Ellie Stepp was never a part of the 'beautiful, in-crowd' in high school, while Mason Sweet was 'Mr. Popular'. Now, Ellie is the town librarian and Mason is the town mayor. When Ellie discovers that the city council might cut the library budget in order to fund a new high school football field, she asks Mason for his help preventing it. Mason tells Ellie that he'll help her, if she sleeps with him. To his surprise, Ellie accepts his proposition. She has always had a crush on Mason and sees this as a way to finally live out her fantasies. They end up having an affair, which Ellie agrees to keep secret at Mason's request. Naturally, the fact that Mason refuses to acknowledge their relationship in public, does little for Ellie's self-esteem.
Mason has a secret of his own, he has a big drinking problem (although he certainly doesn't see it as a problem). It's very, very difficult for an author to write an alcoholic hero and still make him likable to the reader. Yet, this author managed to pull it off. I was very impressed by that.
What I wasn't impressed about was the fact that his drinking problem was so obvious and yet, both the heroine and the hero took *forever* to figure it out. Then later in the book, there is another situation (I won't tell what it is so that I don't spoil it for anyone) that again is very obvious, but the hero and heroine are totally oblivious to it. As a result, frankly, I questioned their intelligence at several points during the book. I spent way too much time waiting for them to wake and face facts, and that irritated me. Hence-less stars...