Review: Parker by Katy Regnery (Stewarts of Skagway #5)

October 14, 2024

Note: An advance reader copy (ARC) was provided by the author via Grey's Promotions.

It's fair to say that countless romance readers love the brother's best friend trope. More often than not, it involves a younger sister nursing a longtime crush on her older brother's best friend. However, in the case of Parker Stewart, the twenty-two-year-old titular character in the fifth novel in Katy Regnery's Stewarts of Skagway series, the only sort of crush she'd probably entertain when it came to her younger brother's best friend was to literally crush him, or at least a body part of or two. Parker has known Quinn Morgan since before she was five, and over the years, he's become who he is to her now--the bane of her existence. The teasing, the pranks, the tag-teaming with her younger brother Sawyer have made Parker dread Quinn's presence. What she doesn't know, though, is that twenty-one-year-old Quinn has had a thing for her since he was five, and her disdain for him breaks his heart each and every time she makes it clear she doesn't want to be around him. But one trip to a travel convention outside of Alaska could end up being a turning point, proving to both that not everything in Vegas stays in Vegas.

The brief interactions between Parker and Quinn previously in the series definitely had me curious as to what the heck may have led to the former having such an adverse reaction to the latter each and every time they happened to be in the same place at the same time. Naturally, I also wondered what sort of journey the author had plotted out for them, and I must admit, Katy Regnery surprised me in the best way possible. Why, you may ask; well, Parker and Quinn's history wasn't overly complicated--boy likes girl but makes her hate him instead--but everything that plays out from the moment they realize they're attending the same travel convention in Vegas felt different from any other romance that I've read in recent memory that shared the same trope. Their journey to their happily-ever-after was uniquely theirs, and I simply sat back and enjoyed the heck out of it from the first page till the last. Those Stewarts remain a supportive family, even if there is friction from time to time, and Quinn's own family was endearing. Parker is the penultimate Stewarts of Skagway novel, and it snags five stars.

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Read my reviews for the Stewarts of Skagway series: