Review: Hard Sell

Hard Sell by Lauren Layne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Matt Cannon is a numbers geek with a hot body, one of the Wolfes of Wall Street investment managers he is filthy rich and living the good life until his cousin's bachelor party in Vegas is caught on camera and suddenly the Wall Street Journal has pictures of him with a lap dancer and allegations of drug taking. Suddenly Matt needs a fake girlfriend to reassure clients that he is trustworthy and they can let him look after their money. The trouble is, the only girls that would fit the bill are either (a) totally unsuitable, would make Matt look even worse and would probably blab about the fiction the first chance they got, or (b) likely to take the opportunity to try to put a ring on it. In fact, the only person who could possibly pull it off is Matt's enemy with benefits Sabrina Cross. She's got the looks, she's got the brains, she's even got the connections - the only question is, will they kill each other first?

I don't like to be mean, especially to a writer who has written some of my favourite romances but I have to say I feel that Lauren Layne dialled this one in. All the passion and the angst happens off stage, I'm still not entirely sure I understand what happened between Matt and Sabrina in the past to make them such enemies, or rather I understand why she was unhappy, I just don't understand why he said what he did. I didn't get any of that unrequited love turned to hate anguish that I would expect from this kind of plot and frankly at times it just felt like a tick list of things that rich people do: brunch? Tick. Cocktails? Tick. Charity ball? Tick? Weekend away in somewhere expensive? Tick. Pretty woman style shopping trip? Tick.

This is said with love, Lauren Layne think about whether a new reader would pick this book up and understand the past history between these two, would have heard the barbed comments, felt the sparks, seen the antagonism. My honest guess is not. This is a common error, authors write a series of separate romances as a single extended story, the reader has to read all the books in order to 'see' the backstory, otherwise the novel is just a little bit meh. I thought this was especially disappointing because I loved the first book in the series so much and had such high expectations for this one. Is it just second book doldrums or is it LL's relentless schedule of book releases causing her to just churn books out without suitable regard to character, plot and human interest?

However, I am judging LL from a very high level, the writing is still engaging and flows effortlessly. The characters are all clever and good-looking, the situations are glamorous and sexy, there's a super-cute dog. For an unknown (to me) writer this would have been at least four stars. I just expect more from LL.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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