cyber bullying, I loved being knee deep into Heather and her issues and conflicts as a near-thirty year old with major romantic and life choices ahead, then switching to the role of Heather’s music student, Megan Bryer, a sweet, smart, outside-the-crowd teenager going through some serious cyber-scares. I loved the contrast, the shifts from one reader-experience to the other, and I really dug the tie-in at the end.

But back to the most important stuff of this small town romance…the romance. Zach wants Heather. And if she wants to get the hell out of Heartache, she can’t want him…though she absolutely does. And then it’s sparks and issues and conflict galore.
Beyond his want of Heather—and his need for her takeover the mayorship—he has dug up a town secret that might double as a Finely Family secret. How can their undeniable electricity—and Oh! it is electric—overcome the layers of obstacles between Zach and Heather?

Well, at least the town and family drama temporarily stops Heather from leaving Heartache so that Zach and Heather can, at least, give us readers some hot foreplay leading to good and passionate small-town, tucked-away-in-a-cabin sex. Which is so rudely interrupted by a medical emergency regarding Heather’s ailment—which she’d kept secret from everyone. Including Zach.

Ooh…it was good, multileveled, and even fast paced for a slow small town setting. I ran through all the emotions and loved every ugly-cry and hot-spot surge of it. And IMHO, unlike a Nicholas Sparks’ sob-me-to-bed ending, Dances Under the Harvest Moon delivers the couple to a well-deserved HEA. So yes, this RITA-finaling read is one I’d recommend, without a doubt. It’s even one I’d read again down the lone country road.