Lynne Connolly’s review of Front Page Affair by Mira Lyn Kelly
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 4 Jan 11
My second happy sigh book of the year – I must be in luck!
The plot isn’t exactly original, but it doesn’t matter, because Kelly is telling the story of two likeable, personable people who will draw the reader in.
Payton has always liked Nate, but he’s kept away. Nate, haunted by an inappropriate moment, when he glimpsed her half-naked when they were both teens, kept away from guilt. He used to be a good friend of Payton’s brother. However Nate came from an inferior class, and later made his money himself.
Now he needs someone to distract the press from a secret. The secret is quite complicated, but it works as a reason, and I was enjoying the characters too much to bother with it too much. Basically, Nate wants to protect a woman who claimed he’d fathered a child, when he hadn’t. But he wants to distract the press. Payton seems like a good way of doing it.
Payton is pretty, confident, sassy and Nate is honest with her. Loved that there was no subterfuge between them. All the time, Payton and Nate are honest with each other. There was no big misunderstanding here. That mean Nate trusted Payton enough to tell her the truth, and she felt confident and safe with him.
Of course, their attraction proves more than either of them expects. Or there wouldn’t be much of a story, would there? Payton isn’t a virgin, but close to it. When Nate finds out, he isn’t condemnatory of anything but the man she gave herself to.
Payton has held a torch for Nate for years, but she hasn’t let it control her life. She’s dated other men, tried to forget him, but when he erupts back into her life, she is ready for him. She accepts that it isn’t going to be forever, but she accepts what he gives her, and do
esn’t show any of the pathetic gratitude that the more – uncertain – Modern/Presents heroine displays. She’s refreshingly modern, in fact.
Nate is a genuinely nice guy, but with enough of the ruthless about him to make him believable as a high-powered businessman. And lovely – he’s blond, although his hair is described as “sandy!” more than once. So I could slot Daniel Craig into the part of Nate without too much trouble. Hey, it worked for me! I do have this thing for blond men, and while I know tall, dark and handsome is supposed to be what we all want, blond does it for me.
So who, I wonder, is the man on the cover of both the UK and the US version of this book?
The book works so well because of the detail lavished on the characters. They are so easy to imagine that I just floated through, enjoying them. Every time she can add a character detail, Kelly does so, and ends up with richly detailed, interesting people who you genuinely root for.
Grade: A-
Summary: Payton hasn’t seen Nate Evans in years – not since he used to hang out with her brother in high school. But now she and Nate are guests at the same wedding where the notorious millionaire offers her a wild proposal – a sexy, scandalous and irresistible affair!
Nate’s outrageous proposition was supposed to stay only paper-thin; it was merely a ploy to distract the tabloids from another, all-too-real scandal. But neither he nor Payton expected such a very public affair to prove so very hot in private.
Or to have such lasting consequences..Read an excerpt.
