The Premise: Rylann Pierce and Kyle Rhodes met in a college bar while they were both pursuing advanced degrees (she for law, he for a Ph.D. in Computer Science). They shared a walk home and a good night kiss, but life got in the way of anything more. That was it, until nine years later when their paths crossed again. Just starting her new job as an assistant U.S attorney in Chicago, Rylann is surprised to discover that her first assignment involves a motion to reduce Kyle’s sentence. Kyle, an heir to a billion dollar empire is now the infamous Twitter Terrorist who shut down the site for two days.
 
My Thoughts: About That Night is the third book in Julie James’ FBI/US Attorney series. The first book, Something About You (reviewed here: ) focuses on Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron Lynde and Special Agent Jack Pallas, and the second book, A Lot Like Love (reviewed here:  ) focuses on wine store owner and heiress Jordan Rhodes and FBI agent Nick McCall. Cameron (book 1) is Rylann’s boss, and Jordan (book 2) is Kyle’s twin sister – but don’t let this discourage you from starting with any of the books in the series. The cameos from other characters aren’t gratuitous because they have real relationships with the main couple, but that doesn’t mean you need to know their backstories to understand what’s going on in About That Night.
 
What you may want to know before reading About That Night is that this book is a little bit different than the previous two in that there is not really a suspense plot. This makes sense – Kyle is a computer guy and businessman who made a huge mistake in bringing down a website used by millions. He’s not a FBI agent whose job it is to protect the heroine. So instead of a villain somewhere pushing our couple together, this book has a more straightforward contemporary romance plot. Boy meets girl. Boy asks girl out on a date. Boy doesn’t show up. Nine years later, Boy is thrown in prison for hacking Twitter, and Girl shows up at his motion to reduce his sentence…
 
The real conflict in the story is about who Rylann and Kyle are. Rylann is more of the Good Girl – she has a six-year plan, she knows what she wants to do, and she follows the rules and works her butt off to get what she wants. While Kyle is a computer whiz kid, and thus a bright guy, he’s also more impulsive and less sure about his direction in life. He’s sort of a Bad Boy what with his reputation with women and being an heir to a billion dollar empire. When she first sets eyes on him at a college bar, Rylann pegs him as more trouble than he’s worth, but he makes her realize that he’s more than he first appears to be. Unfortunately, circumstances prevent the two from getting to know each past that night. Fast forward nine years and the spark is still there, but Rylann is an assistant U.S attorney. She just started her job. She doesn’t want a tarnished reputation, and that is what she would get if she were to date someone surrounded by controversy like Kyle, not to mention that he’s an ex-con her office prosecuted.
 
Romantic suspense has never been my bag, so I was pleased that About That Night took a different direction and was just straightforward contemporary romance. One caveat: although this had an entertaining, comfort read quality, it was almost too straightforward. What I mean by that is that the conflict level was low. Yes, there is an issue with Rylann’s career versus her interest in Kyle, but this couple are grown-ups and deal with it in a grown-up way. I like this about them – I like characters that are adults and act like it, and Julie James always has characters that care about their responsibilities and careers and are good at what they do. It’s refreshing not to have silly overblown drama, but there is also a feeling like there’s no fire, no feverish need to turn the pages when everyone is so reasonable. Rylann’s conflict of interest was a minor dilemma, and the steamy sex scenes (at three, I think this is the steamiest James book yet) may have added ‘oomph’ for some readers, but threw me. Are these huge issues? Not really. What keeps you hooked instead is the genial writing and just how darn cute and compelling Kyle and Rylann are together. As I was reading, I was happy. It’s only now that I look back do I realize that the book was relatively even-keeled with little drama. How that will go over depends on who you are as a reader.
 
Overall: If you are looking for high drama and strife,  About That Night may not be the book for you. This is a low-frill, straightforward contemporary romance (with a shot of sexytimes) – a good comfort read and a solid Julie James book. While it wasn’t my favorite by this author, it fits right in the middle of the pack on my personal rating scale.
 
Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository
 
Other reviews:
Chachic’s Book Nook –  positive
Babbling About Books, and More – B+
The Book Pushers – B- and B (Joint review)
Parajunkee’s View – positive

I’ve been looking forward to this book for a while because Julie James is now on my autobuy list. I won an ARC of this book through sheer luck in logging onto twitter just was @DearAuthor was giving away some copies. See.. twitter isn’t just a time suck.

The Premise: Cameron Lynde is an Assistant U.S. Attorney who decided to give herself a little break by staying overnight at the Peninsula Hotel in San Francisco while she waited for her hardwood floors to be sealed. Unfortunately she has a very bad night when her neighbors in room 1308 engage in a loud sex marathon until 3am. Noises cease for about half an hour and then loud banging and squealing start up again and she calls the front desk. Things get worse when hotel security finds a dead woman in the room and Cameron is the only person to have caught a glimpse of the murderer through her peephole. After that the FBI arrives and Cameron discovers that Jack Pallas is in charge- and he blames her for being disciplined and shipped off to Nebraska three years ago.

Link to excerpt of Something about you

My Thoughts: Julie James’ style of writing has a lot of focus on dialog. It feels like I am reading something that I can picture in my minds eye as a romantic comedy on the big screen, with a lot of banter and cute situations. I had a good couple of chuckles over some of the talks among the men (cops and FBI agents) discussing Cameron’s “Meet-Cute” with Max, her date, or telling Jack that he “glowers”. I think after reading three of her books I trust this author to deliver a contemporary romance of a certain level of writing and she doesn’t disappoint in giving me something that I know I’ll enjoy.

As in her last two books, Practice Makes Perfect and Just the Sexiest Man Alive, the heroines are lawyers and the author writes about the profession with authority. Jack’s job as an FBI agent seems realistic as well although I feel like the author took some liberties with it because I had to suspend my disbelief a couple of times in the book (especially when their relationship became more heated and no one admonished Jack for his behavior). I think the liberties were taken to push the couple closer, and it wasn’t something I thought that jeopardized Cameron’s safety, so I was able to accept it that way.

I think it’s a matter of taste whether you’d prefer this over the more relationship conflicted earlier books. I think I prefer less sexiness in my stories, and this book feels a lot more “sexy” than the other two. There’s more focus on each other’s bodies and in the sexual tension between Jack and Cameron than on the conflict keeping the two apart romantically like in the last two books. I felt like the conflict was lower here because the couple were more concerned about the killer who may be coming for Cameron.

The suspense is a big part of the story. We know early on who the killer is and what his motivations are. Cameron and Jack both do smart things in handling the situation – Cameron listening to the FBI and doing what they tell her, Jack covering all bases in protecting his witness and investigating leads. Despite this, the killer is pretty smart too, and he did some things I found unexpected that made the story more exciting to read. I was particularly impressed by the big finale.

Overall: This is a sexier book with more suspense in it than the last two, and these are things I don’t necessarily prefer in my contemporary romance, but it has the Julie James level of quality and overall I enjoyed it although it’s not my favorite one.

Buy: Amazon | Powells

Other reviews:
Bookbinge – 4.75 out of 5
Babbling about Books and More! – B
The Book Smugglers – 7 (Very Good)
Angieville – positive review:”You can count on a good time with a Julie James book and that’s what I love about them. ”
Dear Author – A-
Tempting Persephone – “There wasn’t really anything I didn’t enjoy about this book.”
Read, React, Review – positive review
Christina Reads – postive review

The Premise: Just The Sexiest Man Alive also has a lawyer for the heroine – Taylor Donovon is an associate at Gray & Dallas who has been sent to the Los Angeles office for a few months to work on a sexual harassment case for a large client. Everything is going well, until Taylor is asked to do one of the partners a “favor” (which she can’t turn down) – meet with super-mega-movie star Jason Andrews to help him prepare for his part as a lawyer in an upcoming movie. Taylor is unhappy enough that Jason is adding to her already busy schedule, but when Jason blows off their initial meeting he ticks Taylor off with his movie-star attitude. It doesn’t help matters that Jason has been voted People’s Sexiest Man Alive three times and has been linked to a long line of female celebrities. Taylor has just broken off her engagement to her cheating fiance and is wary of womanizers. Jason expects Taylor to be instantly smitten and let him have his way like everyone else does, but when Taylor proves impervious to his charms, it only intrigues Jason more.

Excerpt of Chapter 1

My Thoughts: As with Practice Makes Perfect I think you can tell that someone with experience in the law profession wrote this book – there’s a lot of references that even as a layperson, I felt that James is an author who knew her stuff. And I don’t know if I mentioned it in my review of Practice Makes Perfect (livejournal / vox / wordpress) but I really liked that the heroines in both books were GOOD at their jobs – really good. It wasn’t just an arbitrary career which gets mentioned once or twice then you see the heroine hardly doing any work; it’s a big part of the plot.

The romance here is pretty sweet. Jason is at first a little too cocky and Taylor puts him in his place. As they get to know each other Jason realizes that Taylor isn’t like the usual woman who runs after him. Fame and publicity isn’t what she wants. Taylor, on the other hand, feels attracted to Jason but she’s wary of men who are known players after dealing with her ex-fiance, and she refuses to fall for another man like that. Of course the two keep seeing each other and feelings begin to develop. Pretty soon the press is all aflame with rumors of Jason Andrews’ Mystery Woman.

Taylor’s introduction to Jason’s life is pretty fun –  the paparazzi, and ensuing office gossip, the celebrity parties and Jason’s “people”, but what I really liked was their interactions with their best friends. Jason has his sarcastic best friend, Jeremy, who he’s known since college, and Taylor has her two friends from Chicago, Kate and Valerie. I think my favorite parts involved these secondary characters meeting Jason and Taylor. The scene where Jason tries to butt into the girl-talk about Taylor’s other dates (with another celebrity who made me think of Orlando Bloom as Legolas) was priceless.

Jason does do something mildly stupid in this book (besides starting off on the wrong foot by thinking he can use his star power on Taylor), but it was not enough to turn me off. In this regard I felt I liked him better as a hero than J.D. from Practice Makes Perfect, but he’s not perfect. The way Jason treats women until he meets Taylor was rather jerkish, but somehow he seems pull off not annoying me when I read about it. And whenever he used his charm, it never feels like he’s using others as much as they are delighted to fawn all over him and he lets them.

The ending was quite Hollywood – I can imagine the scene in the end of a romantic comedy, but I was ok with that. The only problem I’d say I have is the cynic in me not really believing a womanizing superstar would be able to settle down, but that’s not the books fault. There is no book that I could read with a famous player and ordinary person falling in love where a small part of me wouldn’t question it. The other thing was Taylor – she’s a size two, never lost a case, amazing at everything – at least she sounded human when she spoke, but the woman is a little mythical sounding.

Overall: A fun book. I enjoyed it and I think this author goes on the auto-buy list, both this book and Practice Makes Perfect were satisfying enough that I trust the author to keep at that level. There is not a lot of sex in this book: most of it is relationship buildup, which I personally prefer in my romance, so I was happy. I recommend this for those in the mood for an enjoyable contemporary romance.

Other reviews: