Crookstown by Jamie Bennett

“I’m telling you the truth,” Dex said. “It seems like you never heard a lot of that before.”

The truth? Ok, sure, here it is: Lulu is young and beautiful, she’s living in a great city, she has the world at her feet. Her life is amazing!
Or…well, there might be another truth, and this one kind of sucks: Lulu is alone because her boyfriend dumped her and she doesn’t have any friends because other women hate her. Her parents hate her. Her boss Dex hates her.
And she hates Dex right back. She hates working in his dirty bar, that’s for sure. The Crookstown is a terrible place and as soon as she can, she’s going to move on. Move up, in fact, to all the better things that the world surely has in store for her, and Dex certainly won’t be a part of that. There’s really nothing good about him, because besides owning the terrible Crookstown, he has a car that’s falling apart, jeans full of holes, and an ex who’s the worst. Yeah, he’s not exactly a catch for a young, hot girl like she is!
But something about him does catch Lulu—something about how he loves his daughter, something about how he takes care of his bar and everyone in it, including her. Maybe things like a nice car and a great wardrobe aren’t actually as important as she has always believed. Dex’s value doesn’t seem to be something she can gauge in her usual ways, and that makes her wonder about her own value, too—and if she needs to make some changes to herself besides the color of her nail polish.
There’s a lot at stake at the Crookstown Bar: two hearts are on the line, and maybe a lifetime of happiness.