Moonlighter by Sarina Bowen

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Title: Moonlighter
Author: Sarina Bowen
Series: The Company #1
Published by: Indie
Release Date: October 22, 2019
Format: eARC
Pages: 370
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Romantic Suspense, Sports Romance
Source: Nina Bocci PR
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2019 New Release Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks
My rating:

Blurb:

Only in my family could a professional hockey player earning seven million dollars a year be considered a slacker.

I’m at the height of my athletic career. Yet my arrogant brother is always trying to recruit me into the family business: a global security company so secretive that I don’t even know its name.
Pass, thanks. I don’t need a summer job.
But the jerk ambushes me with a damsel in distress. That damsel is Alex, the competitive, sassy girl I knew when we were kids. Now she’s a drop-dead gorgeous woman in deep trouble.
So guess who’s on a flight to Hawaii?
It’s going to be a long week in paradise. My job is keeping Alex safe, while her job is torturing me with her tiny bikinis. Or maybe we’re torturing each other. It’s all snark and flirting until the threat against Alex gets serious. And this jock must become her major league protector.

Moonlighter is a stand-alone novel. No cliffhangers, no prior experience necessary. Contains: hackers, hockey players, and a hotel room with only one bed.

My Review:

I received a free copy through Nina Bocci PR in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

5 stars — I don’t know what it is about Ms. Bowen and this world, but I’m seriously loving it… and loving where it’s going with this spin off.  So many possibilities!!

Eric and Alex are both delightful and easy to connect with.  Alex is so hardworking and brilliant, it really comes across in the book.  I also loved having a female CEO in a tech company to read about…as someone who has worked in that industry, the good ole boys club is real, though it’s slowly changing.  I loved seeing her take on the sexist executives. And I appreciated her struggle to balance her career with impending motherhood. She was simultaneously fierce and vulnerable.

Eric was not what I was expecting, though I’m not sure what I was expecting.  But the balance in his personality between grumpy and taciturn with a dry wit and confidence just played out perfectly.  I felt for him facing these changes in his life, and not having his family’s support with his career choices, and his obviously different goals and dreams. But he was just really solid, with everyone… from teammates, to his family, to Alex.  And the real surprise for me was how he doted on Alex… you could really feel how much he cared for her.

The two of them together were truly the highlight of the story.  From their physical chemistry, to the relationship that built on a long ago friendship, I just loved them together.  My favourite part was how often they laughed in steamy scenes…it just delighted me. Seriously, they balanced one another so well, and had so many fun moments together.  Their banter was beyond.

The suspense/action elements added a lot to the story, and I think I’m really going to love this new series.  And so many great new secondary characters!! I’m sensing a Max and Scout story (definitely the Nate/Becca of this series), and I desperately hope Duff gets a book too!!!

So yeah…this book sucked me right in, I LOVED it from start to finish.