Eye Candy

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Friends to lovers stories tend to be my favorite kind of romance. The familiarity shared between the main characters can lead to all sorts of humorous conversations, deep introspection and some steamy scenes when all the suppressed sexual tension is released. Eye Candy follows this outline fairly well in bringing two co-workers together, yet the twist comes when one friend tries to overthink the plan to take their relationship to the next level.

Jackie Butler and Vince Carson have both been through the wringer when it comes to their love lives. Jackie’s husband cheated with another woman and tried to blame Jackie for the destruction of their marriage, and Vince’s wife was looking for more in her marriage than a Marketing VP’s salary could provide. As their personal lives started falling apart the two co-workers bonded and became close friends. Vince was there when Jackie learned of her husband’s betrayal while she was the moral support when Vince’s heart was broken. Through two years of working side by side and hours of binge watching TV shows on each other’s couches, Jackie and Vince have become inseparable. Sure, there has always been some degree of attraction between them, but the timing was never right and all too soon they’d fallen into their comfortable routine.

Everything changes for Vince when Jackie starts to notice a handsome guy jogging past her office window every morning. Seeing Jackie take an interest in a man is the first sign to Vince that she’s ready to start dating again and he’s more than interested in changing up the nature of their friendship. What worries him though is Jackie’s lack of experience after her divorce. Vince doesn’t want to be her rebound guy. He’d much rather Jackie have a fling or two to get sex off her mind and then she’ll be ready for something serious with him. After bouncing the idea off another close friend and getting the green light, Vince convinces Jackie to take a chance on introducing herself to the running man and seeing where it leads.

Jackie has never been the kind of woman to enjoy a casual fling with a guy. For her, sex should be between two people who care about each other, but after learning that Vince has had a few encounters since his divorce it gives her perspective on her own abstinence. Why shouldn’t she be enjoying herself with a guy with no strings attached? Jackie takes Vince’s advice and catches her mystery man outside her office and learns his name is J.T. and he’s definitely interested in going out. Their first date goes well and they make plans for another evening out, but while J.T. is physically appealing there’s no overwhelming sexual desire on Jackie’s part while kissing him. After a third date ends with J.T. making excuses to leave without taking her up on a fairly clear invitation for intimacy, Jackie gets an unwelcome shock when she later discovers him in a heated kiss with another woman.

Upset at being cheated on again, Jackie makes a beeline to Vince’s house to cry on his shoulder; however things don’t quite go as she planned. One moment she’s angry at J.T. and men in general for being lying, cheating bastards and the next she’s kissing Vince with all the sparks and sexual desire she had expected with her fling. Kissing soon leads to much more but a small part of Jackie has doubts about how their physical relationship is supposed to work in conjunction with their close friendship. For his part, Vince is happier than he’s been in a long time; having Jackie in his life and his bed is great, but his plan to have her never extended much farther than the present. When his desires for Jackie have him thinking about a future and even another trip to the altar, Vince’s insecurities about trusting a woman with his heart begin to rear their ugly head. As Vince begins to pull away, all of Jackie’s fears about men are seemingly reinforced. This awkwardness between them makes the pair question if their friendship can survive its toughest challenge yet.

The road to true love can sometimes be filled with road blocks and detours, but in Eye Candy Vince and Jackie somehow find ways to cause love gridlock. Vince’s plan for Jackie to date around before settling with him seems overly complex and once he puts it into practice it’s a mess of hurt feelings and mixed messages for Jackie. To get Jackie on board with his idea that she needs to hook-up with J.T.,  Vince tells her he will instruct her on the best ways to entice a man and get what she wants out of the relationship. Jackie’s trust in Vince is implicit and it’s a little painful when she understands that he’s been manipulating the situation in his favor. What saves the relationship is that in her heart, Jackie knows that Vince has always had her back and cares for her. She’s never let herself think about him as a potential boyfriend so his actions, despite the roundabout way of taking them, do lead to an awakening where she’s truly in love with her best friend.

Over the course of the book Vince and Jackie have to grow up and move past their divorces. Jackie’s pain is still a raw wound that’s never completely healed despite the two years she’s been single. The one thing about Vince’s plan that I can get behind was that Jackie had to put herself out there again and face a relationship. J.T. probably wasn’t the best choice considering Jackie’s naïveté, but she had to take a risk and learn from the experience. What surprised me is that Vince initially comes across as the more mature of the two, but he, too, had never actually risked his heart after his wife hurt him. He’d compartmentalized his emotions into categories of ‘safe’ and ‘dangerous’, with Jackie initially being put in the first column but moving to the second when he realizes he’s falling in love with her. At the point where there should have been declarations of love Vince makes one more childish mistake that almost kills the story.

Eye Candy has a very rom-com feel to it that I enjoyed. While a few of the mistakes Vince and Jackie make made me cringe, overall it was the lighthearted approach to this modern-day Harry and Sally that I’ll remember.

Buy Now: Amazon/Barnes and Noble/Apple Books/Kobo

Reviewed by Sara Elliott

Grade: B-

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date: 21/07/17

Publication Date: 07/2017

Review Tags: Real Love series

Recent Comments …

  1. excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.

I am a Fan-girl extraordinaire and romance addict. When I’m not obsessing over a fictional hero from a book I’m probably obsessing over a fictional Super-hero from the movies! I have long appreciated Romance stories and the escape they provide from all the dramas in real life. Historical Romances are my favorite (who wouldn’t want to be swept away by a handsome, rich English nobleman); however I love discovering new authors and stories in any romantic genre as long as the description sounds interesting. I’m living my own happy-ever-after in Phoenix, AZ (yes, it’s a dry heat!) with my two kids and my real-life hero.

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TrishJ
TrishJ
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07/21/2017 7:38 pm

This sounds like fun. I really like friends to lovers stories. It’s fun to discover that comfortable friend can suddenly produce sparks. This one goes to the top of my wish list.

Sofia
Sofia
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07/21/2017 12:51 pm

I am really looking forward to her new series. I really enjoyed her last two series.