Sunday, January 31, 2016

Book Review: Closer by Aria Hawthorne


Famous Dutch architect, Sven van der Meer, has just completed the greatest achievement of his professional life--the design and construction of The Spire, Chicago's tallest, most controversial skyscraper. But a shameful secret threatens to destroy his prestigious career--he's losing his eyesight. Now, he's run out of time and the only woman qualified to help maintain his charade of invincibility is also the one woman who despises him and The Spire. And he's fairly certain she's hiding something as well. Will the fiery, but enchanting Miss Sanchez be the right woman to play the role of his pretend girlfriend? Or will the temptation of getting too close, too fast jeopardize their business arrangement and the future of his entire career?

When twenty-eight-year-old, woefully unemployed, Inez Sanchez, arrives to her interview with hotter-than-hell billionaire architect, Sven van der Meer--mastermind behind The Spire--she quickly realizes his job proposition isn't what she was anticipating. He's hiding a life-changing secret, one that could ruin his career as the most influential architect in the world, and he's willing to pay her five thousand dollars a day--just to help him keep it. Will she accept his offer to become his "pretend girlfriend" for the next four days in order to ensure the success of the most important week of his life? Or will her sassy flair for independence and smartass sarcasm keep her from submitting to his stern authoritative commands, no matter how sexy his European accent might be? And what will happen when he discovers she's hiding a secret, too--one that could threaten the stability of their arrangement and prevent her from getting too close to the one man in the world who might be capable of gaining her trust...







Closer is the first book I've read by Aria Hawthorne, so I'm completely ignorant to her other novels. In her bio it says that Closer is her NEWEST erotic romance novel. To me, that insinuates that she's written other erotic romance novels, right? Well, here's my thing ... I didn't think that this was an erotic romance novel. Sure, that could be because I've read so many romance novels lately that I've turned into a giant perv and nothing shocks me anymore. It all boils down to this one question: How exactly does a book get classified as "erotic"? If it's racy scenes, I just didn't think that Closer was any more risque than other romance genre novels. This doesn't have anything to do with my rating, I just think that this book is classified incorrectly, that's all. 

Anywho ... I think that the concept for Closer was pretty interesting! Not too many books out there that are about a billionaire architect that is going blind whom hires a random lady to pose as his girlfriend and guide-dog. I didn't really know what to expect but I found myself immediately transfixed with the snarky conversations that went on between Sven and Inez. Man. She's a firecracker! And with him being this domineering, always-in-control dude who always gets his way ... the push and pull between them was just delicious. I couldn't wait to see what they would say to each other. I also enjoyed reading about the plight that Sven was in ... he's unwilling to give up the control that he needs to relinquish so that Inez can actually help him with what he hired her for ... that's quite a tough position to be in. At least I guess it is. I'm controlling but I not going to give that up. I'm not a quitter.

The storyline was something that kept me engaged throughout the entire book. I read it in one sitting and I was disappointed when it was finished. I did wish that there was a little more to the story. There were quite a few things going on during the whole thing but at times it felt like there could have been just ... more. I would have liked more depth, I guess. I wanted some of the scenes to last longer than they did and I felt like it would have been a little more entertaining if they had been fleshed out a bit. But then again, it did keep me entertained and I didn't get irritated with the speed of things and nothing was boring or long-winded. All in all, I enjoyed my reading experience with this one. I think that I might pick up another book by this author in the future because I know that I'll be in for an interesting ride. 

* I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *



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