Two exceptional, ambitious, but very different, lawyers are assigned to work on the same case. Whichever one most distinguishes herself will get the only available partnership place.
As they work to defend one of their firm’s most valuable clients from a murder charge, they face a different and unexpected problem: the growing attraction between them.
This book is billed as romance, but it’s at least as fair to describe it as a thriller with a strong romantic sub-plot. It’s more complicated than the standard romance set-up of “a & b meet, fall for each other, quarrel, reconcile”, in which often the specifics of the main couple’s lives and careers are just window dressing. Does it really matter how that elusive tycoon made his money, as long as he has money and a brooding glare? In Love’s Verdict, the specifics of the case and its resolution are a key aspect of the book, often taking focus away from the romance.
To be honest, I think that’s a good thing. The book isn’t trying to sizzle, and so it builds up a more complex and interesting relationship between the protagonists – you understand why they like each other, and you can see a closer connection than plot-critical attraction. Back stories and social lives become the focus, which establishes the characters as more than cardboard cut-outs.
The legal bit has all the jargon and the high-poweredness that such things should. You can see where the case is going from relatively early on, which is not a not a bad thing – it means the plot is well-constructed enough that the clues are there, rather than the finale coming out of nowhere. In a couple of places, there were details that I thought were going to be red herrings but ended up not being expanded on at all, which was slightly odd, although that may be on me, not the author.
Overall, I felt this book managed to do two things – romance and legal thriller – rather well, blending the separate strands and creating a convincing and deep relationship between the main characters. It’s a quick read and everything ends up as it should.
I received a copy of this through Netgalley.com. I don’t believe this has harmed the impartiality of my review.
Inconsistent Pacing 