I "bought" this kindle book as a freebie this morning. Since I tend to wake very early, I browse the daily free books while I wait for the coffee to brew for something to do without waking the rest of the house. For some reason this book caught my eye, but I wasn't sure it was one I would like since the main female character appeared to be mid-twenties and thought it would be a (stereo)typical romance fluff. But something niggled at me that kept me from just cruising on past.
So, I read the description, tried to read the sample... had technical difficulties with my computer so I couldn't read the sample thoroughly... read the description again, hemmed and hawed and then getting so annoyed with my own indecision, decided to just 'buy' the free book and read it anyway. So I did.
And I spent the morning reading it. It was a pretty cool story after all! Fairly typical romantic fluff but kind of perfect for a lazy Sunday morning, and not entirely stereotypical.
Lucie, the leading lady, we meet as a new graduate on her way to her first real interview. She meets a man on the commuter train by spilling his coffee all over him. They chat after this stellar introduction and she puffs herself up with a lot of embellishment. A later meeting with the same chap and her chickens come home to roost so to speak, but she learns from her experience and turns over a new leaf.
Fast forward a few years and she is a high-performing technical salesperson who takes over a colleague's client list when he leaves the company under a cloud. One of the hot prospects she inherits is none other than Mr. Coffee and the rom-com begins. Ups and downs follow both the hero and heroine, mostly the heroine really, but she holds her own and this older Lucie is no fluff puff at all. Mr. Coffee becomes enamoured of our tough gal (of course, it is a romance novel!) and he has to change his tune and convince her he's not carrying a grudge.
More ups and downs but all is right by the end. The only thing I found wanting in this book was that the conclusion was too swift and the end came too soon.
The romance scenes were well staged without being significantly explicit - this is not a young adult book but is not much more explicit than typical TV or film entertainment would show, which is a plus as I'd rather things be left to the imagination with enough fuel to fire that imagination. This book did well on that front.
Well written, no kindle-freebie typos in sight, tight consistent storyline, characters I could like and enjoy who showed their personalities through the interactions with each other and other characters enough that I didn't find them wooden or single-dimensional caricatures. A pretty cool story all together.
One small note for other readers: The story is set in England, and the language and word usage is very British. The Britishness of the language was more pronounced at the start than when the book got underway, or maybe I just acclimated by then. I liked that, but others' mileage may vary.
