ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE

After a troubled childhood, Elle Wheaton is getting her degree and finding her way, with help from her friends and her job, and if her attraction to colleague Archer Hunt is a problem, it’s one she's determined to ignore—in the same way he ignores her.

Most days, Elle loves her job as the general manager of the Pacific Pier Building in San Francisco, and she definitely loves the circle of friends she’s made in the businesses around her. She does not love the fact that she has to work directly with the head of Hunt Investigations, the building’s security company. Archer is “big and tough, and frustrating beyond measure for so many reasons.” Elle and Archer share a past, and after years of not having seen him, she was stunned to find him in the building where she landed the manager position a year ago. They’ve both avoided being alone together, though they’ve worked on projects and investigations with his team. When a freak electrical accident forces them to interact, however, Elle admits to herself that she’s attracted to him and allows a thread of hope that he may feel the same way. Entering a new phase of a relationship that has always been complicated—they met when she was a minor, and he lost his job as a police officer when he sabotaged a mission to help her—the couple must grapple with their decision to explore a long-standing attraction while overcoming years’ worth of baggage, then are thrown up against some dangerous old enemies when Elle’s sister shows up seeking redemption. Shalvis continues her Heartbreak Bay series with Elle and Archer’s roller-coaster romance that never confronts obstacles quite as difficult or dramatic as they choose to make them. For one thing, their individual decisions to protect themselves and each other from their attraction/romance/love with repetitive dramatic rejections grow tiresome. But using her signature witty banter, emotional back story, hot chemistry, and affecting romance, Shalvis pulls it off.

Sexy, engaging, and fun despite some imperfections.