Maria Rose's Reviews > Dear Jane

I’m always in the mood for a good romantic comedy, and in the past, Marissa Clarke has entertained me greatly with her Anderson Brothers series. It’s what put her on my favorite new to me authors list in 2015 and got the third entry in that series, Chance of a Lifetime, a 2016 RITA award nomination. Dear Jane is the first entry in a new spin-off series to the Anderson Brothers called Animal Attraction and is a fun and lighthearted romance with plenty of laughs.

Jane Dixon is a lawyer working for her dad’s firm in the Family Law department. The relationships she sees on a daily basis are for the most part a disaster, just like her dating life. A confirmed klutz, Jane never fails to end her dates on a sour note and despairs of ever having a real relationship. Eric Blackwell has had his eye on Jane for a while, but she’s the boss’s daughter and he is looking for a promotion so she’s definitely off limits. When he inadvertently becomes a flower delivery service for the brush off from her most recent date, Jane confides in Eric her dating frustrations and Eric blurts out that he knows lots of guys who’d like to date a woman like her. Suddenly, he finds himself in the position of date procurer instead of owning up to the fact that he’d like to ask her out himself. But Jane refuses to date another lawyer, and they work together in the same firm, so he’d be off limits regardless. Secure in their new friendship, things are going along swimmingly – except that Eric hopes that the dates he’s setting up for Jane will be dismal failures and Jane finds herself looking forward to the post-date conversations and texts with Eric more than the dates themselves. Will they admit that their true interest is in each other before it’s too late?

Lots of laugh out loud moments in this one! Poor Jane has so much bad luck with each of her dates, both the ones before Eric tries to give her a hand and the ones he sets her up with that it’s easy to see why she’s discouraged. Eric’s got good intentions in setting her up with his friends, though each time she’s out with one of them (eventually he does get to take her out himself!) he’s left sitting at home doing crossword puzzles that seem to be prophetically describing his life.

Number three across: “One who weeps, in a saying.” He traced his fingers over the five empty spaces. “Finder Keepers, Losers Weepers,” he chanted in a taunting, playground voice. With a sigh, he filled in the blanks. L-O-S-E-R.

While he was home, living like an old man at thirty years old, Alistair was out wining, dining and romancing Jane on Eric’s dime.

Number twelve down: “Live a dull life.” Second letter of eight was a T and a fourth a G. No doubt about the answer to this one. He was an expert on dull.S-T-A-G-N-A-T-E, he wrote in blanks.

Gradually, their friendship leads to them acknowledging their attraction to each other, and they share some sexy scenes. Though Jane does seem to attract mishaps, unlike her other dates Eric is able to laugh them off and reassure her that they aren’t a deal breaker. But while they are able to keep their growing relationship on the down low for a little while, they are both up for partnership and if they want to date out in the open, one of them is going to have to leave the firm. The conflict heats up in the second half and leads to some surprising results and an eventual happy ending for Eric and Jane. There are some cameo appearances from the Anderson brothers (yay!) and Jane’s cat Gandalf plays a prominent role in the story as well. All in all, it’s a very enjoyable romance and I look forward to reading more in the series!

Note: a copy of this story was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for review.

This review appears as a blog post at Straight Shootin' Book Reviews: https://straightshootinbookreviews.co...