Shannon C’s review of Winning Her Over by Alexa Rowan
Contemporary Romance published by Jasmine Press on 9 May 16
I can’t remember why I picked this book up. Maybe it was on sale. Maybe someone rec’ed it. I do know that when I sat down to read it, I wanted a book about smart and competent people that was low on the angst and would leave me smiling. I’m happy to report that I got exactly what I wanted, and I’d like more of it, please and thank you.
Brenna Nakamura quit her high-powered business consultant job to be a massage therapist. Her business is faltering, so she’s hoping this client at one of the swankier hotels in Boston will help get her back on the way to financial solvency. When she meets Cal Wilcox, though, she has to fight her attraction to him. After all, it’s an awful ethics violation to date clients. Cal, meanwhile, isn’t looking for someone serious, either. He wants to make partner at his law firm, and the lovely massage therapist isn’t helping. But the two are drawn together. They try to keep things light and casual, but, of course, that doesn’t end up happening, and soon both are rather more in over their heads than they want to be.
What I enjoyed about Winning Her Over is the fact that both Cal and Brenna have adult worries. They’re both hard-working professionals, and I like that Ms. Rowan acknowledged that that means they both work long hours. Both are ambitious, but neither are martyrs to their careers.
The world Ms. Rowan creates feels lived in. Both Brenna and Cal have their own friends, and you can tell that those friends are living their own lives and having their own dramas outside of the main characters. Ms. Rowan manages this with a deft touch, making me curious about some of them, but not so much that I was distracted from Cal and Brenna’s romance. I also like that one of the conflicts that comes up is that Brenna is hurt by not being introduced sooner to Cal’s friends. Maybe this is an idiosyncrasy of this reader, but I automatically want to downgrade any contemporary I read where the characters never interact with anybody besides each other, and I get just enough of that here to satisfy me.
The sex scenes are brief but intense, and happily for my former-massage-therapist BFF, none of them happen while anyone is on a massage table. I also appreciate a growing sense of intimacy between the leads, and the part of me that is an evil sadist loves that Cal spends the last quarter of the book groveling.
This is a quick, smart, breezy read with two likable leads. I hope Ms. Rowan plans to write more like it, because I’d love to read them.
Grade: B
Summary:
Winner of the Golden Heart® award for Best Short Contemporary Romance…Massage therapist Brenna Nakamura is struggling to keep her small business afloat, and she has no time for dating. Besides, the only guys she meets are
her clients, and they’re off-limits. But her newest client—a devastatingly gorgeous attorney who’s in Boston for a two-week trial—tempts her to break some
of her rules.After eight years of nights and weekends chained to his desk, Calvin Wilcox, Jr. is up for partner at his prestigious law firm. But even if Cal kicks ass
at his next trial, partnership isn’t guaranteed. Some of his colleagues are sticklers for propriety, and getting entangled with a sweet, sexy masseuse
is a distraction he can’t afford.But their best intentions soon unravel. Will they risk their dreams to follow their hearts? The jury’s still out.
Winning Her Over is the first book in Golden Heart® award winner Alexa Rowan’s BigLaw Romance series, where smart, ambitious heroes and heroines struggle
with realistic conflicts as they seek love, success, and that elusive work-life balance. This steamy standalone romance novel includes long-distance not-quite-friends
with benefits, two hungry people sharing an orgasmically delicious pizza, some scorching-hot sex scenes, and no cliffhangers.46,000 words
