I am so excited to have discovered Lucy Parker's books this year. Even though it's only been in the last month of the year, I still consider it one of my favorite things about my 2019 reading year.

I love her books. The characters are interesting and the relationships, even when they fall into tried and true romance tropes (i.e. fake-dating, hate/disdain-to-love, etc.). I saw a couple of reviews saying that nothing happens in this book, that its just a lot of talking. And...true. But so what? This isn't supposed to be some sort of action-suspense. It's a book about two actors faking a relationship and falling in love. I WANT THEM TO TALK TO EACH OTHER! How the hell else am I supposed to believe that they actually know the other person? There are too many books with romantic subplots where the affection between the two characters doesn't feel earned because they never actually talk to each other. I love the dialogue in her books, and the fact that they talk about real things without it being boring. Seriously, if you don't like the romance and the fact that it takes center stage (pun not intended) you probably shouldn't pick up this book. And that's fine. There are plenty of books out there that don't revolve around a romance...but this is a ROMANCE BOOK. It's the focus. Okay, moving on.

This has some fun steamy scenes, but for people who aren't into the smut that some adult romance contains but still want romance, I think this would be perfect.

And because there is always the moment of conflict before the HEA, let's talk a little about it. Often times that moment feels very contrived. Like, it's something really petty that gets blown out of proportion or there is some wild misunderstanding that could be cleared up if the heroine and hero would just open their mouths and use their damn words. This does has that conflict right near the end, but it felt much more realistic to me. Realistic in the sense that it could happen in the first place, that it would cause a break between our hero and heroine, and that they would ultimately be able to get past it once the dust had settled.

One negative, and it's not actually about the book itself. The audiobook narrator isn't my favorite. She tries to do different things with the different characters and I appreciate that she does use different accents and dialects, but I don't like the way she voiced the hero in this book. He's supposed to be this broody guy with a reputation with the ladies, but she voices him like he's some sort of stuffy 50-year-old banker or something (no offense intended to stuffy 50-year-old bankers). It's got a nasal quality that is a little off-putting. Not exactly what I want from a sexy romantic hero. I think the same actor narrates all this author's audiobooks, so I may switch to ebook or just buy the physical copies of her books in the future.

Lucy Parker is absolutely one of my new-to-me favorite authors, and I can't wait to read more of her books in 2020 and beyond!