Rock Hard by Nalini Singh

Wealthy businessman Gabriel Bishop rules the boardroom with the same determination and ruthlessness that made him a rock star on the rugby field. He knows what he wants, and he’ll go after it no-holds-barred.

And what he wants is Charlotte Baird.

Charlotte knows she’s a mouse. Emotionally scarred and painfully shy, she just wants to do her job and remain as invisible as possible. But the new CEO—a brilliant, broad-shouldered T-Rex of a man who growls and storms through the office, leaving carnage in his wake—clearly has other plans. Plans that may be equal parts business and bedroom.

If Charlotte intends to survive this battle of wits and hearts, the mouse will have to learn to wrangle the T-Rex. Game on.

Review

Despite the horror that is contained in Charlotte's past, this book is mostly light hearted fun with just enough pathos and tenderness from Gabriel to make it a compassionate and sexy read as well.

I have enjoyed this series and this book is no different.  I enjoyed rugby, the throw back theme of the big boss and the mouse who is wicked smart, and New Zealand.

The romance and plot aren't surprising but Singh is a great writer and these are wonderful characters. A comfort read. 

I was given this book for my honest review. So, there you have it! 

I won this in a BookLikes giveaway held by the author.

This short story takes place in England in 1816. Clytemnestra, nicknamed Clytie, used to enjoy going out and meeting people. Then something happened, and she became fearful and nervous around others and often resisted leaving her room. Her behavior threatened to have an effect on her family's standing and her brother's relationship with his fiancee, Isabel. Only Samuel, a doctor and a cousin of Isabel's, seemed to know what to do. He promised that he could help Clytie become more like her old self. What he didn't count on was that his feelings of sympathy and compassion might blossom into love.

I had seen Clytie's Caller in the Smashwords store but ultimately decided against buying it. The heroine's name didn't appeal to me, and I was doubtful that 6,270 words would be enough for a believable romance. When the story popped up as a giveaway, I decided it was at least worth trying for free.

Unfortunately, my concerns about the short length turned out to be justified. Twenty-two pages (on my Nook) were not enough to believably pair up two people who did not previously know each other, one of whom had PTSD. And by “pair up” I mean there is an actual marriage proposal by the end of the story.

All in all, I felt this was a very bland story. The source of Clytie's “battle fatigue” wasn't hard to guess at, and I didn't find either Samuel or Clytie to be very interesting. While I understood that some artistic license was necessary in order to bring Clytie and Samuel together, Samuel's quick understanding of Clytie's condition and the techniques required to help her strained my suspension of disbelief. He was practically psychic about it – all it took was one look, and he instantly knew that she was going through the same thing he'd seen before in soldiers he'd treated.

Some readers may like that Clytie isn't magically cured by the end of the story and even experiences some backsliding. While I applaud this, I didn't think it worked well at all in such a short romantic story.

Additional Comments:

I counted five typos and might have overlooked more. It was little stuff – a name that wasn't capitalized, a misspelling that should have been caught by spellcheck, a missing closing quotation mark, and a couple punctuation mistakes. Still, more than I expected to see in a work this short.

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)