Leena has been in love with her boss, Nick DeMarco, for almost eight years. But he’s never given her any indication that she was special to him. Their relationship was close, but rarely outside of a business function. So when he invites her to be his fake girlfriend at his family’s Christmas week she is thrilled and ready to show Nick just what he’s missing out on, her only wish for the Christmas season.
Nick wouldn’t admit it to anyone except his brother, but his assistant Leena is the only woman he’s had feelings for in quite some time. He didn’t want to seem like a powerful boss trying to seduce his employee so he had ignored his desire for her for the past five years. When the opportunity to take her to his family’s chalets opens he takes it, intent on seducing her.
When things begin to heat up with Leena and Nick, both are pleasantly surprised. But a winter storm traps them in the chalet just as Nick’s older brother Jake arrives. When he makes no attempt to hide his attraction to Leena the whole vacation becomes heated. What will happen when the storm lifts, will the assistant have gotten a her Christmas wish?
I received the audio book code from the author for an honest review.
I’m not a big holiday book person. Sure, romance, mystery, and other things happen during the holidays as much as the regular days, but I’m not a big holiday person. That isn’t to say that I didn’t like this book. Like most of Ostrow’s work that I’ve read, it was easy to get into the characters and the story. I found myself wondering who Leena would choose (which isn’t something I usually do).
I should start by saying that I listened to the audio version. The narrative was decent. I couldn’t wrap around the narrator’s voice right away, but it didn’t take long to really get into the story. I think most of that had to do with the writing. but the narrator did feel like a part of the story as well.
As for the story, Leena seemed the type of woman who was usually a decisive person. She was in control with most aspects of her life. It was the events of the chalet that called to question her indecisiveness. Though I wanted to smack her around at times, I could understand a bit of what she was going through. No, I’ve never had to choose two men, but I could see that she was usually in control with everything and was very stressed with the time limitations to everything.
The two male leads, Jake and Nick, have different personalities, but a similar passion to what/who they want in life. Jake is more laid back and had an everyman quality. He seemed to be the most fun around. Nick, on the other hand, had this smoulder quality. He had an aggressive attitude and that made him attractive. Both men were good people, which made Leena’s (and essentially the reader’s) decision that much more difficult. You find yourself rooting for each man in one point or another.
There are steamy sex scenes throughout the book that made me blush a few times. I needed to make sure that my earbuds were on tight when I was doing my chores. The good thing is, they made sense to the story. Lexi Ostrow is good with that. The story could be translated well with or without the sex scenes, but they do enhance your experience.
I will love to see what the other books to this series will be like. It’s a good romance for the holidays or just to listen to while doing housework.
Casia's Corner 