Blog Tour Review & Giveaway: Behind Closed Doors by J. L. Berg

Posted September 20, 2016 by Shannon in Blog Tour, Giveaways, InkSlingers PR, Reviews, Shannon / 0 Comments

Blog Tour Review & Giveaway:  Behind Closed Doors by J. L. BergBehind Closed Doors Published by LLC Publication Date: September 11th 2016
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four-stars

My name is Roman Cavenaugh and I’m kind of an asshole. Running a company isn't easy, especially when everyone expects you to fail, so being a jerk? It comes with the territory. I don't have time to mess around, and I sure as hell didn’t see her coming.Cara Hamilton—she was supposed to be off limits…a temporary employee brought in during my assistant’s maternity leave. But, in the blink of an eye, she became so much more. An obsession I couldn’t shake.
So yeah, I may be an asshole, but now, I finally had a purpose, and soon, she would be mine. All’s fair in love and war…

Cocktails and Books received this book for free from Inkslinger PR in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect our opinion of the book or the content of our review.

I was so happy when I discovered this book was about Roman Cavanaugh.  He was the elusive older brother to Jude Cavanaugh in the Walls Duet and I wanted to know what his story was.

Roman is a self-professed asshole.  He knows it and he doesn’t hide from it.  His assholishness is a front.  A way to build a wall around himself to keep everyone out.  A way to ensure he can’t be hurt.  He was hurt by words he overheard his father say when he was younger.  Those words molded him into a man who didn’t know his own self-worth and believed no one would love him because his own father didn’t.  So he became an asshole and built his wall.  For the most part, the wall worked…with the exception of a few:  his brother, his sister-in-law and his temporary secretary, Cara.

Cara arrives in NYC hoping to start her life with her long-term boyfriend.  She’s hoping temporary work will tend her over until she finds a job in her field.  She’s naive about a lot of things and it was hard for me to embrace Cara because of that.  Maybe because I have had more of a plan when I moved thousands of miles from my house.  Living with my boyfriend and hopefully getting a job wouldn’t have cut it.  But that’s what Cara did.  She believed things were going to be OK because they always were with a guy who’s always lived apart from her.  It’s no wonder that when she’s suddenly faced with Roman she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

I will admit, for some reason these two worked together.  Cara humanized Roman.  Brought out his caring nature and changed how he interacted with others in his family.  And that caring nature showed Cara what it meant to be truly loved.  To be cherished by a man for who she is, not how she looked.

I liked this story, but I had an issue with Cara’s boyfriend and how they broke up.  That whole scene played out in a way that I felt was unrealistic.  Would a guy you dated since high school, who supposedly loved you mere hours before, really toss you out on your ass in the middle of the night when the reason he was tossing you out was because of his dumb actions?   I would hope not.  And it’s that little plot twist that left me scratching my head and leaving me less than satisfied with how the romance between Roman and Cara unfolded.  He still could have done what he did, but make it plausible (he’d done this before, etc) but not just something out of the blue like that and without a conversation later that ended the relationship permanently before moving on.

This was still a good read, it just wasn’t one of my favorite JL Berg books.  It lacked the angsty feel her other books had.  I didn’t find myself emotionally attached to either of the characters or the storyline.  In the end I was happy for Roman and Cara, I just wasn’t rooting for them to get that HEA.

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About J.L. Berg

J.L. Berg is the USA Today bestselling author of the Ready Series, The Walls Duet, and the Lost & Found Duet. She is a California native living in the beautiful state of historic Virginia. Married to her high school sweetheart, they have two beautiful girls that drive them batty on a daily basis. When she’s not writing, you will find her with her nose stuck in a romance novel, in a yoga studio or devouring anything chocolate. J.L. Berg is represented by Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency, LLC.

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I am a lover of alpha males with dirty mouths, strong heroines putting alpha males in their place, and the Chicago Blackhawks. I'm a proud hockey mom who can often be found at the hockey rink cheering on my favorite forward, with my kindle close by.