Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

A new, sexy standalone from #1 New York Times Bestseller, Vi Keeland.

Before I even met Donovan Decker, I knew his shoe size.

You see, I’d gone away for a few days, and in my haste to get out of the airport, I’d grabbed the wrong suitcase.

After checking out the expensive footwear and tailored clothes, I dialed the number on the luggage tag hoping maybe Mister Big Spender might have my bag.

A deep, velvety voice answered, and as luck would have it, he had my suitcase, too. Donovan and I met at a coffee shop to do the exchange.

Turned out, it wasn’t just his voice that was sexy. The man holding my luggage was absolutely gorgeous, and we had an immediate spark.
He got me to admit that I’d snooped in his bag and then convinced me to make it up to him by letting him buy me coffee.

Coffee led to dinner, dinner led to dessert, and dessert led to spending an entire weekend together. Donovan wasn’t just handsome with a panty-dropping voice. He was also funny, smart, and surprisingly down to earth for a man who wore seven-hundred-dollar shoes.

Did I mention he also did my laundry while I slept? Definitely too good to be true.

So what did I do to repay him for his kindness?

I waited until he was in the shower, then ghosted him. My life was too complicated for such a great guy.

In the months that passed, I thought about Donovan often. But New York City had eight-million people, so what were the chances I’d run into him? Then again, what were the chances I’d run into him a year later…when I’d just started dating his boss?

This author is my Hoopla find. I don’t think I’ve seen her books when I’m requesting egalleys because I believe her books are all self published, but my library offers Hoopla and I found her there. I read The Invitation, and now this one, so I can tell you I will be going back to Hoopla to find more.

This book really surprised me. Based on the cover, I thought it was going to be more erotica than romance, but that was way off. There truly is no judging books by their covers sometimes. This book had a lot of depth to it and great character development.

Autumn is the heroine, and she meets Donovan when she accidentally takes his suitcase home from the airport. At least his has his name and phone number on the luggage tag. When she calls, it turns out he has her suitcase and they arrange to meet at a Starbucks for the swap. There is immediate attraction there, and they have coffee and talk and the next thing you know, they have spent the weekend together. No sex, but he did her laundry! But come Monday morning, Autumn disappears, completely ghosts him. He doesn’t know her last name or where she lives or her phone number. Donovan has always been a bit of a player, but he fell hard and fast for Autumn, so he is not happy when she ghosts him. He thought she felt the same way.

Donovan is a wealthy lawyer but it turns out he came from a very damaged and poor background. Autumn’s father is a lawyer, and she comes from a wealthy, sheltered background. But she is working as a social worker. and that’s where the story really starts.

Donovan is up for partner in his law firm, so when his boss asks him to take on a pro bono case, he can’t say no. And when he meets his client, he is shocked to see Autumn. She is the boy’s social worker and even though they haven’t seen each other for a year, the spark is very much there.

Autumn has some serious baggage in her past, and for six years has only been dating men that she doesn’t form any attachments to – no emotional connection, just dinners and sex. These “relationships” don’t generally last very long because as soon as a man seems to be more interested than she is, she is gone. That’s why she ghosted Donovan. And now she’s dating his boss, and that’s why he got the pro bono case.

They spend a lot of time together with the child she is trying to protect, and Donovan finds himself taking a strong interest in the child as well. The partnership won’t be his if he hits on his boss’s girlfriend, and he really wants that partnership. But the more time he spends with Autumn, the more he falls in love with her. But she is scared, really scared, and it takes a lot for them to get past all her issues. But a happy ending is achieved. I really enjoyed this book, in fact I couldn’t put it down and read it in one night. There is some sex eventually, but with all the romance it worked well in this story. Highly recommend!

Note: If you want to see an enlarged pic on the cover, it’s on the Amazon page!

8/2021 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

THE SPARK by Vi Keeland.  C. Scott Publishing Corp. (July 12, 2021). ISBN: 978-1951045500. 300 pages.

Kindle

Audible

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 19th, 2021 at 8:00 AM and is filed under Book Reviews, Fiction, Romance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.