e-Audio,09:04:50
Narrated by: January LaVoy & Joe Arden
Release Date: December 5, 2023
Published by: Books on Tape (Berkley)
Read from: November 27-28, 2023
Stand-alone
Source: PRH Audio App (I received a copy of this audiobook from Netgalley and the Publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)
TW: Misogyny, Sexism, Emotional Abuse, Sexual Harassment, Pregnancy
For Readers Interested In: STEM, Romance, Contemporary, Dual POV, Realistic Fiction, Adult, Multiple Narrators, Fave Narrators, Workplace Romance, Non-chronological OrderSeven years ago, he fell in love with a stranger he couldn’t have—today, she’s back in his life and the sparks between them threaten to set her career on fire.
Pearl Harris has learned the hard way to be careful in work and in love. When she is appointed acting director of OurCode, a nonprofit aimed at inspiring high schoolers to code, she has a chance to make lasting change for the organization, but a scandal has put their reputation at risk. Further complicating matters, Pearl didn’t expect the one man she hasn’t stopped thinking about in seven years to be the newest member of her board of directors.
Cord Matthews fell for Pearl when they met in an elevator seven years ago. She’s just his type: smart, capable, and makes him laugh, but when she broke his heart, he decided love wasn’t for him. After five years with no contact, their connection is immediate despite the many roadblocks in their way and Cord must consider breaking his ban on serious relationships. But going public with a romance between them might derail Pearl’s career and the progress she’s made at OurCode.
Pearl and Cord both are hesitant to trust their feelings and take a risk as they grow closer, but it becomes impossible to keep ignoring the electricity between them. Cord is a skilled programmer, but a workplace romance might spell disaster for both of them, and love isn’t easily debugged.
*MY THOUGHTS*
I’m never going to turn down a Denise Williams book, so I was hella excited to see this show up on the app. I think I downloaded it and started listening to it within a few days of seeing it appear. And I was not disappointed in the least. This was a fun sexy little book that held some scandals and secrets I don’t think I was ready for.
The way Cord was so gone for her was so cute to me. Loved to see Pearl being loved on like that. Even with the amount of strife she was causing me lol I hate seeing people who seem to think they don’t deserve to be loved. And Pearl was that person. She fought him so hard saying that she didn’t need him to save her, but I didn’t see that he meant it that way? Maybe it was me because I’m the reader and had access to his thoughts, but to me he was blinded by love and he saw that opportunity to be with her and got excited. Obviously she should have had the last say, but Idk I would have been worried if he didn’t get excited over the idea. But that’s just me. I know others may not feel this way.
Besides my annoyance at them as characters, the rest of the romance was so sweet. But definitely at the wrong time. I remember I kept yelling “HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING?!” Like seriously, y’all doing the exact same thing? lol But I get it. The heart wants what the heart wants. And to say that they’d had each other before, that was the icing on the cake. I knew they wouldn’t be able to stop seeing each other. And the way the story was told in non-chronological order, it really helped show the progression of their relationship and how deep they were from the get go. I knew they loved each other from the moment they each had their first thought about the other lol
The smexy times in this tho?! I don’t think I was expecting it. But this one definitely has some spice to it. I wasn’t at all surprised when there was the thing that happened lol They were acting like they had nothing to worry about and I was glad there was some realistic consequences that came up, whether it was just a plot device or not.
The plot itself was fun tho. Seeing the drama unfold in this huge corporation felt a lot like I was watching tv. I was riveted to see what was going to happen with ol girl and the other person. In fact, I really wished we knew more of what was going on there. I know it would be like introducing more characters, but I’m nosey lol I just think it would have benefitted from giving us a bit more indepth into the companies and STEM to completely envelope us into this world. (But who am I to say anything? Maybe she wanted us to feel like we’d been dropped into this cluster, like Pearl did? But at the very least, she could have cleaned it up after the intro……)
This was so much fun. I really enjoyed this, minus the sad (to me) parts of the main character and the way they completely disregarded everything the people before them did. The ending was the saving grace for me because we had seen them together and then apart so much that the third act break up didn’t even seem that bad. I knew they were going to get back together because they literally already had. And like Idk how she didn’t see his grand gesture coming, but I thought it was obvious. What he did would have solved all their problems, so I don’t know why she didn’t bring that up in the first place? I think she said she couldn’t ask him to do it and I’m like what? He thought of it on his own and did it and that didn’t feel like saving to you because it was still something that he did to take care of the situation. But I digress. And the ending was weird. I loved her sister’s kid too. They were absolutely adorable and ironically the smartest one of all of them lol Their sarcastic remarks are what got them to get their ish together lol
This book was really good. It had it’s flaws, but overall I did enjoy this. Denise will continue to be an auto-buy author for me. I’ll always find a way to get lost in her words!
Overall, I give this
Gave it a 4 on Goodreads