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(This is now back in print–ebook only–so we’re running the review again!)
What could be better than an Australian coworkers-to-lovers romance with a promotion rivalry, and family disappointed that their kid didn’t grow up to be a doctor? No, I’m not talking about The Hating Game – which I loved. Sarah Mayberry did a similar story three years earlier, and Her Favorite Rival is an absolute delight.
Audrey Mathews and Zach Black both work for a hardware company facing restructuring. Now is emphatically not the time to jeopardize their reputations by having an affair with a co-worker – especially not the person who is their top competition! Each has worked very hard to get where they are. Zach has overcome an impoverished childhood and an adulthood supporting his heroin-addict mother (a character who is depicted with sad, empathetic realism) while Audrey, the daughter of doctors, was the black sheep who ran away as a teen and worked her way up from the packaging department while earning her high school equivalency.
Something that strikes you from the very beginning is how compatible these characters are. We first meet Audrey and Zach when they bump it each other in the company lobby, because each has done the research to learn that the new hatchet man shows up first thing and they want to impress. They both hate but suffer through corporate golf outings. They have both built emotional walls as a result of bad childhood experiences. They both TALK ABOUT PROBLEMS LIKE ADULTS.
The author does a great job giving these characters real-life, hard conflict, both at work and in life. For instance, Zach and Audrey work together on a research project about competitors, and then Zach is cornered into giving the report to the boss – meaning Audrey has no chance to attach her face and labor to the project. Both characters are right: Zach, that he couldn’t turn down a direct request for the report, and Audrey, that she will be robbed of credit. Both Zach and Audrey have toxic family relationships. And I don’t want to be spoilery, but Audrey’s reaction to learning about Zach’s mom is absolutely wonderful – flawed at first, but then thoughtful and nuanced.
Oh, and let’s not overlook the fantastic sexual chemistry and tension these two have – so good that they struggle to keep a lid on themselves at the office.
I have one criticism of this book, and that’s that it is, as of November 2019, out of print. (It’s available only in used paperback or audio formats.) But if you can find a way around this difficulty, you will have one amazing read.
Buy it at: Amazon
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Grade: A
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 02/03/20
Publication Date: 09/2013
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
I'm a history geek and educator, and I've lived in five different countries in North America, Asia, and Europe. In addition to the usual subgenres, I'm partial to YA, Sci-fi/Fantasy, and graphic novels. I love to cook.
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I just got it on Kindle unlimited!
Thank you all so much for your kind words -they mean a lot to an often-crazed, pyjama-clad lady who drinks too much coffee. Nan De Plume, yes, I am definitely self-pubbing these books, as well as another eight or so titles I also got the rights back on. Some of those may take a little longer to get out, though, because I have a few little revisions I want to make in order to reform the set as a series. Interesting times ahead!
This is great news! Please send us updates! And I’m sure we’d love to review some we missed.
Again, congratulations! Self-publishing may be a bit of an adjustment for you, but once you get going, you might have a lot of fun with it. One aspect I love about KDP besides the high royalties is the creative content control. If I catch a typo (whoops!), I can fix it immediately and Amazon generally updates the changes within 24 hours. Plus, it’s user-friendly and free. Covers are the big drawback. Editing is a problem too, but at least you have the advantage of already having professionally edited work almost ready to publish.
Great news indeed. I recently start reading Ms. Mayberry novels after a good review at AAR. Then I went after all her other books — the ones I could get, that is. In fact, I was extremely lucky because I managed to grab an old paperback version of Within Reach (it was impossible to get the ebook version), which is now one of my favourite romances ever.
Hopefully, this will be one of the ones to be reissued. Also looking forward to buy Suddenly You.
Ah… just found out that I can buy Suddenly You now. Bought.
I ADORE that book. It’s one of my very favorite romances ever.
I never normally do this (because reviews are for readers, not writers, even if they are very flattering and lovely and make my day, week, month) but I thought it might be worth letting people know that I have had the rights to Her Favourite Rival and companion book Her Favourite Temptation reverted to me recently. I’m in the process of getting them ready to put them out again with new covers, and hope to do so very soon – in early January, if all goes according to plan. I’m really sorry if anyone is looking to find it before then.
Oh, that’s such great news – and thank you so much for stopping by to tell us. I’m sure that will make people around here very happy!
Congratulations, Ms. Mayberry! And thank you for clearing that up. Will you be self-publishing?
Hooray!!!!! Caz/Dabney, maybe we can rerun and retweet this review then to celebrate!
And on a personal note – this book is AMAZING and thank you for it. I truly loved it.
As soon as they’re out, we will. Sarah, will you drop me a note and let me know? Yay!
It was a 5 star read for me, and its companion in the duology is 4.5 stars (thinking about reread list).
I just found HOT ISLAND and a few other early ones in the cloud, but alas not this one. Just in the mood for some re-reads. I am saving Nalini Singh’s new thriller for vacation!
The strange thing is:
I went on a Sarah Mayberry glom a couple of years back, and I got all her backlist on Kindle.
They are just not available now for buying anymore, but they actually exist, for Kindle.
Why is amazon taking those books out, or Harlequin / Mills & Boon?
I get the impression that a few authors get their books now repackaged as Contemporary Romance, maybe as Nan writes because the line is defunct?
Sometimes the title changes, sometimes they simply drop the series tag and republish. I have no clue how this works, but noticed it for a few older series titles recently.
Is this a marketing approach to get more money than for a series book?
Does anyone know how all this works?
I loved the idea that with ebooks I could stop glomming authors — or rather, buying all in sight to be sure to still get the backlist.
Now this seems not true anymore.
Why?
Being self-published, I am not privy to a lot of the stuff that goes on in mainstream publishing, but I do pick up tidbits here and there.
Although I can’t say why Harlequin (owned by HarperCollins) is withdrawing e-books, I can tell you that the Big 5 Publishers are hurting. I just started reading a fascinating book, published in December 2018, entitled “A People’s Guide to Publishing” by Joe Biel of Microcosm Publishing, and some of the statistics are shocking. Only about a third of book sales now come from the Big 5 publishers because of small press and self-publishing competition. True, the Big 5 still make the most in sales in terms of dollars, but they are being eaten alive in certain niche categories. According to Mr. Biel, mainstream publishers have gutted many of their “midlist” lines, which are niches expected to sell 5,000 – 10,000 copies per book, in efforts to streamline. But their strategy is backfiring as small presses can snap up those niche markets.
Continuing with e-books, I have read here and there about contract disputes between Harlequin and former Harlequin authors over publishing rights. Old contracts didn’t account for the existence of e-books because they weren’t invented yet or hadn’t reached critical mass. Because of that, out of print clauses essentially kept authors trapped forever because e-books, by definition, don’t go out of “print.” So that could be part of the reason why Harlequin is seeing a shakeup as well.
I’m told they also pay authors cheap royalties: 6% on paperbacks and downward, which is lower than industry standards. In the old days, that didn’t matter as much because of volume, lack of self-publishing options, and other perks like book translations. But if an author builds a reputation for herself, why should she deal in such small potatoes when self-publishing through Amazon can net 70%? So I think there’s some ugly stuff afoot.
Here’s one of my sources. It’s old, but probably still relevant: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/05/harlequin-fail.html.
thanks – yeah change afoot.
I like explanations and you helped.
You’re welcome.
It could simply be that the rights have expired and Harlequin is no longer able to publish the book. If the rights have automatically reverted to the author, then she may not, for whatever reason, wish to republish the title herself, or she may be in the process of doing so.
That’s definitely a possibility. It sounds like a lot of former traditionally published authors are going that route these days.
It’s a bummer this book isn’t available as an ebook. So if you’re looking for earlier Mayberry that is, I so recommend She’s Got It Bad and Hot Island Nights. They’re both so strong.
My library had it in ebook so that’s worth trying!
I wonder if the lack of e-book availability is due to Harlequin Superromance being a defunct category romance line? About a year ago, Harlequin whittled down their submission categories and got rid of Superromance, Noctune (paranormal), Kimani (black heroes/heroines), and Love Inspired Historical (no-sex HR). You can still buy them, but they don’t accept new submissions for those categories. And titles for eliminated categories are a lot harder to find on the website, which I think would hurt those authors’ sales.
In case anyone is curious, these are the current lines Harlequin is taking submissions for: https://harlequin.submittable.com/submit. There are 12.
I loved HER FAVORITE RIVAL which is the book I believe THE HATING GAME wanted to be. To me, THE HATING GAME read like an office romance written by someone who had never actually worked in an office or had even done any research into what working in a corporate office would actually be like (plus, it didn’t help that both main characters acted emotionally as if they were in 8th grade and were playing dress-up). HER FAVORITE RIVAL, on the other hand, is very much reflective of the ways and attitudes of an office environment—along with thoughtful, mature people. I love Mayberry’s writing style too. If you haven’t already read it, I highly recommend Mayberry’s HER BEST WORST MISTAKE.
So . . . . I’m one of those very few readers who just could not finish the Hating Game. I tried 3 different times to read it. But 1) I really dislike “instalust”, and 2) having worked in offices for years and through one downsizing, I just couldn’t get past the idea that a woman who is in serious (one of you is definitely going to be out of work) competition for her livelihood could spend any (much less all) of her time lusting after some guy. Is it the same here?
Not as I recall. There’s a sense of general doom amidst mass layoffs, so everyone is motivated to look as good as possible, even against each other. However, they’re not directly competing for one position. If they both look good enough, they could both stay; they could also just as easily both be fired.
There might be a promotion they’re competing for? It’s not a huge part of the plot if so.
Thank you !