One Good Reason

4.5 stars to One Good Reason!

‘His is a changeable, mercurial existence — flying on wind currents, skimming over waves. He, down to a molecular level, challenges everything about the person I’ve worked to become and the values I’ve tried to instill. I’m careful. Cautious. Methodical. He’s bold. Brash. Free. It’s anathema. It’s addicting.’

“There’s this thrill I get, when I go on an adventure. Climb a peak, explore a city, set down wheels on a dirt runway in a place I’ve never been before. I’ve spent my whole life chasing that feeling.” He pauses. “You’re the first per person I’ve ever met who makes me feel that rush while I’m standing still….”

A book that bustles with attitude, personality and a legion of wit. One Good Reason easily, easily makes it into my chart-topper reads for 2021.
life-hardened Zoe Bloom, known to the rest of the world as ‘Clover’ the nimble-fingered phantom of the dark web, is a cloaked connoisseur of code, a self-appointed vigilante who cleanses the rotten sinners from Boston’s dubious scenery one reprobate at a time. She’s an indivisible part of the city that made her, stole from her, hurt her, etched into her, chiselled any delicacy away and pushed her to the periphery of an outsider’s life.

That time of year has arrived like clockwork. A cheerful time of festivity, jingle bells and holly wreaths is the anniversary of a recurring massacre. On a frosted night of celebration and fear, her life lost all light. It was the beginning of the end, the dawn of her undoing. A day that was an ending to her happy years as much as it became the death of many beginnings; a day she never quite recovered from. Zoe Bloom may be a programming genius, but behind the unhesitating bite, swift keystrokes and acts of questionable legality is a woman whose veins are pooling with pain.

A misfit, a solitaire, an unadventurous loner who feels more than she cares to admit and hurts more than she tends to confess. For so many years, it was just her and best friend, underground fighting champ, Luca ‘Blaze’ Buchanan, against the world. But this cautious and self-denying woman of ice is about to find out what it’s like to let go, withdraw from the safe zone of loneliness, recede those ward-off hackles and make with the heady heat of a man made just for her.

Enter money man, Parker West, recent inheritor and CEO of West Tech. The absolute opposite to snarky, cynical Zoe, he’s an uncontrolled chatterbox with an untroubled, mirthful voice to match. Free and easy, he wanders like the world is his oyster because for persistent Parker, life is made to bend in his favour. So how does he tell Zoe that hostility really is fruitless when he’s not letting go?

Zoe doesn’t get distracted by fat pockets, worship-worthy good looks or words made to strip down even the strongest woman, and while Parker’s fast-tracking levity is as pesky as the man who never settles down and sails lands like a modern day pirate with all the loot he’ll ever need, she’s just landed herself in a porthole of trouble…because how can a privileged pretty boy shake the unshakeable Zoe Bloom?

Third-in-series, One Good Reason is one of those top-shelf reads that irresistibly bundles the best of a moreish romantic comedy. A macho man collective, an atmospheric set of side characters, an alpha best friend, a devil-may-care heartthrob that’ll claim your love, laughter and devotion, an irresistible heroine who typifies a wolf at a tea party, a carnival of unrestrained wit, attitude and a charisma that made me sit up and take notice. This book has such an infectious energy that to not feel its touch would be like bypassing the sun’s rays in the thick of summer. This book didn’t have to make a play for me because It already had me for keeps from the baseline.

I had prescribed myself the therapy of light reading after shaking off the intensity of my last romance read. With this book, the smiles were unreserved, the snickers were forthcoming, the engagement was unfailing, the love was unfettered but the storytelling was an inspiriting style of charm offensive that delighted like a well-spoken bad boy with depth.

The writing is a feel-good mix of energy, zest and suspense with a meaningful subtext that excellently pulls Zoe’s story to the surface. It just has an identity that sits in relief and lends itself to a story I can only call feast-worthy. I felt pinpricks of guilt that I hadn’t read a word from Julie Johnson pre-2021. I’m glad I amended that unsightly misdemeanour.

My favourite feature of a romance is bearing witness to the compatibility of two people, how they ride from two separate singletons to a two-team package. The thrill of anticipating how they’ll then piece themselves into each others’ lives is so rewarding. Knowing that though they’ll get a promised future with blinds open and blinders abandoned, they can take any course to get there. Zoe and Parker cast a great pairing: an uninhibited Boston heartthrob and and Boston native with a life sentence lived behind a screen.

The best of us can fall for a tempting hero, but how many times can you say you’ve reveled in those girl crushes in between your book boyfriend cravings? Because I’d take hard-boiled Zoe with a slice of toast on any given morning. My sway toward one protagonist is sometimes greater than the other, but Zoe is the woman who heralds the swoon factor. Don’t take notice of her hero misclaims because she might act the antisocial bad girl, but she’s still a girl that believes in a better life. Prickly, pained and peevish, she won me without effort ever before she cared for adventure.

And Parker? His charm is enough to laugh you into his fantasy and the emotional intimacy is enough to cement his substance in this story and in Zoe’s remote life. He provided a big dose of this book’s witty temper, a blitheness that glows enough to cut through the taught tension of Zoe’s defense. He’s the lightheartedness to Zoe’s drowning heart…good thing he’s a Sailor. Their verbal offense/defense elevates the comedy factor – Zoe’s curmudgeony, on-guard resistance and Parker’s off-guard destabilisng raillery perfectly foreplays their romance as much as it enlivens the ambience of this book.

Aside from the brought-to-life personality of this book, it’s Zoe the obstinate, combative firecracker that stole the show. I really cared for her. Her characterisation and development pulled me in single-focus. As did her lack of hope, resignation and ability to later ‘leap before she looked’. Zoe’s foreground arc and backdrop pain loans this opposites attract rom com a sizeable heart. One of my favourite tropes is the ‘loner wolf finding a family’ – there’s something about finding your people in what feels like a lonely world that moves like the warming of stiff joints. Unification, partnership and togetherness gives rise to human need and acceptance. One Good Reason is a great interpretation of that.

Forced to move to Boston, incautious Parker awaits the day he can sail off into the land of never, to live a moment on a one man whim. He didn’t expect to catch the scent of the best adventure yet, ready to drop anchor and dock his boat on the shores of a misanthropic island. Parker ruptures a loner’s denial of intimacy arguably better than Zoe can expertly breach any wall of code.

Being alone stops being the safety it was and all walls can be weathered down by persuasion and an undivided acceptance that life is not a series of dead ends. To have a taste of a life unguarded is a chance to change the habit of a lifetime for a woman who believes she’s too unalike, too irredeemable to make peace with a different life. My bookish blues became a thing of the past when I started One Good Reason. While this book contains a storm of contagious laughter, even though the mirth catches like a wave, you’ll care for the message beneath the comedy factor.

Zoe and Parker are the pipe dream that sailed through the high seas of my heart. This opposites attract romance ticks all the boxes and signs its name with a flourish. I was roped into a tempest of fun, fear, family, suspense and insight through Zoe’s leery lens with One Good Reason, but I could wholeheartedly supply more than just one good reason for readers to have this on their to-reads list. I can give you ransom’s worth.

Needed or not, this book has my fresh and firm mark of approval. With fantastic writing and personalised characters, I have no qualms in my mind why the Boston Love Story series has earned bestseller status. Julie Johnson brilliantly voices a great sense of humour, a rise for adventure, a fall for unease, romance and rapport while suspense, conspiracy and a bit of espionage line a story fit to harbour your affection and dock your devotion. I’d never kick myself for arriving it late to a soiree, but seeing as I am fashionably late to this series, I really hope this review speaks for itself. A must read choice for every romance reader.
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C O N T E N T _ W A R N I N G: Mentions a past attempted rape, implications of sexual assault and child abuse. Mentions depression and sexual harassment. Sex scenes aren’t explicit (some are are fade-to-black). Mentions drugs/drug addiction and you’ll find lots of profanity between the pages.

A modern take on Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Parker and Zoe make a cute couple, with witty banter and some sizzling scenes.

Great read!