FIRST CLASS ROMANCE

A flight attendant and her passenger find a connection in Paris in Hope’s whirlwind contemporary romance.

Emerson “Emy” Nichols is used to taking holiday shifts, as she’s one of the few flight attendants that doesn’t have family commitments. At 33, she’s single and lives alone; her parents are traveling the world and enjoying their retirement, so Emy has few plans for Christmas or New Year’s Eve. However, during her Christmas Eve flight, she finds herself drawn to the first-class passenger in seat 1A: Jackson Riley, who isn’t happy about being sent to Paris for his family’s small art-gallery business. However, the 36-year-old is the only single person among his siblings, so he’s assigned the holiday task. He isn’t in the best of moods when he boards the plane, but Emy manages to brighten up his flight with her friendly demeanor, and when another one of the flight attendants slips him Emy’s number, he considers making contact later on. Before he can do so, he and Emy bump into each other at their shared hotel, and since neither has Christmas plans, they take their time exploring the City of Light together. As Emy’s layover comes to an end, Jackson remains stuck in Paris, so they promise to meet up again—but a minor mishap threatens to keep that from happening. This short, sweet romance novel is the first in a new series of connected stand-alones. Hope manages to keep the love interests apart for the majority of the story—an uncommon circumstance for the genre, to be sure. However, although Jackson and Emy spend relatively little time together, their connection is palpable from the get-go (“As she handed Mr. Riley the mug of hot coffee, their fingers briefly touched, and they exchanged a fleeting but charged moment”), which will make readers eager for these two well-matched singletons to find each other again. The path to their reunion does involve a series of rather convenient coincidences, but romance fans will excitedly rush toward their happily-ever-after ending.

A brisk love story that entertainingly keeps the fate of its lovebirds up in the air.