Book Review: Not You It's Me by Julie Johnson

Not You It's Me is the first book in the Boston Love Story series by Julie Johnson. I read the third book in the series, One Good Reason, and loved the characters and writing style enough to go back and buy the first two books as well. 

Gemma Summers is unlucky in love. She’s known it since third grade, when her first crush blew a spitball into her hair, and a decade-long string of bad dates, boring sex, and abysmal morning-afters has done nothing to improve her prospects.  ut when a random radio call-in contest lands her courtside tickets to the hottest playoff game of the season, Gemma’s luck may finally be on the upswing even if it doesn’t exactly seem like it when the dreaded jumbotron kiss-cam lands on her and her date, who’s too busy ignoring her to notice. Chase Croft doesn’t date. Despite ample opportunity as Boston’s most eligible bachelor, the reformed bad-boy would rather put his energy into taking over the family business than weed through a world of gold-diggers to find an honest woman. But when the beautiful girl in the seat next to him becomes a courtside spectacle at the hands of her loser boyfriend, he can’t help but step in and save the day. The problem is that after kissing Gemma once, he knows he wants more.

Not You It's Me is a contemporary romance with flawed characters. I like that both Gemma and Chase have issues that they need to deal with and plenty of problems to sort out between them. Too often we see characters with manufactured issues, or problems created either by outside sources or lack of communication. Gemma and Chase have some of that going on, but they also have family and personal issues to work on, and a great group of characters surrounding them. I really appreciate the complex and highly entertaining secondary characters, and that the main players force themselves and each other to face their issues. The danger and suspense portion of the romance is well handles, and kept me turning pages well after I should have stopped to go to bed. What really sold me was the humor and moments when characters laugh at themselves. Great characters are what keep me reading, and looking forward to more from an author.

Not You It's Me is a hot and steamy romance with plenty of suspense. A great read to escape with and enjoy.