Grace Lamb is a free spirit - a very free spirit, with a touch of forgetfulness mixed in with a dash of craziness. Leaving her soon-to-be-ex-husband behind, Grace heads back home and right into the waiting arms of local cop Nick Griffin, who used to have (or, excuse me, still does have) a high school crush on the unpredictable Grace - but that was ten years ago, before she up and left to get married.

Now newly single, Grace decides on a whim to open her own gardening business in the small town of Wrightsville even though there is no need for yet another gardener. Best friend Toby is in New York visiting his online love interest; in the meantime, Grace is looking after his store, and what can go wrong does, and then some.

Despite the lack of sexual tension and chemistry between Grace and Nick, they do seem to fall in bed awfully fast with no foreplay. The trouble that Grace gets into seems contrived and fake, like it was just put into the story to fill pages. Let's also consider the matter of the mob boss who wants a box of antique sex toys that Grace just happens to have. This story takes up most of the book and is lackluster in the extreme. Nick doesn't even seem like a very good cop.

I'm sure Amy Garvey has written books with a good plot and well-rounded characters to keep readers reading, but Hot Date is just not one of them.