by Lori Ryan
Legal Ease is available from Amazon.
BLURB:
Jack Sutton needs a wife and he needs one now. Jack loved
his mother, but she really screwed him over when she set up her will. If Jack
doesn’t have a wife by the end of the week, he’ll lose control of the largest
chunk of voting stock in his company and will most likely lose his position as
CEO as a result.
And Jack’s Aunt Mabry is waiting in the wings to make sure
that the terms of the will are enforced. If he doesn’t find a wife, she’ll
seize control of the stock so she can install her own son at the helm and she
couldn’t care less that her son doesn’t want the job or that he probably won’t
be any good at it.
Enter Kelly Bradley, a twenty eight year old college graduate
with a spot at Yale Law School but no way to pay for it. Kelly and Jack’s
eavesdropping secretary have discovered Jack’s secret need for a wife and Kelly
comes up with a plan to fix both of their problems.
Just when Jack needs her, Kelly breezes into his office,
introduces herself to his Aunt and cousin, and hands Jack an offer. She will
marry him for a year so that he can retain the stock that will keep him in
control of Sutton Development if he’ll pay for her to go to law school. Jack
has no idea where his beautiful savior came from or who she is but he’s willing
to take a chance to save it all.
The deal may have kept Jack in control at Sutton Development
but his private life quickly spirals out of control. Just when Jack realizes
that he wants more than a year with Kelly, his wealth puts her in great danger
and he is left scrambling to save her life and their future together.
Review:
Review:
Legal Ease by Lori Ryan is the first book in the Capital
Sutton series. Surprisingly, it is a "marriage of convenience story",
which is uncommon in this day and age. Even more surprising, it is a
contemporary (rather than a historical) novel about two people who marry for
practical reasons but fall in love despite themselves. It is an easy,
engrossing story to follow.
Kelly Bradley is a smart, competent woman who has been
admitted to law school. She wants to acquire a legal degree in order to help
people...the only trouble is finding a way to pay for her education. Enter Jack Sutton, a hard-driving corporate
executive bound by the terms of his mother's will--to marry by his thirty-fifth
birthday--or lose control of the company his father built.
Through the clever machinations of Jennie--Kelly's friend and Jack's secretary--Kelly and
Jack meet and realize a means of solving their respective problems. They agree
to marry for the period of one year. Jack keeps his company. In exchange, he
pays for Kelly's law school. They move into Jack's mansion together, and
discover an intense mutual attraction to one another. Once their attraction to
one another becomes clear, their relationship develops with relatively little
difficulty.
Both Kelly
and Jack are such honest, decent people. Both are good-looking, intelligent,
and likeable. Even though Jack is allegedly a disreputable womanizer, he fails
to act like one. For this reader, it was a stretch to believe that Kelly and Jack both remained single and solidly unattached. In
real life, both hero and heroine would have been snatched up long ago.
As a whole,
the narrative relies heavily on external conflict to drive the plot. Throughout the story, Jack's detestable
elderly aunt is gunning for him, determined to oust him from his position and
expose his marriage as a sham. He treats her with a remarkable amount of
patience and tolerance, once again proving he is a truly sweet person.
Near the end of the story, the plot diverges from the
obvious path, taking a rather strange turn into kidnapping and human trafficking.
Without giving away spoilers, I must state that it caught me entirely by
surprise and wasn't at all what I expected. Love scenes are spicy, lacking
specific details, largely focused on the emotional interaction between the hero
and heroine. Legal Ease is definitely a
quick, pleasurable read and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a
contemporary romance with an old-fashioned twist.
Legal Ease is available from Amazon.
Nice review
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