Call me cocky, but it’s a fact women fall at my feet. So why does this one want to kick me in the junk?
Might be my work for her uncle’s legal defense.
Or the dubious ways I earned my millions.
Or the scandal that cost my career. Or hell.
Maybe it’s just that I’m not a nice guy.
A fact I’m regretting once Lucy storms in and gets me rethinking my rule on dating single moms.
She’s funny and smart and so sexy it shouldn’t be legal.
Take it from a disbarred lawyer.
One desperate to dodge this desire sparking like frayed wires in a champagne flute of kerosene.
A few stolen kisses and I’m suddenly starved for a simple life on this sweet lake, but that’s absurd.
Guys like me don’t belong in small towns.
Towns this charming, this good, this…pure. It should be easy staying chaste with Lucy, since our encounters include a precocious pre-teen, one misguided bat, and a goat who won’t take no for an answer.
But nothing’s easy with a woman born to boss five grumpy brothers.
Big as they are, those guys don’t scare me.
Not like my feelings for Luce and her daughter.
Those have me quaking in my Gucci loafers.
So does this big-ass secret bearing down like a toxic tsunami.
A laugh-out-loud, enemies-to-lovers rom-com about a single mom and the bad boy millionaire she swears she’ll never fall for (spoiler: she does).
Review:
Did I love book 2 even more than Try Me ? I just might have…
Charm Me had me LOLing so many times! The banter between Peter and Lucy is top notch, and the snark of preteen Harper (Lucy’s daughter) is freaking legendary. And Peter’s legalese versions of Taylor Swift lyrics? There may have been some snort laughing at that point–but there were no witnesses, so I don’t have to admit it, right? 😉
Beyond the many, many, many LOL moments, though, there is also a really good story here. Rich and charming (and not just a little bit smarmy at the beginning) Peter is hiding a whole lot of self loathing and guilt behind his pretty boy exterior. (Seriously, Peter’s redemption arc here is top notch–he did not come off in a great light in the beginning) And Lucy’s shotgun adjacent wedding (her in-laws and ex were too classy for an *actual* shotgun wedding, I’m sure) and disastrous marriage have left her slow to trust and wary of losing her power again. They both have a lot to work through before they can get to their HEA–fortunately, neither of them is afraid to work hard.
Though admittedly they both needed a bit of a kick in the pants to do the *right* kind of work here, they do eventually do it.
As always, the secondary characters who help them along the way are gold–besides Harper, there’s Peter’s sister (PLEASE tell me she’s getting a book too!), all of Lucy’s brothers, her future SIL Cassidy, and Cassidy’s sister Zoe (her book is next! YES!!!). Close knit and found family stories are among some of my favorite kind, and this series has both in spades.
Charm Me is the second in the series, and though it could work as a standalone you’ll have a better understanding of what initially makes Peter “the enemy” if you’ve read the first book.
(But the first book is awesome anyway–you should read it for that fact alone. You’re welcome.)
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.