REVIEW: Unwrapping Her Perfect Match by Kat Latham
’Twas a week before Christmas, and at the auction house…
At six foot one, Gwen Chambers has felt like a giant her whole life. She’s a calm, capable nurse saving lives in a busy London hospital, but healthy men give her heart palpitations. When larger-than-life rugby player “Little” John Sheldon convinces her to bid on him in his team’s fundraising auction, she discovers how pleasurable heart palpitations can be.
A rugby player was stirring, with desire no one could douse…
John has wanted Gwen since he first saw her, but when he’s injured in a match just before Christmas he suddenly needs her too. Not only can the sexy nurse help him recover, but she might be able to help him look after his daughter—a shy ten-year-old who speaks only French.
But will it be a Happy Christmas for all, and for all a good night?
From decorating the Christmas tree to ice skating at the Tower of London, Gwen helps father and daughter open up and bond with each other—and she bonds right along with them. But when John’s agent calls with a life-changing offer, Gwen has to decide how far she’s willing to go for her perfect match. Will their first Noël also be their last?
Dear Ms. Latham,
I’ve been waiting for lightning to strike me again with a Legends player story and it looks like it has. After seeing a bit of John in the most recent book “Tempting the Player,” I definitely wanted his story and he’s a perfect match for Gwen, sister of Tess from “Playing it Close.”
The story is funny, warm, engaging and left me smiling when it was finished. I love that Gwen has a career that she loves and excels at too. This is one of the big strengths of your books for me – the heroines aren’t just playing at what they do for a living, it means as much to them as the men’s rugby careers and the men know this as well. After some discussion here a while ago about matching hero and heroine heights, it’s wonderful to see almost 7 foot John meet up with someone who won’t cause him back trouble to kiss her and for 6+ feet Gwen to get to feel dainty around a man.
Their meeting is fun and I adored how John throws himself into the evening Gwen and Tess had originally planned for themselves. Gotta love a man who’ll go crafting but who was also willing to do anything Gwen had asked.
“I’m not running away, Gwen. Even if we end up at a male strip club.”
She coughed. “Um, excuse me?”
“I saw Tess today. She kept looking at me and laughing her arse off. So I’m making guesses here about what we’re doing.”
“Not that. Ever.”
“Just saying—I can scream ‘Take it off!’ with the best of them.”Weirdly, she could picture that. He seemed like the kind of bloke who could make anything fun and was dedicated to making sure others around him had fun too.
When the first bit of conflict reared its ugly head, there was a break in the romance action but – surprise and delight – these two talk about it fairly quickly during their next meeting which shows Gwen at her competent best. What better way for a casualty nurse to encounter a rugby player than a sports injury.
After the events of the last book, I did cringe a little to see the amount of exercise John and Gwen get up to – not all sexual, thank God – but at least a lot of care was taken to ensure that John had someone with him over the 48 hours past his injury and a trained medical person at that. I’ve seen much worse with head injury plotlines.
With novella page limits ticking, getting these two together this way for this much intense time together was brilliant. I wasn’t sure how introducing John’s ten year old, French speaking daughter would work in the story but it’s wonderful too. Seeing him work so hard to be a good dad and how much he cares for his little girl is fantastic. I hoped that Gwen might give Agnes pointers on how to manage the height she’ll obviously grow into but perhaps that will come later.
The way the story is written, I could feel these two “click” almost as much as they did. Things are humming along when conflict part deux appears which is, again, natural and serves to move the story and romance along. It didn’t feel tacked on or phony for plot purposes only. Gwen’s reaction is great too as by now she’s got more confidence in herself and their relationship to demand her due and not settle for being a WAG.
John’s response and the resolution was a bit fast but there wasn’t much time to let this slowly play out and given how immediate their romance and relationship felt to me by then, I could accept it. Though I was glad to see them wait a while before finalizing things just to be sure. This is one special novella that I’m glad I plunked down the money for. B+
~Jayne
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omg the typo in the headline — I was expecting an entirely different kind of story!
Great review! I found the book on Scribd and I’m reading it already. I’m 41% in and loving it. :)
@hapax:
It does add a certain expectation, doesn’t it?
The fact the hero of the second book and the heroine in this novella did not take the hero’s head injury more seriously threw me out of the story multiple times. The heroine said the right things, but then her actions conveyed a different story. After the events in Tempting the Player it struck me as really odd. Maybe if I hadn’t read the stories back-to-back I would not have had such a negative reaction.
I liked the characters. I liked their romance as well, though it was rushed even for a novella. I was glad the major issues were tied up in the epilogue.
@hapax: @LeeF: Ack! LOL, that is a funny typo, isn’t it?
@library addict: I noted your comment from “Tempting the Player” and was focused on this aspect when I read the novella. Yes, I agree that probably in real life more care should have been taken of his injury but in “romance head injuries” world, I thought Latham did a much better job of it than most writers would.
Ditto about waiting until the epilogue to finalize issues in their lives.
@Jayne: Yeah. It wouldn’t have bothered me as much (if at all) if the events hadn’t unfolded the way they did in the previous book. But that situation really affected me and so to have the characters in this novella treat this situation the way they did when for them the events would have been fairly recent just struck me as wrong. If the novella had been set before and released before Tempting the Player I probably wouldn’t have batted an eye.
You had me at “they talk to each other fairly quickly”. Sold.