A twin romance with mistaken identity and forced proximity.
Remember the joke in Jude Devereaux’s earlier books that the hero/heroine should “marry the one who can tell the twins apart”? Our hero here, Hudson Quinn, fails that test.
He hires a drunken–but HOT!–Gabby Levesque after she stumbles out of club one night and saves his butt on a phone call by speaking French.* Gabby isn’t exactly the most reliable of employees, however, and when it comes time for her to accompany Hudson to An Important Meeting in Paris, he has to drag her out of her home for the flight.
Only it’s not Gabby he hustles into his limo. It’s her meek twin sister Abby, who is more reliable but less competent. She’s an artist, see? So she’s good with colors rather than Suits, which is also why she’s also on the verge of losing her grandmother’s house unless she can successfully save her sister’s job so that her bonus tied to An Important Meeting in Paris won’t be lost.*
It’s a tale as old as time. A wealthy handsome rich dude who struggles to keep it in his pants suddenly decides that this very hot assistant is the one he won’t sleep with because he needs to stop disappointing his father (as he’s done ever since he inadvertently caused his older brother’s death). And the very hot assistant–who doesn’t know she’s hot because why would you*–manages to overcome her general incompetence with optimism* and people skills and a spending spree on clothes.
Look, for all the snark and bother, the fact is, this just wasn’t my book. I don’t believe I’ve read anything by Avery Scott–and I will likely avoid her work in the future–but she’s published a number of books, so she has an audience who will likely eat this up. I found the characters flat–this might be the first time I found both the hero and heroine insipid–and that negatively impacted how much leeway I gave to the rest of the plot.
Something nice: for as much as I wasn’t on board with most of the book, I actually did like the way the story resolves. It’s still a bit fantastic, but it makes sense that the characters I met in the first chapters end up this way.
I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book via NetGalley in order to facilitate this review.
*Look, suspension of disbelief is a necessary thing in romance.