Title:  Taking The Score
Series:  Tall, Dark and Texan #2
Author:  Kate Meader
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
Published:  February 15, 2016
Publisher:  Entangled Publishing – Brazen
My Rating:  3 stars
Source:  NetGalley
Cover Description:

His office temptation is now his full-blown fantasy…

Paying down her sister’s debts has left Emma Strickland with little more than the thrift store suit on her back. And as if the suckfest couldn’t get worse, she’s forced to moonlight as a waitress to support herself and her cat. At a strip club. Her uptight, sexy-as-hell boss Brody Kane can never find out.

Texas property tycoon Brody Kane hired Emma for her spreadsheet skills, but her prim and proper demeanor sealed the deal. There’s no room in his life for a sexy distraction … and yet, he can’t stop lusting after the delicious Ms. Strickland. And then he takes an important client to a Chicago strip club and gets the worst lap dance in adult entertainment history. From Emma.

Now that he knows his office good girl has a naughty streak, Brody makes it his mission to uncover her secrets, one steamy, illicit, over-the-desk encounter at a time. But Emma is hiding more than her side job, and her final secret could end up destroying them both.

Read on for my thoughts on Taking The Score.  No true spoilers, promise.

Taking The Score is a good, basic story.  Beautiful woman who is desperately trying to pay back her sister’s debts from her drug addiction, works for rich, sexy guy but hides herself behind over sized clothing and general bland, frumpy looks.  By day she’s a personal assistant to Brody, by night she works tables, and occasionally more at a strip club run by an unsavory character..

Emma never expected her two worlds to meet… until they did.

This story is light, steamy and somewhat predictable… but it’s still a good story.  And I’m certain that many readers will enjoy Emma and Brody’s banter and sexiness.  For me, personally, the brand of sexy, dirty talk that the characters used was simply a turn off for me.  I didn’t find the way they talked sexy, I found it rather silly.  And that affected how I related to these two – I couldn’t take them seriously enough to believe in them, their story or their love for each other.

So let me make this abundantly clear – it’s not the author’s fault for my reaction to her characters.  It is up to me to relate or not to any character that I come across in novels.  The story is light and enjoyable up to the sexy parts, then I simply lost interest.  That is on me.  My own personal tastes, if you will.  I stand by my thoughts that Taking The Score is a good book, which equals the 3 star rating.  It simply wasn’t enough for me to get past some of my own issues with the dialog.

*I received an e-ARC of Taking The Score from the publisher, Entangled Publishing – Brazen and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. That does not change what I think of this novel.*

Available for the Kindle