REVIEW: "Autumn Allure" by Allie Boniface (Contemporary Romance)

Autumn Allure by Allie Boniface
	Publisher: DFM Publishing Genre: Contemporary Romance Publication Date: August 30th 2016 (Affiliate links)
Description from Publisher:
Time for this playboy to face the music. He just never dreamed it would be a lullaby... Nate Hunter went to college for a business degree, but he prefers working as a bartender and enjoying his small-town, single life. Then a dying ex-girlfriend tracks him down to tell him he has a daughter he never knew existed. Nate doesn't know the first thing about being a father, but one look at Autumn and he's a goner, so he agrees to take care of her until her aunt returns at Christmas. When he asks no-nonsense librarian Maxine Abbott to move in with him and help take care of his daughter, she agrees - but only if he'll pretend to be her boyfriend and get her mother off her back. Their relationship of convenience works perfectly at first, until real feelings begin to chip away at their fake romance. Then Autumn's aunt shows up early, and everything changes. Will Nate and Maxine's budding love end in heartbreak before the last leaves fall?
My Rating:	Heat Rating:
My Musings:
I thought that this was a cute and sweet story, though it felt more like chick lit than contemporary romance. Nate is a playboy bartender who likes to party, until a girl he hooked up with for a weekend during spring break years before tells him he has a daughter and he needs to take her for a few months. Max is a librarian in a Children's library who, at 27, isn't doing much of anything and still lives at home with her former-beauty-queen mom. She went to high school with Nate and they live in a small town, but have apparently never paid much attention to each other, until they decide to move in together to take care of his daughter, Autumn. Autumn is cute and I feel ike she was done well. Nate's transformation was almost too fast and easy, though I appreciate that he grew up over the course of the story. Max, on the other hand, didn't change much and I felt a little dissatisfied with that. Her mom is running for City Council and it seems as though her relationship with Max is unhealthy (She drops by whenever she wants to, calls incessantly, and demands a lot of time). I expected Max creating boundaries and growing a backbone to be her growth, but that never happened. I liked her mom, but I also feel as though she should have been given either more depth, or less depth. Things wrapped up a little too nicely in the end, though it all started a little too seamlessly, so I guess that makes sense. Overall, I did enjoy this, but it felt a bit slow in parts and I didn't get a real sense of chemistry between Nate and Max.
My Source: I received a digital ARC from the publisher to voluntarily review. This in no way influenced my review. My opinion is unbiased and my 100% own.

About the Author
USA Today best-selling author Allie was born and raised in a very small town in upstate New York, which probably explains her fascination with the magic of small town life. She earned her B.A. in English, with a minor in Education, from the University of Rochester in New York and then moved to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where she earned her M.A. in English Literature. Since 1997, Allie has enjoyed life in the northern NYC suburbs, where she lives with her husband and teaches high school English during the day. When she isn't teaching, she's writing about small towns (with lots of secrets and spice!).