A Lot Like Love by Julie James

Title: A Lot Like Love
Author: Julie James
Series: #2 in the FBI/US Attorney series
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Berkley  (March 1, 2011)
Source: Purchased
Rating: ☕☕☕☕

Synopsis: The FBI wants her cooperation. As the daughter of a billionaire and the owner of the city's top wine store, Jordan Rhodes is invited to the most exclusive parties in Chicago. But there's only one party the FBI wants to crash: the charity fundraiser of a famous restaurateur, who also happens to launder money for the mob. In exchange for her brother's release from prison, Jordan is going to be there—with a date supplied by the Bureau.

Agent McCall just wants her. As the top undercover agent in Chicago, Nick McCall has one rule: never get personal. This "date" with Jordan Rhodes is merely an assignment— one they're both determined to pull off even if they can't be together for five minutes before the sarcasm and sparks begin to fly. But when Nick's investigation is compromised, he and Jordan have no choice but to pretend they're a couple, and what starts out as a simple assignment begins to feel a lot like something more.

My Thoughts: A solid romance filled with fun and sarcastic banter and hint of suspense.

The Good: The interactions between the characters made this book fun to read. Jordan and Nick (Mr Tall-Dark-and-Smoldering) work well together as a couple. The banter between them was well done and humorous and whoooweeeee did their chemistry sizzle! The secondary characters were just as fun to read about even if there was limited interaction and not a whole lot of character development for them. Jack and Cameron make appearances in this book although they had very limited page time which was a bit unfortunate since I really like them as a couple too(their book, Something About You, was the first in the series by the way.) Jordan's brother Kyle, the cyber-terrorist ("It was only Twitter!!!!) is really intriguing and as a newly released ex-con, not exactly boyfriend material so it will be interesting to see what Ms. James does with him.

The Bad: These are the things that I found to be slight negatives about this book. They are rather minor but when adding them all up together it is the reason I didn't give this book a higher rating than a 4. The plot was a bit simplistic in it's execution and not quite original, way too much wine talk (I'm not a fan of wine...someone who enjoys wine might feel otherwise), I wish there had been more suspense, and I'd have preferred if the FBI really worked the investigation rather than make the case more of a situation so the characters could be in closer proximity.

In a Nutshell: Despite some minor negatives the building of the relationship between Jordan and Nick really shines and the climactic ending pushed this book into a winner of a read. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series a lot.