Plenty of tropes in this one: office romance; boss -
employee; rich girl – poor girl; serial dater – relationship burnt therefore
relationship shy.
Jess Ivan is the owner of Ivan Associates (IA), a company
started by her father. The organisation has a mission of giving back to the
community and doing good – an ideal that does not completely jell with outside
partners and maybe even some employees. Skylar Addison is the new accounting
manager in IA, a position she’d applied for thrice before she got called for an
interview. Skylar is intelligent, dedicated and thorough. While going through
the invoices she discovers that something doesn’t add up and follows that to
find out what.
This is a middle-of-the-road romance with a lot of focus on
the mad attraction between the MCs. Jess, unfortunately, comes across as
spoilt, entitled and careless. In the beginning, Jess is involved with Whitney
without feeling anything for her. So essentially Jess is leading Whitney on and
using her for sex. Reason enough for us to dislike her instantly. Also, she
just doesn’t seem to be either supportive or appreciative of Skylar’s work and efforts.
When Skylar first brings up the discrepancies, Jess doesn’t seem to take it
seriously enough. In fact, towards the second half of the book, when there is a
conflict between the two and Skylar is explaining things she’s uncovered, all
Jess can think of is the sexual attraction she is feeling for Skylar. That is
not particularly appreciative of Skylar’s efforts or respect for her work. So Jess
is quite a fail as a person and an MC. While their HEA seems questionable, the
fact that Skylar has a not-so-great past makes it seem like they might last. Plus
Skylar shows assertiveness in strong, positive ways. So she works as a MC you
can root for.
We’d quite liked Unexpected Lightening by this author
and were hoping for more of the great chemistry, sex and intrigue – but this
one is more a miss than a hit.
⭐⭐☆
