They say never judge a book by its cover but we confess that
we did just that with this one. We found the cover wholly uninspiring and
dragged our feet on starting this one. We’re just glad we didn’t skip it
altogether because this is indubitably one of best ice queen + age gap romances
that we’ve ever read.
Georgia Washington Fernandez (George) is the governor of
Florida. A career politician, she is also a deeply closeted lesbian in a
marriage of convenience with one of her best friends, Nathan, for almost two
decades. Her other bestie, Josephine, is her chief of staff. George has just
announced her candidacy for the upcoming elections. The start of her re-election
campaign is under the cloud almost as soon as it is announced by a photograph
of Nathan walking with a young gorgeous leggy blonde outside a gentlemen’s
club, leaving no doubt about where he picked up the girl.
The girl in question, Mila Dortch, is a dancer in the club,
but she is also an alumnus of George’s alma mater and someone who is interested
a career in politics. In an effort to contain the damage, Josephine comes up
with an idea of reviving a discontinued immersive internship programme (for
which Mila had applied) and letting it be known that Nathan was actually there
to give Mila the good news that she was one of the five selected. Thus Mila
becomes a part of the governor’s staff but the paparazzi won’t leave her alone
almost endangering her life. This time, Josephine’s solution is to move all
five members of the programme to the guest wing of the governor’s mansion.
Mila is sharper and harder working than expected. She is
bright, feisty and sassy. George tries to freeze her but just cannot escape her
professionally or personally.
This book is excellent. The burn between the MCs, the
conversations, the growing feelings are all great. There are fantastic sex
scenes and the home run is as sappy as can be climaxing in grand gestures and happy
ending. Positively everything we want in a romance.
There is a nineteen year age gap between the MCs but the
chemistry is entirely believable. We’re not usually fans of the ice queen trope
because the ice queen is usually unforgivable nasty, rude and mean. However, in
this one it works superbly.
We also liked that neither Mila nor George are typecast as either butch or femme. Both confidently and seamlessly move from being one to the other which means that they are just themselves and don't subscribe to being labelled ad bound by the expectations of that label.
Mila is a fabulous character. She’s smart, honest and most
importantly willing to go out on a limb and make herself vulnerable. There is
really not much to George. Yes, she is governor, but more than once it is
mentioned that she is middle-of-the road mostly conservative in what she does. It’s
not like her politics or policies are inspiring. Mila has way more vision and
fire than George. In fact, we are hard-pressed to find anything exceptional
about George or even anything that we really liked (apart from the fact Mila
liked her). It’s just towards the end, once she commits to Mila, that George
shows a spine.
This is one great romantic ride and definitely recommended.
⭐⭐⭐⭐★
