Mr. Perfect (Mister #1)

I bought this book years ago and somehow enjoyed it. I read it again and I cannot believe I got through the book and proceeded to buy the other books in the series. Im guessing it was curiosity about the odd mystery that runs through the series that gave these men their nicknames.
If you enjoy a woman constantly saying no but the lead keeps telling her yes but she can say no at any time, this is the books for you. (SPOILER) Ellie lets Mac assault her 10 minutes after they first meet. He forces her to not leave her job by blackmailing her and forces her to agree to 5 dates where he tears her clothes off and forces anal.
Looking back, I seriously cant understand what came over me to enjoy this book. Looking at it with new eyes, this author enjoys rape fantasy with very little romantic chemistry and whole lot of sex scenes to fill in gaps where the plot should be.

I’m really torn on this book. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it. I skimmed a lot and felt some of the sex scenes were just weird (like the one with butter), but some of it was amusing and the writing was mostly good enough that I did want to see what happened.

I saw a lot of the reviews – good and bad – and was intrigued enough to buy it after reading the sample. And like someone else wrote, that’s where it kind of got ridiculous — ie her outburst in the meeting, the slide, Mac’s overbearing and yes, forceful – almost crossing the line to non consensual sex (ironic when you read the whole book), she never said no but in the stairwell she wasn’t really saying yes either. She’s not that kind of girl who has sex with her boss (and yet does it with very little protest) and that just felt off to me because either she’s making a game of it or she’s being coerced (and this is where it kind of feels like 50 Shades of Grey territory). Also what irritated me is that scene in the middle with Brutus – just seemed too contrived and does EVERYONE always have to go after the main girl?

But then there are times when Mac has a clue (in at least 2 encounters he hesitates because he can clearly see she’s not comfortable or she actually speaks up). And times when he actually is kind of romantic. So he’s not such an a-hole, but he’s already been an a-hole so it’s kind of difficult to like him.

The revelations of Mac as a decent person, a thoughtful and feeling person really come rather late in the book despite the alternating points of view. Kind of wish some more of this had occurred earlier in the book. Also interesting that when I start liking Mac a little more I actually don’t like Ellie as much.

A lot of the “hilarity” is in the beginning. Not much funny, if you found any of it amusing, after the sample really. I skimmed a lot of the book because I wanted to know what the secret was and was interested to see if Mac could realistically redeem himself from the guy we see in the beginning.

So I think if you pick up this book you’ll either love it or wish you hadn’t wasted your time. I almost stopped reading several times at certain parts and those are what will make me not want to read the rest of the series. However, the parts that were well written and didn’t come across as porn or an over-the-top sitcom make me want to give the author another chance, perhaps with a different series.

I didn’t know what to make of this book. We start with a heroine who is easy to love. She ferries celebrities to and from their interview at the “fun” place she works. She lives an amazing fantasy life by writing to the son of the owner of the company. He did one of those “We’ll have dinner when I get back” things and even though she knows he isn’t receiving them, she uses those texts to process her life. She’s been getting raises and titles, but essentially, she still doing her intern job. She doesn’t realize that everyone loves her and keep coming back in part to see and talk to her.

Meanwhile, somebody shows up that’s not on her roster and she does a Doris Day, Glass Bottom Boat meetcute. I’m not going to say much more but we start to learn about a group of guys involved in a scandal where a girl accuses them of rape and dies soon after. Because of the twists and turns, I have no idea where this is going. There are two great things about this book: The book was plotted incredibly well and the EOBS. The author seems to schedule writing a book and plots her next series while she writes.. This sort of honest mentoring on her writing process made this book for me. I don’t want you playlist, how your husband is the hero in every book you write, etc, but I enjoy the author talking about where their idea came from and your EOBS answered any remaining questions about where the series is going.

With Ellie Hatcher, JA Huss set a high bar for her other heroines in this series to attain. The first third of this book has laugh out loud dialogue and hot sexy times. And Ellie doesn’t show her zany side until Macallister Stonewall shows up, so let’s give him some credit for being the match that lights her fire.

I love all the devices Huss came up with the slide in the corporate lobby, Ellie sending a string of text messages to he crush, younger brother Heath Stonewall, using their unsent status as her diary so she can fantasize this nonexistent relationship with Heath through undelivered texts. Until McAllister picks up the phone, reactivates it without her knowledge, and the texts start cascading through to him during an executive meeting. Ellie, bored with the meeting is still sending texts complete with sexy gifs, basically thinking out loud how hot McAllister is. Great stuff!

That said, why are the misters so unnecessarily secretive? They shared the after effects of a traumatic experience and they hold each part of their experience from each other. I’m all for mystery and advancing a plot but this level of literary poker face is ridiculous.

Despite this, I’ve read every book in the series back to back. This extreme secrecy continues throughout each book. While I get that the misters may have trouble trusting each other, you gotta give a clue, a tiny one. These aren’t cliffhangers; they’re stand-alones but they are related. And towards the end of the series stuff starts smacking you in the face like falling rocks that would have been better had they been foreshadowed earlier.

Pretty much what I expected. Light easy read. Some sweet Romance, some steamy scenes and some silly fun. The overall story was enjoyable, I would just have liked to see a little more depth to the characters to have earned that 4rth star. I found some of their behaviour a little out of character for the type they represented, which to be honest could be down to personality quirks but it just didn’t work for me. For example Ellie being the quintessential nice girl everyone loves and who is all about helping people reach their full potential, yet has a pinterest board full of mean nicknames for all her colleagues. And Mac…. considering his history, following a female employee who is trying to get away from him into a staircase and proceeds to make some hmmm…. shall we call it advances. Sheesh. Don’t get me wrong, it was hot and steamy yes… but not in character.
As I said, if you are the type that can ignore little inconsistencies and likes to turn your brain off for a few hours and just enjoy a bit of romance. Then you will enjoy this.
I, for the most part, did and my issues with the book are not enough to turn me off reading the rest of the series.
It was a fun little romance.

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