Review: Sweet Deal
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 19, 2012
Shelby and Jake need each other for a pretend relationship. They meet innocently enough, both having seen the other at the local coffee shop by their offices, but Shelby is certain her current (married) boss is wanting a more personal relationship and the people in her office are starting to whisper about it. Shelby is all too familiar with office gossip, she was in a relationship with her previous boss only to have that go downhill resulting in said boss letting her take the fall for a mistake which got her fired. She had a hard time getting hired after that, but Andrew, her current boss, took a chance on her, now her suspicions are going crazy with what exactly Andrew is after. After he invites her to the company picnic, she invents a boyfriend and is now stressing about how she's going to get out of that little white lie. She runs into Jake at the coffee shop, he introduces himself and as Shelby has a chair available at her table, he asks to sit with her (why can't that ever happen to me at Starbucks? But I digress...) Innocent, charming conversation has Shelby admitting that she needs to find a boyfriend fast and Jake agrees to help her out. Little does he know, her boss Andrew is Jake's ex-best friend and the same man that stole away Jake's fiancée.What starts out as a simple plan to play boyfriend/girlfriend of course doesn't stay simple and easy for long. Feelings get in the way and what begins as a date to Shelby's company picnic turns into a follow up lunch, dinner, spending the evenings at each others place and eventually heading into the bedroom. Shelby is convinced that she can keep her heart out of it, that there's nothing wrong with having some sexy fun times with Jake, but she's all heart and slowly starts falling for him. Jake is falling too, and each of them thinks they're the only one moving past the initial "fake" relationship, not realizing that the other person is experiencing deeper feelings too. They have a very sweet relationship. They've both been burned in the past by not only significant others, but with their families, feelings of being ignored or past-over by parents is a big issue for them both and they find a shared connection in that, that only brings them closer together. Their sex scenes were simply hot. They had a nice combination of sexy and sweet, especially as the story progressed, the scenes got sweeter and more emotional and it was easy to like this couple.**********There was nothing fake about the emotion swelling in her, so achingly lovely, so terrifyingly real. He consumed her, he took possession of her, and she'd willingly let him, given herself over to him completely, and not just her body, knowing that giving herself to him was not only what he wanted and needed, but was what she wanted and needed. He was what she wanted and needed.(...)"Oh, Shelby." His murmured words had her blinking tears as he moved on her, lifting himself so he could kiss her. A long, tender kiss that had her heart turning over. "You undo me, baby. Completely undo me."**********What I didn't necessarily like was their lack of communication - especially on the part of Jake not coming clean about his past with Andrew and his wife to Shelby. A few times I thought `oh, just tell her the truth already!', but it adds some angst for the couple to overcome and what I did like was as a result, we get to know Andrew a bit more. I liked the man he turned out to be at the end and one of the stand out scenes for me was an airing out of everything between Jake and Andrew.Shelby's three best friends are introduced and I hope Kelly Jamieson has plans to give them each a story. One friend went through a horrible, tragedy losing her husband. The storyline definitely brought the fun, light feeling of the story down quite a bit, but it served its purpose for Jake, cementing his presence in Shelby's life.This was my first Kelly Jamieson book and I really enjoyed her writing and the characters she brought to life on page. Shelby and Jake felt real to me, much of their story takes place in the office, and around everyday life and watching them go from a fake relationship to something much deeper was an enjoyable ride.Blog Rating: 3.5/5