Review: Fun and sexy romance, great for summer
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 18, 2013
Eve Doucette is the project manager for Sullivan Construction, the company handling the new city hall project and while she doesn't have a formal degree, her draftsman skills have been highly regarded on past jobs. She's worked up a design for this one and expects to be able to present it to the mayor sometime before she kills him for trying to mess with her budget, but that dream goes out the window with the arrival of his nephew, hotshot architect Matt Brison. Mayor Bob already gave the design job to Matt, whose sleek modern style isn't what Eve had in mind for her lovely Nova Scotia town.Following a cute meet-cute that's a great indication of Altenburg's sense of humor, the sparks flew between this unconventional couple. There's no insta-love, and although the book isn't long enough to let things percolate forever, Eve and Matt still take their sweet time working around each other's prickly spots. Eve in particular has a lot of issues - as a woman in what's typically a man's job, she's developed an aggressive exterior over what was already a tough hide from her weird family and a rotten first marriage. I sympathized with her, I really did - she kept getting knocked down as person after person hinted that she failed to meet their expectations, but she just got up again. It was frustrating that she kept Matt in the dark so long about her issues with her ex-husband Claude, but I might have done the same thing. I loved that she threw a punch just as well as any guy, not that I'm going to start enjoying heroines beating people up or anything. For this particular heroine though, it worked - Eve was a firecracker and I wanted her to be as physically able to take anyone on as she was intellectually.I'm not normally a fan of beta heroes and I'm not sure if Matt was all beta, but he was close. He was a nice guy, a good complement to Eve's storminess. I liked that he wasn't a pushover for her but that he gave her space, made her come to him then pounced on her - then they repeated the process. It was a nice changeup, having the guy in the book being more in touch with his feelings than the woman, and I can't believe I just wrote that, by the way. Feely Book Guys aren't for me usually, but Altenburg made Matt really sexy in a cute, wish-he-was-my-boyfriend, way.At some point, when I reach a certain number of books I've read from the Bliss line that I've loved, my reviews will consist entirely of, "Bliss - loved it, go for it." Or maybe I'll rate them just based on a box of chocolates and which ones are my top five or something, since none have been less than good. When I'm just in a blah mood, need something sweet and uncomplicated, I pick one of these up and am guaranteed a good story. Altenburg's Desire by Design was fun, sexy and had some serious moments that made me sad for one of the characters, but ended with such a sweet note, I pulled out a Kleenex. This is a keeper for me and I recommend it if you're in the mood for an adult contemporary romance.*A review copy was provided by Entangled for an unbiased review*