On my continuing quest to read everything I own (and some things that may or may not be on their way to my house from Amazon...), I finally read A Lot Like Love, Julie James’ follow-up to Something About You.
Jordan Rhodes is the daughter of a billionaire. Yep, billionaire with a “b.” Fortunately her father was not always rich, and Jordan has enough sense of mind and dignity to be everything but Paris Hilton. She owns and runs a successful wine shop that she started by herself, and she is well-regarded in the Chicago community.
Sure, her brother is in prison for being something called the “Twitter Terrorist” (this is hilarious in full detail, btw) and she’s got the FBI knocking on her door, but other than that things are ducky.
Nick McCall is an FBI agent back from an undercover assignment who needs to infiltrate the office of a big-time, mob-connected Chicago restauranteur. He and his colleagues get Jordan to take him in to the premises under the pretext of being her date, and in exchange they offer her brother freedom from prison.
Nick and Jordan spark pretty instantly (and not really in a positive way) but it’s only a matter of time before their faux relationship (of course there’s a faux-relationship... it’s a romance novel, people!) leads to lots of making out and hot sex in Napa Valley bathtubs.
The plot/suspense/danger/threat element of the story was fairly weak, but I have to say I didn’t really care. I really liked Nick, and his background (raised by an Italian mother in Brooklyn) was very, very funny to read about. I liked Jordan, too. She’s the kind of character who so easily could have been annoying and vapid, but actually the kind of billionaire’s daughter I could be friends with-- not a complete asshole and possessing of a great deal of perspective about life.
There were portions of this book that had me laughing out loud. Julie James is definitely growing into her own as the writer of witty male/female relations, and these characters really came alive for me.
Let me be clear: this is not a heavy romance of substance. (That one’s coming soon when I review Jo Goodman’s If His Kiss is Wicked.) This is an ideal beach romance, one you can read through quickly and finish before the sun goes down. Though I warn you, you will want to go out for a nice glass of wine after.
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