Office Player

This is a rerelease of the author’s first novel. One of the many things about this author is that she balances the psychology of her characters in the romance and the plotline. This book starts with a dark plot of a woman torn between two men – her boss and his boss and father. The father has propositioned her in a way that makes her feel her job is threatened. She stops at the bar in the office building and has a bit too much to drink as she considers the implications of the proposition. The son, on whom she has a bit of a crush, is known as a player, but she lets him take her home. To tell much more would be a bit of a spoiler alert, so suffice to say, the son is angry with the father, the father takes his anger out on the woman, there is a big brouhaha. The whole scene is resolved at the end of the book. Eden Summers does a grand job of examining character’s psychology.

Received an ARC copy for an honest review.
This book is different from Edens usual books, it’s a much more light hearted story, but equally as enjoyable read. A great read for an afternoon or evening as its only a couple of hours long.
Beth and Dean are very attracted to each other but as Beth works for Dean and his father she doesn’t want to act on the attraction, and also Dean is known to have a revolving bedroom door and as she doesn’t want to be another notch on his bedpost.
A stolen kiss from Dean and a proposition from his father and Beth’s life completely changes.

A fun, fast paced and wonderfully written story that I’d highly recommend reading.

I discovered Eden Summers through her Vault of Sin books, which are massively steamy and a little bit kinky, but despite this being a very different style it still had it’s own strengths and appeal. Office Player has a very light feel to it, it’s a fun read but still one that is well written, entertaining and with a hero and heroine I could get behind.

Beth is almost a control freak of a determined-to-have-it-all-together heroine, but she also felt a very genuine and believable character. Dean is a total player who has secretly been pining for Beth ever since a stolen kiss nearly a year before. Even if it was perhaps a tad far-fetched, I loved how he had fumbled around trying to let Beth know how interested he was in her but had totally missed the mark.

The book is written dual POV, which really helped us to see Dean’s vulnerable side. Whilst I would class this as an instalove story (which usually I don’t care for), it did work for me in this respect because Dean and Beth had worked together for years. Their chemistry was good and I really did feel their emotions.

It’s a fairly short novel (just over a 2 hour read) and I would have liked a little more background on the characters. We got a bit on Dean, though not why he worked with/for a father he hated so much, and not really anything on Beth. However whilst these would have further enhanced my enjoyment they certainly weren’t vital to the story.

The writing style is very easy to read, flowing nicely and with very natural dialogue. The pace was good and the story held my attention from start to finish. I really liked both characters and loved the unusual way they reached their HEA.

Office Player was an enjoyable book. Beth and Dean are coworkers who are somewhat friends that end up turning into more.

Dean has had feelings for Beth for a long time. The one time he acted on them, she ended up regretting it and he’s had to work hard to get back to the somewhat friends relationship they had before.

Beth has always been attracted to Dean but his reputation as a player has always held her back. She doesn’t want to just be a one night stand so she holds herself back. When a situation at work comes up, her actions lead to her giving into her feelings for Dean. Now she just needs to decide if she can honestly trust him when he tells her how he feels.

This was a cute book with the main conflicts being internal with both Dean and Beth as well as just between them. It was an easy and enjoyable read. I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

Office Player is a fast-paced story, and witty and angst filled.
It’s a bit different romance story than I’m used to, from this author. But I liked it.
It’s a cute and swoonworthy romance.
It’s great written, and I thought the characters was well developed!

OFFICE PLAYER is a re-release of Eden Summers‘ title CONCEALED DESIRE and one of her earlier books and with that also one of the very few ones I hadn’t read yet. Ms. Summers has become a must-read author for me. Her stories, her characters, and the magnitude of emotions I always feel… it all makes her books an incredible escape from reality. If you know the kind of stories this author delivers now, you can feel that this is one of her earlier works, as it has a bit less depth than we are used to. Nevertheless, I still thoroughly enjoyed Dean and Beth’s journey.

Office romance meets second chance – kind of. Steamy, sexy and sizzling hot. The tension between Dean, a textbook example of a player, all tall, handsome, unbelievably rich and the son in Sutherland & Son, and Beth, employee of Sutherland & Son, is off the charts. They have admired each other from afar for far too long and their determination to stay away because it’s plain wrong is just about to fly out of the window. With all that pent-up tension and frustration you know it’s going to be explosive when it finally happens…

So, yeah, this story is insanely hot, but it also comes with a good portion of heartbreak and tons of sexy and witty banter. I’m not going to mention the stupid things both of them do, because, gaah! But I guess that only makes them human and more relatable.

A sweet and sexy love story told in dual POV that will brighten your day.

Talk about a steamy office romance!

I loved reading Dean. As advertised, he was certainly a player; no woman got more than one night, period. But he and Beth had sort of a backstory, which I thought was an excellent touch to add. I enjoyed reading how he changed throughout the book, and I especially liked his sense of humor at the final scene and epilogue.

The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was how Beth stuck her head in the sand at a key point in the story (I won’t spoil anything by being more specific than that). While I understand the need to create suspense and clonflict in the story, I felt her behavior was sort of unrealistic and, to me, frustrating.

This was a “remaster” the first book Eden had ever written, and her books certainly have only gotten better! I absolutely love love LOVE her books and can’t wait to read what she writes next!

(I received a copy of this book in consideration of my honest thoughts)

She isn’t willing to give the office player a real chance and he never expected his reputation to come back to bite him. A few drinks causes her guard to go down temporarily. If she would have just talked to him, there would be much less angst. Good read!

Misunderstandings and crazy circumstances drive Dean and Beth together and apart.
I love this storyline. It’s well written and so in-depth with the characters.
Beth gets propositioned by her boss, her very old boss. Trying to drown out the words, she ends up drunk with the boss’s son taking her home.
It’s full of drama with every chapter that makes you want to shake the characters to get their act together!

Beth gets the shock of her life but as I read I see she has more than one. Dean Sutherland is trying really hard to be a gentleman. As I get to see some of his previous “antics”, you have to wonder if he’s just running true to form. No disrespect but his dad is a real jerk. Maybe I’m crazy but I love it when an author creates a character that you have no other choice but to hate.

He’s pivotal to what happens between Beth and Dean – good or bad. But Dean also has a hand in how this story goes. Is he a man who is always going to follow the same pattern or has he found a woman that will put a period to the end of that? You have to feel sorry for Beth because she seems to be put into the middle of something that she has no control over. And you see her struggle, which the author does a great job with. Our author makes everything so plausible and Beth’s reactions are ones that if we were in her place we might make the same choices. You have to keep reading because you want to know that Beth is going to be no matter what her choice may be.

Reactions are almost front and center here. We have Beth’s reactions to Dean. Beth’s reactions to his father. And her reactions to misunderstandings. She has a great friend, Angela, who’s there when she needs someone the most – thankfully. Then we have Dean’s reactions to his father. His reactions to his past mistakes. And the hard time he has correcting those mistakes. I’m glad that the author left any sense of redemption to the end because it helped me turn that page to see how things were going to come out for Beth. But even after the story ended, I had that feeling of how these two would be over time – something I may just have to fill in myself.

I was not compensated nor was I required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.