Part of Your World

What's inside (9 sections)

1. The Montgomery name and the hospital weight
2. An accident, a goat, and the carpenter from Wakan
3. Trying for casual and failing at it
4. Money, class, and two different kinds of busy
5. Neil, boundaries, and learning to say no
6. The choice between her world and his
7. What worked and what wore thin
8. Key takeaways
9. FAQ

I picked up Part of Your World because two friends would not stop talking about it, one who reads romance nonstop and one who almost never does. That split caught my attention. Published in 2022 by Forever at 400 pages, it sounded like a simple small town romance, city doctor meets country carpenter. It is that, but it stayed with me longer than I expected, mostly because of how it handles family pressure and old harm.

The setup is easy to picture. Alexis Montgomery is an ER doctor in Minneapolis, 37 years old, from a rich family of famous surgeons. Daniel Grant is 28, a carpenter who lives in the tiny town of Wakan, Minnesota, where he runs his family bed and breakfast and also serves as mayor. She is ten years older than him. She grew up with money and staff and rules. He grew up fixing things with his hands and knowing every neighbor by name. They meet by accident after Alexis swerves off the road, and what starts as a strange night with a wild bet, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a baby goat turns into something neither planned.

What pulled me in was not the age gap on its own. It was how tired Alexis is at the start. She works nights in the ER, she is good at her job, and she goes home to a life that feels chosen for her. Her parents want her to become a surgeon and carry on the hospital legacy. Her ex still circles her. She laughs with her best friend Briana Ortiz, who is also an ER doctor, but even Bri can see Alexis is running on fumes. Then Wakan shows her a different pace, and Daniel shows her a different kind of care, steady and plain and close.

I will say now that I liked this book a lot and still found parts of it frustrating. The romance is warm and funny. The family story is heavy, sometimes painfully so. The middle slows down. The last third asks Alexis to make a hard call about loyalty, work, and love. I finished it in three evenings and kept thinking about the hospital scenes the next morning at breakfast.

The Montgomery name and the hospital weight

Alexis comes from the kind of family whose name is on buildings. Her parents are wealthy, well known surgeons connected to Royaume Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. Medicine in that house works as identity, duty, charity work, board seats, and a long line of expectations. Alexis and her twin brother Derek were raised inside that plan.

Alexis chose emergency medicine instead of surgery. She likes the ER. She likes fast decisions, clear tasks, helping people who come in scared in the middle of the night. Her parents treat that choice as settling. To them she is a mere ER doctor, someone who could have been more. That word mere does a lot of damage in this book. Alexis hears it so often that she starts to say it about herself.

Derek matters here. Early on, Derek was supposed to carry the family torch. Then he married for love instead of position, and her parents cut him off. That leaves Alexis holding the whole weight. She is next in line for a leadership role tied to the hospital, a role that would mean status and money and the chance to help thousands through funding and programs, but also a life mapped out by her father.

Her parents are not cartoon villains. That is part of what makes them hard to read about. Her father speaks in terms of legacy and responsibility. Her mother keeps up appearances and smooths conflict. They pay for things, open doors, and remind Alexis what the family gave up for her. Love in that house feels conditional. Do well, look right, marry right, stay in the lane, and you are embraced. Step out, and the warmth drops.

I found these chapters convincing because Jimenez shows the pressure in small moments. A phone call where Alexis sits up straighter. A dinner where a compliment turns into a correction. A comment about her clothes or her car or her plans that sounds caring until you sit with it. Alexis is 37, skilled, living on her own, and she still shrinks around her parents. That felt true to how family habits stick.

An accident, a goat, and the carpenter from Wakan

Alexis meets Daniel after she drives out of the city to clear her head. She ends up near Wakan, a very small town about two hours from Minneapolis, and runs her car off the road. Daniel finds her. He is friendly in a way that almost confuses her. He jokes, he helps, he does not ask for anything.

Their first night together is strange and funny and a little wild. There is drinking and a dare. There is a grilled cheese sandwich made with real care, the kind Daniel cooks like it matters. There is a baby goat that Alexis ends up holding, soft and warm and ridiculous, and she laughs in a way she has not laughed in months. She also loses a shoe at one point, which later becomes a running joke between them. It gives the early chapters a fairy tale edge without turning silly.

Daniel is easy to like. He is 28, tall, kind, good with tools, good with people. He manages the Grant House, his family bed and breakfast, doing repairs himself and checking guests in with a smile. He is also the mayor of Wakan, which in a town that small means he helps settle disputes, shows up for events, and knows who needs a ride to a doctor. He lives close to his family and friends. He does not have much money, but he has time and attention to give.

Wakan itself is a character. A main street with a few shops. A bar where everyone talks. Porches, lakes, bugs in summer, snow piled high in winter. People wave. People ask about your mother. When someone is sick, food shows up. Alexis, who is used to privacy and hired help, does not know what to do with that at first. She does not know how to use a broom properly. She has never fixed anything. She has never sat on a porch with nothing to do. I laughed at those beats, then felt for her, because her lack of basic home skills shows how sheltered her upbringing was.

Briana Ortiz grounds the city side. Bri works with Alexis in the ER, covers shifts, tells the truth, and spots red flags fast. Their friendship feels real, built on night shifts and bad coffee and dark humor. Bri gets her own story later in the series, but here she is the friend who says what Alexis cannot yet say to herself.

Trying for casual and failing at it

After that first night, Alexis and Daniel agree it cannot be serious. The reasons are clear. She lives in Minneapolis. He lives in Wakan and cannot easily leave because of the bed and breakfast and his town duties. She is older by ten years. Her family would never accept him. He has little interest in fancy dinners and galas. She has a promotion path that needs her in the city.

So they try to keep it light. Weekend visits. Texts during the week. No labels. No plans.

It does not work, and that is the fun of the middle. Alexis starts driving to Wakan whenever she can. She learns the regulars. She helps out at the Grant House in small ways. She eats at the local spots. She sleeps better there. Daniel visits her in the city sometimes and looks out of place in her building, too loud in his laugh, too plain in his clothes, too honest for rooms where people talk around each other.

Their chemistry is strong, and Jimenez writes physical closeness with warmth and humor rather than cold detail. More important to me was how they talk. Daniel asks plain questions and waits for answers. Alexis is not used to that. In her world, people interrupt, advise, or judge. Daniel listens. He remembers the small thing she said about a patient or a song. He checks in after a hard shift. He makes her soup or fixes a loose handle without making it a big deal.

The age gap comes up in ways that felt honest. Alexis worries she is taking something from him, that a man of 28 might want kids or a different life later and not know it yet. Daniel brushes some of that off because he feels sure, but he also has moments of doubt when he sees her world up close. Friends tease them. Strangers assume. Alexis hears her parents voice in her head saying this is a phase. I liked that the book lets both of them feel awkward about it instead of pretending age means nothing.

A small joy: Daniel loves Alexis without trying to polish her. He likes her laugh, her work stories, her red hair, her clumsy attempts to help with repairs. Alexis loves how safe she feels with him, how she can be tired or messy or quiet and still be wanted. That mutual ease is the heart of the book.

Money, class, and two different kinds of busy

The class split shapes every choice, down to daily habits.

Alexis has money but little freedom. She can pay for a hotel, a flight, a repair. She cannot say no to a family dinner without a cost. She has staff in her history, credit cards, nice things, and a calendar full of duties. Daniel has little money but deep roots. He barters, borrows tools, fixes instead of buys. His calendar is full too, with guest check ins, town meetings, and family needs, but his time feels his own.

Jimenez shows this in daily detail. Alexis offers to pay for something in Wakan and learns it lands wrong. Daniel offers to fix something in her condo and sees how strange it is that she never learned. She is shocked by how far Wakan residents drive for basic medical care. He is shocked by how little Alexis rests, even on days off. Neither is painted as better. Both have blind spots.

Work matters a lot here. Alexis loves being an ER doctor. She is calm in chaos, kind to scared patients, good under pressure. In Wakan she starts using those skills informally, answering questions, checking on people, noticing things others miss. The town has limited access to care, and her help means something right away. That contrast hits her hard. In Minneapolis she is one doctor in a big system where her family name matters more than her night shifts. In Wakan she is simply Alexis, and her hands help.

Daniel works with his body all day. Carpentry, plumbing fixes, painting, hauling, hosting. He is proud of the Grant House. It is old and needs constant care, but it holds family memory. He cannot sell it and move without breaking ties that matter to him and to the town. Alexis slowly grasps that asking him to leave is not a small ask. It would mean asking him to give up home, work, and purpose.

I appreciated that the book does not solve money with a fairy tale fix. No sudden riches. No secret inheritance that erases the gap. They talk about costs, driving time, call schedules, and who would give up what. Those talks are awkward and adult, and they make the love story stronger.

Neil, boundaries, and learning to say no

The harder thread involves Alexis ex boyfriend Neil and her family habits around him. Neil is controlling and cruel in the ways that leave no bruise but plenty of harm. He insults, isolates, and scares. He shows up where he is not wanted. He uses charm in public and coldness in private. Alexis left him, but she has not fully cut him off, partly because her father likes Neil and keeps pushing them back together for looks and connections.

These sections are uncomfortable to read, on purpose. Alexis freezes. She explains his behavior. She doubts her memory. She worries she is overreacting. Bri names it more clearly. Daniel sees it and gets angry, but also learns he cannot fight this for her.

What Jimenez does well is show recovery as slow. Alexis sets a boundary, then slips. She says no, then answers a call she should have ignored. She feels shame about that, which makes it harder to tell people. Therapy language never takes over the pages, but the pattern is clear. It takes time to trust your own read after someone has spent years telling you that you are wrong.

Her parents make this worse. Her father frames Neil as suitable. Her mother urges peace. When Alexis tries to explain what happened, they minimize it or change the subject to duty. That dismissal hurts as much as Neil shouting. I found myself upset at the dinner table scenes, where politeness covers control.

Daniel helps not by rescuing her but by being consistent. He believes her the first time. He does not push for details she does not want to give. He stays nearby when she is shaky. He also has his own past hurts to face, including family loss and the fear that people leave, which keeps him from acting like a perfect hero. He messes up, apologizes, and tries again. That steadiness lets Alexis practice saying what she needs in a place where the answer stays kind.

If you are sensitive to depictions of emotional abuse and stalking behavior, know this book spends real time there. It is not graphic in a physical sense, but the control and fear are present across many chapters.

The choice between her world and his

By the last third, casual is over. Alexis faces a promotion tied to her family hospital path. It would mean more power, more money, and a bigger platform for good, but also more events with her parents, more contact with Neil in shared circles, and less time in Wakan. Daniel faces his own limits. He cannot keep driving back and forth forever while running a business and serving as mayor. Someone has to bend.

They break apart for a stretch, and I will admit I sighed at first because romance breakups can feel forced. This one felt earned to me. Alexis has to decide what she actually wants, not what will keep the peace. Daniel has to decide if he can trust that she will choose him through hard weeks as well as good weekends.

Alexis starts making changes you can see. She talks honestly with Derek, who knows exactly what leaving costs. She leans on Bri instead of hiding. She sets firm limits with Neil, with help, and stops letting her father use him as a bridge. She looks at her job and asks what part of medicine she loves, the title or the patients. She looks at Wakan and asks if she loves it for itself or just because Daniel is there. The answer matters, and the book takes time to earn it.

Without spoiling the final scenes beat by beat, Alexis finds a way to keep doctoring on her own terms and be part of Daniel world without pretending the hard parts vanish. There is a public stand that costs her. There is a quiet return to Wakan that feels right. There is care for the town that grows into something practical, with clinic hours and follow-up care. The Little Mermaid nods in the title and in small moments pay off here, not as magic but as choice. She gives up comfort to gain self direction.

I liked the ending because it is hopeful without pretending class and family vanish. Her parents do not turn into new people. Money differences do not disappear. Wakan still needs doctors. The Grant House still needs repairs. Love does not fix those things. It gives Alexis the steadiness to face them differently.

What worked and what wore thin

What worked best for me was the voice. Jimenez writes funny lines that sound like real talk, then drops a sad truth without warning. The ER scenes feel quick and specific, full of tired feet and gallows humor. The Wakan scenes feel warm and slow, full of food and neighbors. Daniel is one of my favorite romance leads in recent years because he is kind without being dull. Alexis grows in ways you can track, from not knowing how to help around a house to showing up for people without being asked.

Bri and Derek add depth. Bri is sharp and loyal. Derek is sadder than he first looks, a man who paid for choosing love. The town folks are drawn with care, not as jokes. Even small roles get a line or habit that sticks.

What wore thin. The middle repeats some beats. How many times can Alexis drive to Wakan, feel peace, drive back, feel dread, without acting. I get why she stalls, fear and duty are strong, but around the sixty percent mark I wanted a firmer push. Some inner monologue circles the same worry about age and money. A few spicy scenes, while well written, slow the plot just when the family story gains speed. And readers who want a light comedy should know this is heavier than the cover suggests, with abuse, family rejection, and medical stress throughout.

Still, I recommend it, especially as the first in the Part of Your World series. It sets up Bri story that continues in Yours Truly and later Just for the Summer without leaning on cliffhangers. You can stop here and feel complete, or keep going. I kept going because I wanted more time with Bri and with Wakan.

If you read it, pay attention to the small labors. Who cooks. Who drives. Who fixes. Who listens past midnight. That is where Jimenez puts her argument about love. Not grand speeches, though there is one near the end that earned a tear from me, but daily care repeated until trust forms. Alexis spent years being valued for her name. Daniel values her for her presence. Watching her learn to accept that, and then to offer it back, is the reason the book earns its title.

FAQ

What is the age gap between Alexis and Daniel?

Alexis is 37 and Daniel is 28, ten years younger. Alexis worries about the gap more than Daniel does.

Where is Wakan in the story?

Wakan, Minnesota, a small town where Daniel runs the Grant House bed and breakfast and serves as mayor.

Is Part of Your World part of a series?

Yes. It is book 1 in the Part of Your World series, followed by Yours Truly and Just for the Summer. Each stands alone.