Accidentally on Purpose by Jill Shalvis

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Title: Accidentally on Purpose
Author: Jill Shalvis
Series: Heartbreaker Bay #3
Published by: HarperAudio
Release Date: January 24, 2017
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Karen White
Length: 9 hours and 33 minutes
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
Source: Libby
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 Beat the Backlist Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ IndieBound ✩ iTunes
My rating:

Blurb:

There’s no such thing as a little in love...

Elle Wheaton’s priorities: friends, career, and kick-ass shoes. Then there’s the muscular wall of stubbornness that’s security expert Archer Hunt—who comes before everything else. No point in telling Mr. “Feels-Free Zone” that, though. Elle will just see other men until she gets over Archer... which should only take a lifetime...

There’s no such thing as a little in lust...

Archer’s wanted the best for Elle ever since he sacrificed his law-enforcement career to save her. Their chemistry could start the next San Francisco earthquake and he craves her 24/7, but Archer doesn’t want to be responsible for the damage. The alternative? Watch her go out with guys who aren’t him...

There is such a thing as...

As far as Archer’s concerned, nobody is good enough for Elle. But when he sets out to prove it by sabotaging her dates, she gets mad—and things get hot as hell. Now Archer has a new mission: prove to Elle that her perfect man has been here all along...

My Review:

3.5 stars — This one had a lot of great moments, but in the end it dragged on a bit long and I started to lose interest.  I’m not sure if it was repetitive, or it was just the pacing in general that didn’t work for me?  It probably didn’t help that Archer and Elle were never going to be the characters I would connect the most with in this series, and while I was curious about their past, I don’t always understand the whole fighting push and pull romance thing.

I’m not sure why, but I had a completely different theory of what happened in Elle’s past.  I think from the hints in other books I’ve read in this series, I was expecting something more traumatizing…which is silly, because it’s not as though her childhood wasn’t traumatizing in its own way.  I guess the little we got of “that night” just didn’t completely explain her reticence to talk about her past…but then again, she’s a completely different person to me.

She and Archer both seem to thrive on the conflict and the arguing and the making up, and while that’s entertaining, it’s not a dynamic that I would ever find myself in.  As such, I grew cranky with the stubbornness and the refusal to see what was right in front of them in this book.  Probably a bit more with Elle than Archer, because at least in Archer’s perspective he wasn’t completely denying his feelings.

Honestly?  My favourite parts were the secondary cast parts.  They’re just so much fun together, and I just love the way they interact with one another.  They always make me laugh, and I feel like their friendships are genuine.  I wouldn’t have minded a bit more moments, especially some heart to hearts with the girls.  Spence just didn’t quite have that down.

Ms. White’s narration was solid and consistent.

Yeah.  I’m sure I could have more to say, but this is probably enough.  There was a super mild not body positive joke made early in the book (the usual “does this make me look fat?” nonsense where the man flounders trying to answer, assuring the woman that no OF COURSE they don’t look fat, as though fat is the worst thing they could be), and I’m wondering if that negatively impacted my enjoyment.  It’s something I saw all the time in the past, but now I can’t just brush past it anymore.  Anyways, regardless, this was not my fave in the series, but at least now I know the deal with these two!