Annabelle is a fledgling matchmaker trying to set up her business in Chicago, even as her family bitches her out constantly for being single and not being an accountant instead. She chases down a big shot client, sports agent Heath Champion, and manages to get in as one of his two matchmakers, since he's decided now is the time to find a wife. Preferably gorgeous, cultured, blueblood pedigree, but with not enough of a life that would interfere with her being at his beck and call...
Yeah, tough job to fulfill. Heath's a weird one even besides his pickiness. Even stranger, he decides to drag Annabelle along on his 20-minute dates, even with the ones from the other matchmaker, Portia. They end up spending more time together since Annabelle is friends with Phoebe, who Heath pissed off royally awhile back and he's been trying to make amends with since. So he piggybacks along to family parties and resort trips and whatnot, not getting too far there. But since this is a romance novel, he eventually finds that spending time with his matchmaker is more fun than the actual matches.
The romance itself? It's okay. I like Annabelle well enough. Heath's a strange one, I'm not sure if I root for a relationship between these two for most of the book or not. (Though I will say that there was a particularly sweet moment towards the end when Heath sees things differently than Annabelle does that I really enjoyed.)
I must make note of the beta romance in this book, between Portia (who's doing the whole perfect ice queen thing in life, and even forces her employees to weigh themselves in public once a week) and Bodie, Heath's best friend/employee. It starts out downright strange/sort of creepy, in a sense. I don't mean the part where he blackmails her into a date so much as how he acts like one of those romance novel guys who "tames" a woman. Now, it doesn't end that way, and it does mellow out sweetly, but it did raise eyebrows with me as to how it started.
I enjoyed reading it in general, and I suppose I like the world of the Chicago Stars, but this isn't the most memorable book for me ever, I guess. Three stars.
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