Her Stand-In Boyfriend by Kelly Jamieson Published by Entangled: Select Contemporary
Publication Date: July 28th 2015
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 130
Source: Publisher
Format: eARC
Goodreads
Buy Online: Amazon ♥ B&N ♥ Kobo
Disclaimer: I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book. All opinions stated are solely mine.
This boyfriend business is about to get a whole lot more personal…
Event planner Lexi Mannis has a busy life in Chicago—too busy to have a boyfriend. For special occasions, she has her Stand-In Boyfriend, Mac Northrop. Mac offers (almost) all the perks of a real boyfriend—furniture assembly, a date to big events, and someone to cook for. But they’ve never been “with benefits”…until one wickedly hot night crosses the line.
Mac’s been in love with Lexi for ages. He knows he should probably end it, but dammit, he just can’t. When things get deliciously down and dirty, Mac is certain that he’s made the leap out of the friend zone…until Lexi decides she wants to remain friends. With benefits.
What Lexi doesn’t know is that she’s running out of time. And if she won’t promote Mac to Real Boyfriend, she might just lose her Stand-In Boyfriend to someone else…
I have heard lots of good things about Ms. Jamieson’s writing and decided to sample it for myself with HER STAND-IN BOYFRIEND and I have to agree with what I have heard. HER STAND-IN BOYFRIEND packs quite a punch for such a quick read.
Mac Northrop has been in love with his friend for a long time but he is content staying in the friend zone and filling in when she needs his manly skills, as long as he can remain in her life. Lexi Mannis has got a good thing going on. With her event planning company taking up all her time, she has none to devote to a boyfriend. Her best buddy, Mac is there to help with most boyfriend stuff like being her date to events and helping with furniture assembly and in return, she acts as his hostess when needed and cooks for him. The only thing missing is the benefits of a relationship, until the night everything changes.
For Mac, that night means that he can now explore his feelings for Lexi but that’s too bad because Lexi is not on the same page with him. She’s too scared to change things and would rather they remain friends, only with benefits this time.
I love friends-to-lovers stories because half the work is done already and the relationship can be built on the foundation of friendship, but Mac and Lexi had me seriously questioning their friendship because of how difficult it was for them to communicate with each other! I can understand the fear of rejection, but they just avoided talking about what had changed in their relationship, like it would fix itself.
Lexi seemed quite self-absorbed but her past shed light on her behavior and I began to sympathize with her when she realized that her geeky college buddy was quite the hunk and a successful one too and she had to stake her claim before he was taken by another woman.
HER STAND-IN BOYFRIEND is steamy and passionate and I really enjoyed it.
About Kelly Jamieson
Kelly Jamieson writes romances with heat that's sweet. Her writing has been described as “emotionally complex”, “sweet and satisfying” and “blisteringly sexy”. If she can stop herself from reading or writing, she loves to cook. She has shelves of cookbooks that she reads at length. She also enjoys gardening in the summer, and in the winter she likes to read gardening magazines and seed catalogues (there might be a theme here...) She also loves shopping, especially for clothes and shoes. But her family takes precedence over everything else (yes, even writing). She has two teenage children who are the best kids in the world, not that she’s biased, and a wonderful husband who does loads of laundry while she plays on the computer writing stories. She loves hearing from readers, so please visit her website
Leave a Reply