In Which I Review Instant Temptation by Jill Shalvis

And once again, the glory of travelling makes me read a book I otherwise would not have read.

I know I have talked about this before, but there really is nothing like travelling and spending time in airports to just get things done.  One Vanity Fair, and one book (In addition to a rudely interrupted session with Tropic Thunder, which I have been dying to re-watch for ages.  And now, I am still dying to re-watch it.  Sigh), to be exact.

Devotees will remember that I started reading Jill Shalvis books last year, and the Wilder brother series was hit and miss for me: the first one, Instant Attraction was very good, while the second, Instant Gratification, was annoying enough to put me off trying the third book.

As part of the ongoing "what the eff am I going to read next?" ADD, I finally picked up Instant Temptation about two weeks ago, and I was smart enough to bring it to Florida this week so that I would have time on the plane and in the airport to finish it up.

And finish it I did, friends.  FINISH IT, I DID.

Instant Temptation is the story of the final Wilder brother, TJ, who has had a serious thing for his former high school classmate Harley for... pretty much as far back as he can remember.  Harley is pretty prickly, though, and holds him at a distance because she remembers the night he took her virginity in high school.  And he doesn't.  (Not because he's an asshole, per se, but because he was drunk at the time)

This is essentially it.  TJ and Harley are two people at crossroads in their lives.  TJ is finally moving away from his past and acknowledging that it's time to grow up, and to a large extent Harley is doing the same, pursuing her degree and looking for jobs outside of Wishful.

The relationship between the two is complicated, but neither has any illusions (even if they do have delusions about the real status of their feelings and the relationship).  They spend the bulk of the book running around in the Sierra-Nevada mountains as she tracks coyotes she's studying for her degree and he runs a wilderness trek for a bunch of over-funded sorority girls.  We catch up with the rest of the Wilders, and TJ and Harley aren't too idiotic when it comes to admitting that they have finally found happiness together.

The pacing of the book was a little odd to me, with a really slow build-up to consummation and then a really fast sprint to resolution.  But whatever.  It was a fun, serviceable, and interesting read.  These days in the contemporary romance genre, you can't ask for much more than that.

One quick thing though:  TJ and Harley?  Really?  How the hell am I supposed to keep them straight, gender-wise?  This is a pet peeve of mine, and I was able to get over it eventually, but... it was confusing on occasion.  No lie.