I like to think of myself as a man of pleasure…I enjoy a good pint of ale, being in the arms of a beautiful woman, and living by my own rules. The only thing I try to avoid? Commitment. And I’ve got a three-year success rate to prove it. I wasn’t planning on Grace-the beautiful, funny, totally off-limits massage therapist who keeps popping up in my life. She’s on a six-month mission to rid her … mission to rid her life of toxins. No alcohol. No red meat. And, yeah, no men. I’m talking full-on man cleanse.
I know I should walk away, but I can’t…and the only way to keep her in my life is to live by her rules. I’ll need to prove to a woman who’s lost all trust in men that I’m worthy of her love. And do it all without so much as a single kiss.
The only problem? If I win, I’ll lose the one thing I swore I’d never give up. My heart.
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Worth the Wait is one of those slow burn kind of books, but it’s well worth the wait to get to the good stuff, because honestly, the whole story is the good stuff. Grace and Jeremy are so sweet, and funny, and sexy together. They meet when Jeremy is booked as one of her last minute replacement appointments for a massage in his Madison, Wisconsin hotel. Even before Grace officially meets Jeremy, she’s aware of how hot he is. Kaylee, the spa receptionist, took great glee in telling her. But, she’s unprepared for the reaction she has to him. For one, he’s a ginger, a Michael Fassbender circa 2005 kind of ginger. Yeah, who can resist a Fassy look alike? Not me, and certainly not Grace, or at least her wayward body.
But, despite her body’s traitorous response to Jeremy’s Fassy looks and his charming flirting, Grace keeps herself in check because she’s on a cleanse, not just a body cleanse, but a man cleanse. That’s right, a man cleanse. She is following the tenets of a book called Man Cleanse: Six Months to a Healthy, Happy You…and the Road to True Love by Suzanne Summerville. It sounds hippy dippy to Jeremy (and to me, quite frankly), but Grace is quite serious about it, for heartbreakingly serious reasons. I applaud her steadfastness to the cleanse, and for the reasons she applies herself. She’s a strong, tough woman, our Grace is, and all the more appealing for it. And Jeremy thinks so, too. He hasn’t had a reaction like this to a woman in a long time, if ever, and it’s not just because of her beauty. It’s because of her: her sweetness, her earnestness, just her. He hasn’t had this kind of reaction, and he’s determined to do something about it until he realizes he’ll probably never see her again after the massage.
When they keep running into each other and find themselves drawn to each other, they decide to be just friends, as that’s all Grace can manage while she’s on her cleanse. When Jeremy’s obnoxious, weather girl ex, Whitney, runs into Jeremy and Grace while they’re on a friend date, and she sees the book Grace is following, an idea is born for Grace to follow the cleanse all while airing it on Facebook, and on camera, and if she can keep to the cleanse and have her first kiss with someone post cleanse on air, then Grace will receive $25k and Whitney’s show will receive high ratings. Yeah, it may have sounded like a good idea on paper, but I just knew it was going to implode somehow. I was on the edge of my seat while reading, trying to decide if they would give into their obvious sexual tension before her cleanse was done. Their burgeoning relationship, fraught with sexual tension, and the beginnings of a real, sweet friendship are the things of fairy tale, but a modern fairy tale with a realistic bent. Because there’s no doubt that Grace and Jeremy are real characters, not billionaires, not virgins, not helpless anythings, but with real emotions and insecurities and perceived failings. That’s what I love so much about Worth the Wait – it all feels real, not contrived in any way. Even the secondary characters: Jamie, Brynn, Holly, Will, Annie, Wes, Mrs. Abelli, and even Whitney are the kind of people we all know at least one of. Normal, every day people that we like, we might hate, we might even love.
If slow burn romances are your thing, I highly recommend you check out Worth the Wait. It is part of a series, but completely a standalone. I haven’t read any of the other books and I wasn’t lost or feeling out of the loop in any part of Worth the Wait. I am, however, now planning on reading the entire series because I love Worth the Wait so much!