Rock Hard by Nalini Singh

(I received an e-ARC for this book from Net Galley.)

Guess what comes out on Monday!?!

Do you know?

Can you guess?

I can. Not. Wait. for all of you to read Nalini Singh's Rock Hard*.

It's a bit of a side trip of a Rock Kiss novel--related to the stories of Schoolboy Choir but not actually focused on the band.

Instead, Rock Hard, gives us the story we've all been dying to read since we first met Charlotte (and learned of the dreaded T-Rex) in Rock Addiction**.

Business suit, rugby ball
Hint, hint

Really. Any two characters who meet over a hurled stapler and the realization that a presume prowler is really the new boss are two people I need to know more about.

Charlotte, who we first met as Molly's loyal best friend in Rock Addiction, is a records clerk at the headquarters of an ailing department store chain in New Zealand. Gabriel is a retired rugby star turned corporate savior. Charlotte is bright and hardworking; she's actually doing the work of two, but surviving a prolonged assault has left her so timid most people don't realize it. T-Rex, err, Gabriel is known as a no-nonsense, hardworking executive. He's also smart enough to notice that all the work his assistant turns in originates at Charlotte's work station.

This is how the author
is promoting the book.
Smexy, indeed.

Gabriel then puts both Charlotte and the assistant through similar interviews to see who really knows the details of the work being done. It's Charlotte, naturally, and Gabriel is just about hooked. She's shy and wears shapeless clothes, but Gabriel knows full well that smart women are his catnip. (The catnip bit is in his own--um, the author's--words.) So he fires the assistant, promotes Charlotte, and goes about getting to know the new assistant that he now wants to know very, very well.

Rock Hard navigates the issues of finding balance between a hard-charging dominant T-Rex and a courageous and brainy mouse. The characters both have traumas from their youths to overcome, and, of course, the issue of separating work life from personal life.

Like all Nalini Singh stories, this is a well-written, sexy romance with characters I want as friends in real life. I know you'll like them, too.

*I've reviewed other books by Nalini Singh here and here.
**Sadly, I must've slipped into a fugue state after I read Rock Addiction because I didn't review it.  But I should've.  Go read it.

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