Winnie West Has an Agenda by Kat Sterling

Rating: 3.8/5 stars (4 stars on Goodreads to round up)

Widowed stenographer Winnie West is new to Seattle and she has her eyes set on more than stenography. No, Winnie wants to be a pioneering woman in journalism and what a better place to do it than the West? Driven to Seattle for a sense of adventure, Winnie wants to prove that she has what it takes to be a journalist. She’d begun to do it in Boston, and maybe, she can make it in Seattle. That is what she has her hopes on until her irritating but nonetheless attractive editor does everything in his power to thwart her attempts. And so the game with Mack Donnelly begins.

Though Winnie is not the only one with troubles. Mack Donnelly will do short of anything to inherit the family newspaper, though it’s beginning to seem impossible to get in his uncle’s good graces. With his inheritance on the line, Mack agrees to write articles that go against women’s rights. That is until he begins to realize just how intelligent and kind the maddeningly beautiful Winnie West is. No, Mack decides he’ll do anything but hurt her, except that preventing her from being hurt might just be their downfall in the end. And a steamboat trip might just change it all for Winnie and Mack.

***

Taking place in early 1900’s Washington during the women’s suffrage movement, I found myself enjoying Winnie West Has an Agenda a lot. I found Winnie to be a strong character for the most part, minus the fact that her mistrust in men only seems to include Mack- though this may be because Winnie is not seen interacting with very many men in the novel besides her editor.

A quick read, I found the book very easy to get into and once I hit 25% in the book it was off to the races and I finished the book in hours. (It only took me so long to get to that 25% mark because a lot of things going on in my personal life) I found Winnie to be an enjoyable character and I especially loved the group of women she formed a quick friendship with through the suffrage movement.

I also found myself swooning over Mack, good god what I would do to get a man to have a nickname to rile me up and then ‘sweetheart’ to win me back over. I found the chemistry between both Mack and Winnie to be great and my most favourite parts of the book were when they were together.

My only complaint was that I felt that the book was a bit rushed. Personally I think more of a slow burn between Mack and Winnie would have made things a bit more solid between the two of them. I would have loved it if there was more of a thaw between the enemies to lovers trope. Personally, I feel like they hated each other and then were in love minutes later. A bit more character building would’ve been a bit nice. But for a quick read and the length of the book, I can appreciate their love story.

Overall, I found this to be a solid doubt novel and I cannot wait to see what comes next in the series. Once I picked this book up, I couldn’t put it down. And though I did not expect the steamy parts in the book at all, I won’t deny that I enjoyed them greatly. A bit more of storyline and character development between the two main characters would’ve been great and that’s why I rated this 3.8/5 stars instead of maybe a solid 4. But kudos to Kat Sterling for creating a wonderful story with characters that had great chemistry. I’m truly looking forward to the next book in the series and seeing what’s next!

A big thank you to Book Sirens and Kat Sterling for providing me with an ebook copy of this book to read and review. All opinions and reviews are my own.