Book 1 in the Whiskey Women Series
Reviewed by CJ | Rating: 4/5 📖
Dark secrets, wild women, and a body disposal guy who might just steal your heart.
Okay so I went into Rumors & Whiskey expecting to enjoy it (I really enjoyed the Bourbon Boys series) but I did not expect to love it this much. This one exceeded expectations.
What’s It About?
We open on Wynona Crowne, mid-horror in having been kidnapped, held in captivity, and living through something genuinely dark and traumatic. The book doesn’t shy away from it, and that sets the tone perfectly for everything that follows. After escaping, she’s been quietly rebuilding her life under a fake name in a secret, off-the-map place kind of similar to witness-protection. A place to seek therapy and heal, and for Wyn (going by Naomi) that also means working at a nearby bar. Enter Julian, a tall, mysterious, charming jeweller with a sinful smile and too many questions.
Their eyes meet over the bar, a little talking leads to moving in closer for a palm reading, only for the real world to interrupt. He’s called away and she keeps moving forward with her recovery. A few months later he returns, and their stolen moments together come to a screeching halt with his interest in Hideaway, the safe house she calls home. A place nobody outside the shelter should know. She runs, he leaves town, and they both try to put it behind them.
Except, obviously, neither of them forgets.
Fast forward a few months, and Wyn is back home in Rumor, Tennessee. A small town filled with gossip about her family and an unusual number of missing people.
The Crowne women are the kind of family every small town has an opinion about, and in Rumor, Tennessee opinions are pretty much a town sport. Matriarch Birdie, her daughter Lu, and the three sisters Wyn, Stevie, and Jo run the Whispering Fool, a bar that’s equal parts biker bar and full-on spectacle with shot swings, dancing on the bartop, tarot readings, palm readings, and a vibe that makes you feel like anything could happen on a random Tuesday night. They are wild, wonderful, and completely rough around the edges. And they have always been the talk of the town.
Wyn has spent her entire life pushing back against that. She never wanted to feed the rumor mill, never wanted to be associated with it, never wanted to lean into any of that. What she didn’t know, is that the rumors were all a part of the plan.
Now that she’s returned to tenure as a professor of organic chemistry with the nearby university, she’s easing back into her hobby of distilling small batches of whiskey while slowly finding a new day-to-day normal. Until one night then she walks into the family bar and sees something she absolutely should not have seen, gets drugged for her trouble only to wake up to Julian. Tied to a chair beside the bed she’s laying in. In Birdie’s house looking just as hot as the last time she saw him.
Turns out that on top of being the jeweller to the rich and famous, Julian is also a cleaner who makes crime scenes and bodies disappear for the Crowne women (among others). And turns out, the rumors the town has always whispered about Wynn’s family? They’ve been very deliberately manufactured. Because underneath the tarot cards and the whiskey flights and the wild women reputation, the Crowne women have been quietly, methodically taking care of the men who hurt the women of Rumor. And nobody was ever supposed to know.
So now Wynn has to figure out who Julian really is, whether she can trust him, how to make peace with a family she thought she knew but clearly didn’t — and somewhere in all of that, try not to fall completely in love with the man who disposes of bodies and shows up every single time her life falls apart.
Oh, and while this is all taking place, Julian has been searching for information about what happened to his father who was found dead under suspicious circumstances far away from where he should have been after his last job for Birdie in Tennessee.
What I Loved
Everything. I mean, I was frustrated that I, myself couldn’t read faster but otherwise it was an easy and captivating read for me. There’s a lot going on and when it all comes together you can look back and see why the page count was needed, so when I closed the book I had no complaints.
But what I really loved? The way these characters love each other. Wyn and Julian are both a little damaged, but we’re quick to see that they love deeply and without hesitation even when things are uncertain. That’s rare to pull off well and Victoria Wilder nails it.
And the Crowne women as a unit? An incredible, chaotic, supportive little village of women who will do what needs to be done, steal each other’s designer shoes, and then get back to running the bar like nothing happened. I loved all of them and can’t wait for Stevie and Jo’s books.
The Romance
This is not a book where the romance is an afterthought, it is absolutely the heart of the story, woven throughout the plot in near-perfect balance. Wyn and Julian’s relationship is slow-burn in the best way as two people who can’t stop thinking about each other are kept apart by circumstance and secrets, until they finally can’t stay apart anymore. Through most of the book we don’t realise their individual histories are overlapping behind the scenes and I was really impressed by how it was all brought together. The chemistry is excellent, the tension is real, and when it pays off you’ll feel it. Especially in those spicy scenes.
One thing I really appreciated with this book was that the coincidences that drive the plot actually feel natural. Coming from the Bourbon Boys series where I felt like you had to suspend disbelief a little with the coincidences at the start of Bourbon & Lies, it’s really satisfying to see how much tighter and more natural the reveals are here (in my opinion).
That One Scene
There’s a moment when Wynn wakes up at Birdie’s house and everything she thought she knew about her family starts unraveling — and Julian is right there in the middle of it, tied to a chair. It’s tense and a little bit funny and completely sets the stage for him being a quiet source of support and strength throughout everything that follows. It’s close to the start, but I didn’t expect them to come back together in such an off beat way and I loved it.
The One Thing I Didn’t Love
Genuinely? Not much. The pacing is a little slow in a few spots — there’s a lot of plot to navigate and sometimes you feel the weight of it. But at no point did it cross into actual frustration for me.
Format Recommendation
I bounced between the paperback and Kindle Unlimited for this one — Kindle in the car during kid pickup, paperback on the couch when I had time to really settle in. Both work beautifully.
Who Is This For?
You’ll love this if you:
- Are already in the Victoria Wilder universe and loved the Bourbon Boys series (they make an appearance here)
- Love a little romantic suspense with equal parts plot and romance
- Are here for morally grey heroes who are absolutely gone for the right woman
- Love a found family of chaotic, fierce, fiercely loyal women
- Enjoy a slow burn that actually burns
- Can handle dark themes handled with care
- Like your small towns with big secrets
Maybe skip it if:
- Dark openings and heavy themes aren’t your thing
- Spicy romance isn’t your jam
- Strong, opinionated, free spirited women who take no prisoners make you nervous (honestly, that sounds like a you problem 😄)
Where to Get This Book
SECTION
📖 Physical Book
📱 Ebook
🎧 Audiobook
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📚 More from the Whiskey Women Series
- Book 1 — Rumors & Whiskey | Reviewed by CJ | ⭐ 4/5 📖
- Book 2 — Coming Soon
Ready for more reviews from CJ? Find More Here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
📖 | Series: Whiskey Women Series Book 1 | Genre: Romantic Suspense