Surprise Marriage

By R.R. Banks

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

*Beware of Possible Spoilers*

Kara Bell grew up privileged, but always grounded in reality.  However, she never expected the mess her dad left her in.  He lost his entire fortune in bad investments and gambling and then committed suicide.  Kara was forced to quit law school and get a job to support herself.

Now, years later, she finds herself searching for work once again.   She nailed her latest interview, but never expected that she’d be working as a personal assistant for her college boyfriend, Jace Parker!

Jace and Kara broke up shortly after Kara’s mother died and Jace was headed off to travel and party.  He was emotionally unavailable and didn’t realize what he was doing to her at the time.  Jace never forgot about Kara.  He knows she’s overqualified for the job, but can’t resist hiring her.

Things are a bit awkward between Jace and Kara at first, but the two eventually fall into a nice working relationship.  However, a business trip to Portland and lots of alcohol lower their inhibitions.  The two have a great time together and they find themselves in bed!  Neither of them have any regrets about Portland, but they learn there are consequences for that night.  Can the two of them handle what’s to come or will Jace check out when emotions come into play?  Can Kara trust Jace when she needs him the most or will he flee once again?

This book started out okay as we were getting to know the characters, their background, and the author set the scene of the story for us.  Unfortunately, I felt the setup started to drag quite a bit and things got pretty dull.  Luckily, once the romance picked up so did the book!

I did enjoy Jace.  He was a successful and powerful man with a great sense of humor.  He’s a guy that didn’t realize what he’d lost until it showed up in his office!  It took him awhile to realize how much Kara meant to him, but once he finally accepted it there was no changing his mind.

Kara had a lot of unexpected baggage that could weigh heavily on any relationship.  Once you got the chip off her shoulder there was the ex-boyfriend stalker to deal with!  And, I found the climax of this book to be too predictable.  I knew exactly what was going to happen when she ditched her security detail! 

This book did have a nice sappy ending that left my smiling like an imbecile though.  If you can wade through the boring parts, it’s really not bad.  But this couple really get into their heads a lot with all their thoughts, repeating the same things.  It would be much better if the author would trim that down a bit.  Overall, I felt it was a decent read.