Following a bad day, Josephine "Joey" Winfield, attorney and the family "bad girl", needs to burn off some steam. She connects with a hot guy at a roadhouse during a game of pool. Only he's not just some guy. He's Sebastian Stanhope, the new guy at her law office and her boss. Or at least he will be come Monday. But today's Friday and Joey's alcohol-impaired judgment says, "So what?" Let the sparks fall where they may.

MY GUILTY PLEASURE is part of the continuity series, The Martini Dares, published by Harlequin Blaze. In this series, each heroine is initiated, by way of a dare, into the Martinis and Bikinis, a social club spearheaded by Lindsay, Joey's half-sister. So Joey has to deal with not only a budding relationship with her boss but accepting and fulfilling whatever dare the M&B ladies have in mind for her.

This is a fun, sexy read although I didn't totally buy Joey's distress over uncovering some long-held family secrets, especially since she embraces being the family "bad girl". The romance between Joey and Sebastian is engaging. Even though Joey is the law office associate and Sebastian the junior partner, there is never a sense of them being on widely, unequal footing. Joey holds her own, and not because, as a member of "the" Winfields of Boston, she has a trust fund to fall back on. For once, it was nice to see the man be a standup kind of guy even when the woman is being a jerk. Neither men nor women have a monopoly on bad judgment spurred by faulty, emotional reasoning. It's even nicer when they get their happily ever after.

Book Summary