Do you ever finish reading a book that has been sitting in the TBR for a while and ask yourself why you hadn’t read it sooner? This was the case for me with “Just The Sexiest Man Alive”. All I can say is that if Julie James had as much fun writing this book as I did reading it, then she had a blast.
I first came to know of “Just the Sexiest Man Alive”, last year when Ms. James was doing promotional blog tours and interviews. Ms. James presents extremely well, has a wonderful sense of humor and seems a genuinely nice person. Her description of the novel and the synopsis piqued my interest. Since I didn’t win it (not for lack of trying) I ordered it in and there it sat in my TBR until recently when I started reading all the rave reviews of her second novel, “Practice Makes Perfect”. So, needless to say I decided it was time to pull “Just the Sexiest Man Alive”, out of the “alps”.
This story is a contemporary romance, there is no graphic sex. However there is intense foreplay, which comes in the form of verbal sparring between the heroine and hero, I have to say the erotic sex I’ve become accustomed to in the majority of my romance reading these days wasn’t missed in the least. The narrative is extremely fast paced and the dialogue, which drips sarcasm, had me hooting with laughter. Just as an aside, I like to read in bed on Saturday morning sipping a coffee with Tori sleeping in the crook of my arm. I started laughing so hard at a couple of the exchanges between Taylor Donovan, the heroine of the novel and Jason Andrews that I spewed coffee all over the duvet luckily it’s washable. (The spew missed my pooch of course.)
Just the Sexiest Man Alive
Chicago litigation lawyer Taylor Donovan has been sent to Los Angeles to defend a company being brought to trial on charges of workplace sexual harassment. It is a very important case for the firm. Taylor is brilliant, driven, a total professional who has never lost a case, and mapped out her career and climb to a partnership within two years. The other thing about Taylor Donovan is she loves her job, she thrives during the thrust and spar verbal dynamic of the courtroom. She also knows how to be diplomatic when the occasion warrants it, cool, calm and collected. The best way to describe Taylor? A weapon…
Taylor has a history of being jilted by her womanizing ex fiancée Daniel Lawry, who she finds in a, shall we say, compromising position with his 22 year old teaching assistant. She doesn’t wallow in self-pity at finding Daniel cheating on her. She calls off the impending nuptials, has drinks with her best friends. And, because there is, “no crying in baseball”, she picks herself up and moves on, her career being her total focus. When she comes home one evening to 2-dozen red roses from said ex fiancée I was worried that she would decide to call the jerk. However, Ms. James surprised me and when Taylor takes the flowers and does something very innovative with them, I LOVED her.
Jason Andrews is drop dead gorgeous and Hollywood’s biggest superstar, as in huge! He is beyond rich, has the world at his feet and is a known womanizer. Jason also has an ego the size of Mount Rushmore to go along with his good looks and fame. No one says no to Jason Andrews and he has an entourage who take care of his career down to the smallest detail.
Jason has a staring role in a courtroom drama that is about to begin shooting. As part of the preparation for the role it is decided he needs to spend time with a lawyer who is experienced in litigation. The senior partner at the Los Angeles law firm where Taylor works is contacted. When Taylor is called into the office of her superior and given the assignment of coaching Jason Andrews for his movie, she is nearly driven to a state of apoplexy. However, she realizes regardless of the fact that this is a critical time in preparing for the sexual harassment case she is defending, she has no choice but to acquiesce to her boss’ request. So an appointment is arranged and Taylor’s calendar is cleared for an entire day so she can “coach” the “Sexiest Man Alive”.
On the day that Jason Andrews is to attend the law office to meet with Taylor, the whole place is abuzz waiting his arrival, however he never shows. His assistant calls late in the day and states there was a mix up but he would be there the following day. Of course the following day he doesn’t show up either. By late afternoon Taylor packs up and heads out of the office, more than annoyed. Monday morning comes and she watches the news while getting ready for work and the entertainment piece comes on. Low and behold, there is a beautiful smiling Jason Andrews caught on camera during a junket to Los Vegas when he was supposed to have met with her. To say Taylor is frothing at the mouth would be an understatement. She heads to court ready to crack heads.
Ms. James was a lawyer and it is evident she knows how they think and present in the courtroom. As Taylor Donovan argues the case to the judge to prohibit some parts of testimony a reader is given a wonderful opportunity to watch her in action. The courtroom dialogue (although my knowledge is extremely limited) seems authentic and Taylor is amazing. I felt like I knew this character by page 30.
Unknown to her, his highness, himself, Jason Andrews slips into the courtroom and sits in the back while she is arguing their position. When the arguments are completed and the judge dismisses the lawyers, Jason approaches her. After he attempts to charm her and gets nowhere, “Mr. Andrews”, asks Taylor to show him something “lawerly”?
I along with Taylor had a great deal of difficulty liking Jason at the beginning of the book. While yes he was a drop dead gorgeous movie star, his arrogance was repugnant. However, our Taylor verbally annihilates Jason during their first meeting by putting him on the stand and through intense questioning has him admitting to his little foray to Vegas. It is brilliant!
When Taylor, turns on her heel and leaves Jason sitting on the stand by himself stunned he decides that she is a woman of interest, or at the very least a challenge. This is when things really get FUN!
Here is an example of the wonderful narrative and dialogue in, “Just the Sexiest Man Alive”. After Taylor leaves Jason in the courtroom, he calls his connection to her law firm who speaks to her boss who summarily orders her to make amends and coach his highness. Needless to say, Taylor is fit to be tied, she is not impressed with his fame or wealth, but mind you he is nice to look at. lol
“And so here she was five hours later, sitting in her car parked on some random street in West Hollywood. Taylor peered through her windshield to get a better look at the bar, and wondered what kind of name Reilly’s Tavern was for a hot celebrity hangout. She rechecked the address on the Post-it-note Linda had handed her to make sure she was at the right place.
Taylor tapped her fingers nervously on the steering wheel. The thought of crawling back to Jason Andrews was just so humiliating. It infuriated her that, due to his “status” (which she doubted was the product of little more than sheer looks and being in the right place at the right time), people automatically gave him such deference – that with one snap of his fingers, she was expected to smile politely and apologize to him.
Hopefully Jason Andrews knows the Heimlich, Taylor thought to herself. Because she most definitely was going to choke on her words.
Realizing she couldn’t sit in front of the bar all night, she got out of her car and strode briskly in her heels to the front door of Reilly’s tavern. A quick peek in the window told her that she’d been very wrong – the bar by no means was any sort of hot celebrity hangout.
As Taylor opened the door and stepped in, she felt as though she’d been transported back to the south side of Chicago, back to one of her father’s off-duty cop hangouts. Decked out in aging mahogany wood, Reilly’s Tavern was part sports bar, part Irish pub—complete with dartboards, pool tables, and two small televisions (both showing the same basketball game) mounted over the bar. The after-work crowd consisted almost entirely of middle-aged men, many still in their service or government uniforms.
Definitely the type of crowd who wouldn’t notice a celebrity in their bar, Taylor thought, and probably wouldn’t care even if they did. Maybe that was the point.
She stood hesitantly in the doorway, scanning the faces of the men seated at the bar, who in turn stared right back at her. Clearly, womenfolk didn’t often frequent this particular establishment. And just when Taylor thought she couldn’t possibly have felt more self-conscious, she heard a feigned loud gasp and a voice call out her name with delight.
“Ms. Donovan!”
She turned and saw Jason Andrews near a pool table in the back. He walked over to her, pretending to be shocked.
“Why, imagine seeing you here!”
At the sight of his smug, victorious look, Taylor staggered back a few steps and fell against the door. Oh god, she couldn’t do it.
Feeling a little woozy at the thought of continuing, she closed her eyes and silently said a few oms from her yoga class for serenity.
With his arms folded expectantly across his chest – he did indeed know what was coming—Jason’s grin grew wider as he watched Taylor’s reaction to his greeting. This girl seriously cracked him up. At the nauseated look on her face, he half expected her to turn around and walk right out the door without one further word.
But instead, she took a deep breath. Jason watched as she pulled herself up to what he guessed had to be no more than her full five-feet-five height and strode efficiently over.
“Don’t be coy, Mr. Andrews,” she said in that all-business tone of hers. “I know your assistant told you I was coming.”
Jason’s eyes widened innocently. At the way she’d walked over all snappy-heels, he couldn’t resist hamming it up.
“You were looking for me? Whatever can I do for you, Ms. Donovan?”
Taylor stood there, staring evilly at Jason as if she wanted nothing more right then than to grab him by his cashmere zip pullover and zip it right up to his eyebrows.
But then she took another deep breath.
“It seems I may have been a bit…hasty when I walked out of the courtroom the other day,” she told him. “My firm would very much like to work with you on your…little project.”
He ignored her not-so-subtle dig at his film. “And You?”
She responded matter-of-factly to this. “I’m willing to put my personal preferences on the matter aside.”
Jason gazed down at her. She really wasn’t affected by him at all.”
“Just the Sexiest Man Alive” © Julie James
LOL! And this story is full of scenes like this. IMHO, it is wonderful however I have to admit I enjoyed Taylor’s sarcastic wit and she ALWAYS gets the last word. And Jason, he cannot believe that this woman isn’t falling into bed with him.
As the story progresses and Taylor is forced to spend more time with Jason both come to respect one another. Jason’s character is laid bare with respect to the pressures of constantly being in the limelight and Taylor does take him down a few pegs. Jason is forced to take a look at his past relationships with women and realizes he doesn’t have a lot to be proud of. When he commits some genuine acts of kindness and a reader learns more about him through his close friend Jeremy I grew to like Jason. However, Taylor is unable to trust him enough to enter into a relationship and I had to empathize with Jason. His sense of frustration and loss was quite heartbreaking.
Ms. James also wrote a wonderful group of supporting characters into the story and gives us a glimpse inside the mechanization’s of Hollywood and how the next contender for the “Sexiest Man Alive”, is in the wings waiting to make their move.
The subplot of courtroom drama surrounding the sexual harassment case is interesting and the final scene dynamic.
I want to say more about the scene where Taylor and Jason finally do get together, because it is simply awesome! However I don’t want to spoil it for those of you who may choose to read this story. I will say when these two finally do make it to the bedroom it is a “fadeout” scene, but sexy nonetheless, and as with the rest of the story, fun and very well told!
As I was reading “Just the Sexiest Man Alive”, I felt as if I was watching Taylor and Jason’s story on a movie screen. It was that good.
Needless to say, this book has definitely found it’s way to my keeper shelf and I will read it again. I am currently enjoying “Practice Makes Perfect”, and hope to finish and review it soon.
Hi Lea!!
Awesome review! I have this in my TBR and I really need to pull it out and read it!!
Hey Blanche!
Wow, you are quick!! Thank you, this is an awesome, wonderful book. There is so much I wanted to say about it, I really didn’t know where to start.
However, I did the best I could!
Warmest Regards
L
Hi Lea!
I’ve been looking for this book since I watched Julie James interview on your blog. I was totally impressed with her sense of self. I thought anyone with that interview style was someone I want to read.
I was so impressed with your review. I loved everything about it, the way you presented it and introduced the personalities of the characters.
I’ll keep searching for her books, because I have a feeling they are a must have. (I hate to shop Amazon, but it’s probably available there).
Thanks for the great review!
Dottie
This sounds like a really fun book to read – I want to read it now! I had read some so-so reviews on it earlier, so I had decided to pass on it, but now after your review (which was great, btw) I want to def. read it!
Thanks for changing my mind!
Hey Lea,
This author nor book was ever on my radar, but i will most definately be harassing someone in a bookshop to get it this week.
I love your review and commentary on the book. The things that stand out for me are.
The verbal sparring – I love that in a book, especially when it comes with biting sarcasm.
The lack of graphic detail about their sexual activity is also a plus, i have been reading a lot of those lately – i find it a nice change to the onslaught of bare all erotica that's on the market.
I love the fact also that Taylor comes over as a strong woman and she didn't roll over and spread her legs when a cute guy winks at her.
A professional woman does it every time for me.
I also like the angtsy mix of a lawyer and a Hollywood star mixing it up.. I can see some heated argument there in their future, both at and on the dinner table..
Thanks for adding another book to my pile..
E.H>
Morning Lea,
I do know what you are talking about, been there done that. Why didn’t I start this book before! I wonder if I have any like that at home…
It sounds funny, I am so liking her
I had this book. I won it, but then figured another friend would like to read it, so I sent it to her, but I don’t think she’s read it either. She’s going to be at Lori Foster’s, I think I’ll have to pick it up.
So glad you enjoyed it!
Hi Lea!
I forgot to say Your Banner is Back!
I love your banner with your cute little puppy.
Dottie
Sounds like a good one Lea!
)
Good Morning / Afternoon Everyone!
Dottie:
I hope you find JTSMA! As you can tell, I sure enjoyed it and Ms. James impressed me too! If you cannnot find it let me know and I will certainly pick it up and send it to you!
Warm Regards
L
Hi Julie!
Thank you. This was a wonderful fun read for me and I am also enjoying Ms. James’ second novel. She has a wonderful voice.
If you do decide to read it I hope you enjoy the story too!
Warm Regards
L
Hi EH!
Thank you so much for your kind remarks. I agree, it is nice to read a fun contemp that is less graphic with respect to the erotica. I enjoy my erotic romances too, however this story was so wonderfully told and refreshing I just loved it!
Warm Regards
L
Amy!
I found this book to be a wonderful fast paced contemp. It was so much fun. I hope if you decide to read it you will like it too!
((hugs))
L
Hey Blodeuedd!
Oh I know, I look at my TBR and know that I have many other books that I will regret not having read sooner. However, one book at a time and it makes for great reading ahead!
Thanks for your comment!
Warm Regards
L
Hey Dottie1
Yes, I was experimenting with banners last week.. ::headdesk:: I should have stuck with the tried and true. However I tend to get bored quickly with these sorts of things! lol
Thanks!
L
Ms.M!
This was a good story! Nice to see you back visiting.
Warm Regards
L
Have a great day everyone!
This one really is a treasure isn’t it? So is her next one I’m happy to say. Not only is it a funny, warm, well-written book, it proved something else to me – I can really enjoy a book that doesn’t have sex scenes in them. Last year it was discovering that I could actually enjoy books written in first person – this year I think will be the year of ‘loving no sex books’ *g*
Hey Lea, I’m so glad you enjoyed this book. What I loved about it was how fun and smart and engaging it was. Just a wonderful, straight-up contemporary that focused on the couple for a change. Sure, it wasn’t a hot book, but the story was so good it wasn’t necessary. I will definitely be reading anything Julie writes
Hi Kristie!
I agree, this book was a treasure! I could hardly put it down. The Taylor and Jason’s story was heartwarming while smart and savvy.
I still like reading erotic romance too but this book was a pleasure and refreshing!
Best Regards
L
Hi Stacy!
You certainly didn’t steer me wrong with Julie James’ books. Excellent read. I am enjoying PMP too and hope to finish it tomorrow.
JTSMA was fun, I loved the dynamic between Taylor and Jason. I was actually sorry when I turned the last page.
Thanks for your comment!
Warm Regards
L
Hi Lea!
Um… sorry about your duvet. Oops.
Thank you so much for the wonderful review! I found myself laughing out loud through much of it. I loved when you called Jason out for his “repugnant” arrogance. He was such a fun character to write– a guy who *thinks* he has the entire world at his feet–everyone except one sassy lawyer from Chicago.
Interesting that you commented that you could see it as a film… JTSMA was originally written as a romantic comedy screenplay titled, “The Andrews Project.” The screenplay was optioned by a Hollywood production company but, unfortunately, never made. When the option expired, I turned the screenplay into a novel (my first). That, in part, was some of the reasoning behind the lack of descriptive sex– in a screenplay you don’t write love scenes in graphic detail, the director handles that– and I basically kept the novel very consistent in tone with the screenplay. So when Jason and Taylor finally do come together, I put the emphasis on the dialogue between them… glad it worked for you!
So thank you again for the lovely review– this just made my weekend! Ooh– and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you continue to enjoy PMP as well.
Best,
Julie
Great review, another one for me to check out!
There’s an award waiting for you at my place
http://teddyree-theeclecticreader.blogspot.com/2009/04/bookfriends-award.html
Good Morning Julie!
Thank you for your lovely comment!
I LOVED your book (but I guess that is pretty obvious – lol).
It is interesting that you wrote the story initially as a screenplay because I certainly had an excellent visual while reading the book. It was SO well written.
I also thought you wrote a perfect ending for “Jason and Taylor’s” story.
Practice Makes Perfect is awesome by the way!
Warm Regards
L
Teddyree:
Wow! Thank you so much, this is so kind of you.
I’ve been a bit behind lately in my blog visiting and I think I may have missed a couple of your posts. I’ll visit right away!
Just th Sexiest Man Alive is a wonderful story IMHO, and worth the time to read.
Best Regards
L
Wasn’t this great? And you’re already on the next! I need to get PMP.
Oh, you’re so right about the secondary characters. They were great, weren’t they?
Fantastic Review Lea! You certainly got a way with words girl!!
I recently bought this novel too because of the recent hype of James’ new release. When I read the excerpt on her site I wanted to kick myself for not picking the darn thing up sooner!
I can’t wait to take time read this novel. Thanks for the appetizer.
Hi Carolyn!
Thank you for your comment.
The secondary characters were excellent! I loved Jeremy, “Jason’s” stabilizer really.
And the “contender” for “The Sexiest Man Alive”, – what a pissant as “Jason”, liked to call him! Man – I loved it! lol
So much fun.
L
Thanks VFG!
This was a damn good book and when you are hyped after reading a novel I think it is easier to put your all into a review.
I hope you enjoy it too.
Warm Regards
L
Lea, now that I've read the book (which I loved!) I've come back to read your review and all the comments – very enlightening from Ms. James about it orgininally optioned as a screenplay, and your review is tops and well detailed without giving too much away! You're great at this! Thanks!