What happens in the stacks stays in the stacks…

Professor Victoria Reese knows an uphill battle when she sees one. Convincing her narrow-minded colleagues at the elite Pembroke University to back a partnership with the local library is a fight she saw coming and already has a plan for. What she didn’t see coming? The wildly hot librarian who makes it clear books aren’t the only thing he’d like to handle.

When a tightly wound, sexy-as-hell professor proposes a partnership between his library and her university, children’s department head John Donovan is all for it. He knows his tattoos and easygoing attitude aren’t quite what she expected, but the unmistakable heat between them is difficult to resist.

And then there’s the intriguing late fee on her record. For the Duke’s Convenience… A late fee and a sexy romance novel? There’s more to Dr. Reese than she’s letting on.

John might like to tease her about her late fee, but when he teases her in other ways, Victoria is helpless to resist. Mixing business with pleasure—and oh, it is pleasure—always comes with risks, but maybe a little casual fun between the sheets is just what Victoria needs.

This was my first book by that author and was drawn to the premise of a romance between a female academic and a male librarian. There were things I enjoyed in the story but also quite a few things in it left me annoyed and disappointed.

The heroine is a Black professor in an elite private college with the all the struggles and hard work and fighting discrimination this entails. I enjoyed that aspect of the story very much. Her professional life made a big portion of who she was and I liked getting such an in-depth view of it.

At the same time her relationship with her family was hard for me to buy into. They treated her and she acted with them like she was not 34yo professional woman but rather a child that needs constant guidance and advise. The age thing in fact is something I struck me as not quite right for both MCs - most of the time they read to me as much younger than 34 and 38 respectively. His moms (birth mother and step mom) referred to him as kiddo all the time, acting like he was incompetent/unrealiable because of his ADD and this really bothered me.

The MCs start a sex pact relationship, a sordid affair, though he knew he wanted more from the start. I had no real issues with the back and forth of their relationship, the hesitancy, the doubt, it all was relatable. Still, he kept thinking she is so much better than him and I just didn’t see that big of a social difference between them, I couldn't understand his lack of self-confidence. 

My biggest issues was the character development which seemed inconsistent to me. It's minor things, starting with appearance, for example. She was described as having thick thighs and big boobs, he kept saying how soft she was and he is described numerous times as super big and tall, she calls him the Viking and then suddenly they are sparring in the gym and she is some master fighter who beats him down. Nothing until that moment suggested she was athletic in any way. And he was not just tall but described and strong and very toned, it could be me but this didn't read as accurate to me.

Then there is a whole incident with her at her parents' party that I found to be completely out of place and out of character for her. I didn't expected it, still don't see what it added to the story or to her character. 

We know the hero is a librarian but we barely learn anything about his job, why he chose it for himself, what his dreams and plans were. In contrast there is quite a lot of page time dedicated to her career (which I liked reading about). I would have preferred to get more of his professional life as well. It would have made him more real, tangible, given him substance which I found he overall lacked. 

There was a lot of going on in that story, lot of side characters with their own plotlines and in the end it felt chaotic and overburdened, lacking depth. 

These are all small things but they added up for me and took out a lot of my enjoyment of this story.

PS: A couple of librarians have noted on Twitter about something the hero does that is a cross violation of his professional ethic and irl would lead to him getting fired. I admit I missed it when I read it but after seeing their comments, I absolutely agree it was inappropriate and could have been easily avoided. 

CW: misogyny, bullying (side character), drinking-related accident

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