About That Kiss by Jill Shalvis
Contemporary romance released by Avon on January 23, 2018

When love drives you crazy . . .
When sexy Joe Malone never calls after their explosive kiss, Kylie shoves him out of her mind. Until she needs a favor, and it’s a doozy. Something precious to her has been stolen and there’s only one person with unique finder-and-fixer skills that can help—Joe. It means swallowing her pride and somehow trying to avoid the temptation to throttle him—or seduce him.

the best thing to do . . .
No, Joe didn’t call after the kiss. He’s the fun time guy, not the forever guy. And Kylie, after all she’s been through, deserves a good man who will stay. But everything about Kylie makes it damned hard to focus, and though his brain knows what he has to do, his heart isn’t getting the memo.

… is enjoy the ride.
As Kylie and Joe go on the scavenger hunt of their lives, they discover surprising things about each other. Now, the best way for them to get over “that kiss” might just be to replace it with a hundred more.

So, I went into this blind – I’d heard of Jill Shalvis, but I’d never read any of her books before, and while overall it was a good read I was left rather wanting.

I was really pleased that Kylie worked with wood, and initially seemed to walk her own path. As the granddaughter of a master woodworker herself I liked that she carried on the family traditions, and had a cavalier attitude to her appearance . She’d been crushing on Gib for a long time, and he while they were friends and co -workers (actually he’s her boss) he didn’t appear to take an interest until she shared a kiss with Joe.  Kylie vacillated a bit, she had huge chemistry with Joe, but an emotional attachment to Gib, and Joe, while very attractive was quite clear that he wasn’t about a relationship.  I got a little frustrated with her at times, and I did want her to be more in charge at the beginning, but by the midpoint of the book I really liked Kylie.

At first I felt that Joe was so practically perfect, his one flaw was not wanting to commit, but he was nurturing, caring, intelligent, self aware – did I mention nurturing ? He was so nice I couldn’t actually connect with him most of the time. I know this seems odd, but I think that people need flaws to be interesting, and not wanting to commit, especially because of something that’s happened to you in the past isn’t enough. He was also physically perfect. However he did start to emerge more strongly as he and Kylie went after someone who had stolen one of her grandfathers carvings, but for me it was a little too late, and I didn’t manage to connect with him as a character.

Other than the romance Kylie and Joe are involved in finding out who stole a penguin carving that Kylie’s grandfather made, and parts of this were very funny, and tense. This is of course what forces Joe to confront his issues and concludes the book.

Since reading this I’ve seen that Jill Shalvis is a successful and well liked author, and despite my reservations , the writing is crisp and clear and the plot is concise.

Overall I enjoyed reading this, but I wanted a little more substance.

Grade: C

You can read an excerpt here or buy a copy here.