Something About You, by Julie James

TITLE: Something About You
AUTHOR: Julie James

COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 336
PUBLISHER: Berkley

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: None

FATE HAS THROWN TWO SWORN ENEMIES...

Of all the hotel rooms rented by all the adulterous politicians in Chicago, female Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron Lynde had to choose the one next to 1308, where some hot-and-heavy lovemaking ends in bloodshed. And of all the FBI agents in Illinois, it had to be Special Agent Jack Pallas who gets assigned to this high-profile homicide. The same Jack Pallas who still blames Cameron for a botched crackdown three years ago—and nearly ruining his career…

...INTO EACH OTHER’S ARMS

Work with Cameron Lynde? Are they kidding? Maybe, Jack thinks, this is some kind of welcome-back prank after his stint away from Chicago. But it’s no joke: the pair is going to have to put their rocky past behind them and focus on the case at hand. That is, if they can cut back on the razor-sharp jibes—and smother the flame of their sizzling-hot sexual tension...

Something About You is a witness in peril story. Cameron Lynde is an Assistant US Attorney (if I remember the titles correctly!). Staying in a hotel one night, she's awakened by a couple having wild, noisy sex next door. After a while, she decides enough is enough, and calls reception to get someone to tell them to pipe down. Not long after that, she hears the door to the room open, and can't resist peering through her peephole, catching a glimpse of a man leaving. So when hotel security finds a dead prostitute in that room, Cameron suddenly becomes the star witness in the case and is targetted by the killer..

The FBI agent in charge of the case is Jack Pallas, with whom she has a bit of a history. It's not a good one, because a few years earlier, Cameron did something in her role as prosecutor that Jack saw as a betrayal. He's made his contempt for her clear quite publicly, which, in turn, had consequences on his own career. Still, with Cameron in danger, Jack needs to protect her and as they spend a lot of time together, he realises he might have been wrong in his judgment of her.

When I saw the book description, I was a bit disappointed that I wasn't getting a straight romance, as my first book by the author had been. I like romantic suspense well enough, but that wasn't necessarily what I wanted from an author who had proved to be so amazing at character-driven romance. I needn't have worried. Even with the suspense subplot, the focus was still on the romance, and it was a good one.

Cameron and Jack are great together. The chemistry sizzles (with no fade-to-black love scenes here, unlike in the previous book!), and the initially adversarial relationship between them adds even more zing. I liked that this element of their relationship feels right and completely justified (Jack does have very good reason to think badly of Cameron, and Cameron is justified in being angry about what he did, regardless of how right he felt he was). I also liked that the transition between dislike and attraction, and then, finally, getting to know each other properly, was smooth and felt natural. And once they do know each other better, James succeeds in showing us that there is not just attraction there, there is genuine like and admiration, and it goes both ways. In the end, I completely believed in the romance.

Such a shame that James doesn't have a looooong backlist. I could use more books like her in my reading, books that are fun and have depth at the same time, featuring strong, intelligent women with real careers and men who like that about them. Fantastic.

MY GRADE: A B+.