I have no idea how this thing ended up on my TBR, which means it probably came from Reddit, so it has happened. Reddit recommended a book I liked!
Plot: Isabel Suarez has been burned. At her last job as a programmer for a video game company, she started dating a colleague, and the rest of the fuck boys decided that meant open season for the rest of the them. After she left, she decided not to take any chances – best her colleagues think of her as an amorphous blob that codes. But surely she can let loose once in a few years at a convention located on the other side of the country, right? Shenanigans ensue.
If you’ve read any amount of romance, you’ve probably read a book that could have been 50% shorter had the leads just had one adult conversation. Winters has figured out a different way to pad out the pages, and it is infinitely better. Just have them act like adults and if you don’t want to add more complexity to the story just fill the rest of it with fun sex scenes rather than pointless angst over self indulgent drama.
There’s not a ton of plot. Isabel and Caleb hit it off quickly and easily, have a ton of chemistry both in and out of the sack, and the obstacles they face are really just mental blocks from approaches to life that used to protect them but are now hurting them and so they need to learn to get out of their comfort zone to find happiness, either alone or with a partner. And as they’re learning to be vulnerable and brave and all that good stuff, they also fall into bed a bunch. It does have a slow start, and issues are telegraphed pretty heavily, so there aren’t any surprises, for good or ill, so those are things to consider.
Honestly, if all erotica was like this I’d read a lot more of it. It even manages to educate the reader on the law around sexual harassment in the workplace, what it means (it’s not just physical stuff), and provides the reader with multiple options to consider in how to respond should they be in the unpleasant situation of being on the receiving end of such harassment (though the harassment depicted is fairly “benign” here, in that there is more of a toxic environment than there is a violent encounter, but reader discretion is advised). Will definitely read more of Winters’ back catalogue.
