The One That Got Away

Starred review from December 3, 2012
Hunter (Cracking the Dating Code) launches Harlequin’s Kiss contemporary romance imprint with an emotionally powerful and beautifully rendered love story. Evangeline Jones spent the best and worst week of her life exploring kinky sex with Logan Black. Eleven years later, she’s a confident and successful business woman. When she agrees to marry her business partner, Max Carmichael, so he can access his trust fund and invest in their company, he introduces her to his family—and Evie is shocked to learn that Logan is Max’s half-brother. Brooding, controlling Logan will do anything to get Evie out of his life again before she realizes she’s the only one who can get under his armor. Evie and Logan’s smart, snappy banter quickly explodes into achingly satisfying lovemaking, but tentative steps toward a relationship are hindered by old demons, secrets, and fears. Readers who thrive on empowered women and dangerous men will relish this carefully crafted, intense romance with a modern, relevant voice, which sets a very high bar for the Kiss line. Agent: Jennifer Schober, Spencerhill Associates.

December 1, 2012

Needing money for a new project their construction company is considering, best friends and business partners Evie Jones and Max Carmichael agree to a temporary platonic marriage of convenience so Max can access his trust fund. All they have to do is stay married for two years, live in the same house, and keep up the happily married image by abstaining from sex--with anyone else. It should be easy. Then Evie learns that Max's half-brother is Logan Black, a man who loved and left her years earlier--and who wants her out of his brother's life now, as well. Although this slim title is sexy and fast paced, troubling issues simmer just below the surface, giving the story a darker edge and unexpected depth. VERDICT Steamy and intense, this little sizzler by one of Harlequin's more popular authors of short tales is just the thing to launch Harlequin's new Kiss line of "fun, flirty and sensual" modern romances. Hunter (Cracking the Dating Code) calls Australia home.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2013
Evie Jones knows it can be awkward meeting your new in-laws, but this is ridiculous. She agreed to her business partner Max Carmichael's idea that they enter into a marriage of convenience because it is the only way he can tap into his trust fund. Without that $10 million, they have no hope of landing their first big project to jump-start their Australian construction business. So Evie agrees to a strictly platonic marriage to Max for two years, after which they will get a divorce and go back to simply being business partners. Meeting Max's mother at the engagement party is stressful enough, but when Max introduces his half brother, Logan Black, Evie realizes that her new brother-in-law is the man she had a steamy affair with 10 years ago in London, and who pretty much ruined her for any other lover. Tailor-made for readers who like strong, independent heroines and alpha heroes with emotional baggage, Hunter's fast-paced, scorchingly sexy, and vividly written novel launches KISS, Harlequin's new line of contemporary romances.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)