Title: Work-Love Balance
Series: Out & About: Book One
Author: Allison Temple
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 70k words
Category: Contemporary Romance
At a Glance: I adored this book. And it’s another great example of Temple’s excellent storytelling style; once again delivering well-developed characters, low angst, fun dialogue, and lots of feels.
Reviewed By: Jules
Blurb: The customer always comes first, but IT consultant Brady Jansen loves to hate Nash O’Hara. Except the fine line between hate and attraction means sometimes Brady can’t help it when he crosses the boundary between professional and personal.
Recently divorced, workaholic Nash knows he’s hard to please. When the smart-mouthed IT consultant he depends on to keep his office running offers a no-commitment hookup, it seems like exactly what he and Brady both need to get through a busy summer at work. No one has to know about their arrangement.
But the more time they spend together, the more secrets they have to keep from the people around them—and from each other. The lies are piling up, until it’s hard to tell who’s fooling whom. If Brady and Nash want to find the balance between work and love, a little honesty will go a long way.
Review: I was introduced to Allison Temple’s writing almost exactly two years ago, when I read The Pick Up. I thoroughly enjoyed her easygoing style, and the natural likeability of her characters in that book, and those same enjoyable factors are present in her brand-new release, Work-Love Balance. It also ticks the boxes of several fave romance tropes. Looking for age gap? Check. Workplace romance? Single dad? Check and check. There’s even a bit of light kink thrown in for good measure. 😉 The end of the blurb warns readers that this book is “hot enough you’ll want to make sure the air conditioning is on in your cubicle, and heartfelt enough you’ll want to smack both characters before the end,” and I’m here to attest that both things are true.
Brady’s job as an IT consultant keeps him extremely busy, often even on nights and weekends thanks to the all too frequent ringing of the dreaded emergency phone. But no client is quite so frustrating after hours as Nash O’Hara. If you ask Brady, it’s a wonder Nash has managed to make the Out & About Film Festival the success that it is, given he can’t even remember to plug in his laptop some days, but there’s no doubt that he’s good at his job as the festival’s director, despite his extreme lack of tech savvy. Brady also can’t deny his attraction to the sexy silver fox, and when he accidentally admits as much out loud, in a hilariously inappropriate manner, on a still open phone connection, it sets things in motion for a secret hookup arrangement between the two of them.
But, as we all know, these no-strings agreements never work out, and Nash and Brady are no exception. Before long there are feelings and expectations, and new hopes and desires, followed by worry, confusion, and poor choices, leading to the aforementioned wanting to smack both the characters. However, Temple did a great job with both the relationship development and the pace of the story. I was on board with their romance from the get-go, and I appreciated that she didn’t let any of the drama get unnecessarily drawn out. I also loved, loved how Brady and Nash complemented each other so well. Both have so desperately needed balance in their lives and may have finally found, in each other, the perfect catalyst for working to achieve it.
I adored this book. And it’s another great example of Temple’s excellent storytelling style; once again delivering well-developed characters, low angst, fun dialogue, and lots of feels. I also love the backdrop of the film festival, though I admit I was expecting it to maybe be featured a little more prominently, given that the festival name is also the series title. Perhaps in future installments. I’m excited to see what the author has in store for this fun, new series.
You can buy Work-Love Balance here:
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