“Ben wondered idly why Agent Marshall hadn’t been here today. Maybe it was his day off. Not that it made any difference. To anyone”

“You want me, and you can’t stop. But you want me to stop?”
I really liked it !!
Mystery, murder, secrets, investigation and a forbidden attraction that can’t be explored !!!!
There was a forced proximity, a working together and an age gap trope … honestly it was really good !!! It’s even LGBTQIA so … definitely a plus !!!!
I liked following the investigation and even reading about the twist and turns of the two main characters’ relationship !!! And the spice, though short, was really good too !!!!
And honestly … I also felt a bit of a grumpy / sunshine trope in here that made it all more thrilling !!!
Definitely check this series out !!
“He needed to remember that Marshall had been grumpy and snappy earlier, not the way he had melted into the almost-kiss”
“Eyes up, Benny Boy”

DNF at 29%

I am strangely <i>mad</i> about how much of a disappointment this was.

I am fine with suspending disbelief for reading romance books, I wouldn’t be able to read so many otherwise. But even then, there are limits. This book far surpasses any ability to suspend disbelief because it is just so wrong on all counts. I tried really hard to keep reading but I had to tap out.

<b>Characters</b>

<u>Ben</u>: Ben is a total dumbass (derogatory). The narration tries to build him up as smart, confident, something, but what’s shown is someone with no critical thinking and is a doormat. The mismatch is painful. If he were just supposed to be a wildly naive soggy breadcrumb of a person, that’s one thing. But the other MC says he’s smart, clever, Ben himself thinks things he would never have confidence to do…

Ben also has a totally mysterious background to me, through this first third. Not in a good way. I don’t know where he comes from, what his family is like, and the context clues were distractingly vague. He feels like he’s existing in a weird vacuum of details. I don’t need his pedigree or massive infodumping, but give me something beyond a short phone call with his mom. Maybe I didn’t make it far enough?

<u>Nick</u>: Nick just didn’t make much sense to me. He’s a forty year old partyboy who’s also in the FBI, and has no friends because he sucks as a person. He sucks because he constantly hits on his married, straight partner “as a challenge” and also tries to provoke fights because he is a hungover waste of space. Am I supposed to feel bad for little rich boy going on two day benders mid murder case at age 40? I sure don’t.

<b>Plot</b>

What even is the FBI doing? This isn’t how it works. Even with my normal levels of disbelief suspension for romance novels, it’s baffling. What’s the point of having a partner if you don’t do anything with said partner? Nick is always wandering off alone. And like never checks in with the boss-person? Whoever it might be? This is something that I feel like shows up casually in any law enforcement book, but this one he’s just roaming free. It really lessened the FBI/law enforcement vibes of the whole thing, making it feel like its just two random dudes doing dumb shit.

And then!!! Ben is the one who found an executed dude, with shady files, and then…they just let him pop into forensic accounting department to help out immediately. NO

There isn’t much plot otherwise at this point. Just Ben being a colossal dipshit <i>(“the head of my accounting office will be so happy I’m categorizing all these weird monetary things!!! Definitely unrelated to the last dude who brought it up and got promptly executed and then fbi showed up and implied they weren’t mistakes and also the murder was a hit”)</i> so I’m sure there’s a lot more dumbassery to look forward to.

Plus Ben hiding things from the FBI (which a. illegal, b. dumb, c. the FBI should be able to find this small beans bullshit themselves so what’s the point)

<b>Accounting</b>

I wanted to call this out, specifically. I buddy read (sort of, we tried okay) this with an accountant friend, and wow every single aspect of this is just <i>wrong</i>. The entire premise is wrong, right off the start, and I’m just gonna quote them so I don’t mess it up (as a non-accountant):

<i>Ben finds that the bank account doesn't match net income. This is not an exercise an accountant would perform. No one tries to trace on to the other. And why? Because it's almost impossible for the bank balance to match net income. That's not how accounting works. That would raise zero red flags, even to the most dedicated forensic accountant. There's a lot more that's wrong, but like, for the whole premise of the book to be wrong really grates.</i>

(there's a link to my accountant friend's review in my goodreads review)

Even to me, the accounting details seemed wrong, which says a lot. It’s like they watched an episode of Ozark. (I have seen half an episode of Ozark and feel confident this is an accurate comparison)

<b>Romance</b>

lolololol

what romance

This is pure instalust. Telling me they have chemistry does not make them have it. They absolutely do not have any chemistry.

<blockquote><i>His wrist touched Coyne’s knuckles and they both flinched. Hot damn! Coyne stared at Nick as if he’d been struck by lightning. His eyes widened at whatever he saw in Nick’s. Nick had the feeling some telepathic message was passing between them,</i></blockquote>

Every single one of their interactions had some level of this, brain frying “electric” connections instead of actual, human connections through conversation or shared experiences.

Maybe there’ll be romance in the second book? Someone can tell me later. Or not. Please don’t.

<b>The writing</b>

The author tells us things in character POV that are not supported by what’s actually shown on page. The most ridiculous one to me was all the times Ben is said to be confident, and yet every time his leech of an ex shows up, he gives him like a hundred dollars, several times. confident doormat!

Purple prose….attempts: there were attempts to be poetic and descriptive I think, mostly were baffling and just excess words for random stuff. Like a duck, sitting on a path. Leave the duck out of this! It made me have to double back to reread things to figure out what was going on.

Random fellow kids slang(?): far from the first author to try this, but some things are not meant to be in a book. This is a mild one:

<blockquote><i>His sleep-deprived body had been catching up on zzzs with a vengeance.</i></blockquote>

zzz’s? just say he’s been crashing or his body is demanding sleep. These small things really build up over time.

At one point the super wealthy father in his 60’s says “true that”.

…no he wouldn’t.

<b>Miscellanies</b>

1. This is set in Boston, I guess. I kept forgetting, because I could barely remember they were in a city at all, as the location didn’t seem to matter. The T is mentioned - I take it this is the subway system in Boston, which could have used a one line clarification for all the readers in the world not in Boston. Little details like this are tiring.

2. Ben kisses Nick and Nick asks him to stop because kissing is tampering of evidence under "Title 18, US Code, Section 1512" and that means Sullivan, the boss, could get away with the crime.

First of all, this is ridiculous. Second of all, I have been assured by a lawyer friend (i’m so popular with my smart friends) that people who regularly refer to US Code sections never say it this way. It's always 18 USC section 1512. So if you’re gonna refer to the legal code of witness tampering, at least do it correctly. It's the overall interaction with the person that would be tampering, not "did you kiss, y/n”

3. i definitely had another thing. might have been all the illegal shit ben is doing. or the ham handed references for future stuff (i assume, i will not find out if archery matters) or Trauma Past (someone died idgaf)


<b>Overall,</b> this was a miss on all accounts. There is no romance, no suspense, nothing to recommend it in the slightest. I do not connect with or care about the characters, or the plot.

This book did not work for me. I have identified three (3) reasons why: (1) the premise, (2) the pacing, (3) the writing style itself.

The Premise

I am an accountant. I will not enumerate the vast number of inaccuracies contained in this book. The TLDR is that the premise of this book is wrong. I understand that there is a need here to simplify accounting principles so that those who are not in the profession can follow this book. However, I think there's a way to do that without basing the book on a concept that is simply wrong.

The Pacing

We all have our preferences when it comes to the romance books we read. My sweet spot is this: they meet, they get to know each other on page, they kiss and eventually have sex while developing and expressing feelings on page, they commit to a future together, boom! the end. I didn't find that here.

For me, the author failed to create sexual chemistry (or tension) between these two. As a result, I was not invested in these MCs or their journey. So when a kiss <i>FINALLY</i> comes at around 65%, I was unmoved. I did not care. This book ends with sex (including notes of surprise D/s) and without any discussion of a future together. That commitment that I typically look for to cap off a romance novel doesn't exist here.

I see now that it's listed as the first in a series on GR. Perhaps this book, book 1, will set us up for a second book where we watch the relationship develop? That is, maybe there's romance in book 2?

The Use of Language

I lived in Boston for four (4) miserable years. Not once did I hear a local say, "fuck you and the horse you rode in on". Additionally, in a contemporary novel you don't typically read phrases like "ye gods" and "there lay dragons". I think with phrases like these the author was going for a punchy writing style to help shape the animosity to lovers tension I think Gordon may have been going for. For me it fell flat and read as awkward and clunky. This was one of those that instead of sailing through on beautifully worded sentences, I would have to stop and re-read to make the wording make sense in my mind.

In Conclusion

This book did not work for me. However, it may work for those who are able to look past an awkward writing style to find the story beneath. And when it comes to that story, especially if you're an accountant or in an accounting-adjacent field, it's super important to suspend all disbelief.

2.5 rounded down

I'm conflicted on this one.

This was my first read by this author, and the summary seemed promising, so I was excited to receive an ARC from Netgalley, and while I generally enjoyed myself, I never quite loved it.

The pairing of a junior accountant--Ben--and an older, wealthy, playboy FBI agent--Nick--was certainly a unique one, and I definitely appreciated the author's twist on a fairly common "witness/agent" trope. However, I wasn't entirely sure what the point of their 15 year+ age difference was supposed to be. It basically never comes up, and there's no real indication that they aren't closer in age in terms of POV and context, so it just felt like an unusual choice to have an age difference but do nothing with it.

And the characters themselves... Honestly, I just really didn't like them that much. Nick I found slightly more likable, but I felt like the author didn't entirely have a handle on his character, and so some of his assholish, rich-boy behavior was off-putting in a way that didn't totally gel with the rest of his characterization. Ben, I found incredibly frustrating, as he continued to make stupid, selfish choices to "help" the investigation, kept it a secret, and then had the AUDACITY to get mad at *Nick* for "keeping secrets" as if a FBI agent owes you privileged information about his cases. I found him manipulative and kind of a dick, and the sexual dynamics here did absolutely nothing for me and felt a little forced. The attraction between the two felt a bit too intense too quickly, though eventually the pacing evened out a bit. The conflict of an agent not hooking up with a witness felt believable, and I actually really liked that they *didn't* have sex before the trial because of it. It's a massive pet peeve of mine in books where everybody seems entirely unable to control their desires and put their lives/jobs/etc. at risk to get some. I didn't entirely hate the characters or their relationship by any means, but I just wasn't really sold on them or bought into their relationship.

The mystery aspect itself was decently interesting, and it's clear that this will be a series as there are some open threads on the mystery, and I'm assuming they'll cover different pairings. I think I'll keep an eye out for book two and give it a try, as there were some interesting aspects here, even if the romance and characters didn't do much for me. I liked the actual writing itself, so I'm hoping a different book by this author might work better for me.

This was such a delightful surprise.
I started this book with some expectations, about the murder case and the characters and especially about the dynamic between them, but all of them were completely wrong: this book subverts them all and I adored that. I even, weirdly, adored some stuff that usually sends me running to the nearest DNF shelf. So yes, this book was a complete surprise for me.

The story was, in some ways, the bog-standard murder mystery: there was a lot of investigating (with a dash of amateur-sleuthing) and discoveries, life-or-death situations and back-stabbing betrayals, but the villain(s) are discovered early on, so there was no bated-breath, on-the-edge-of-my-seat, gasping-out-loud to be had, but weirdly (again), I actually enjoyed that. Not to say that I wasn't intrigued or that the story wasn't captivating, but the slow-burn-ish "ordinary" quality to the murder/money laundering plot made me appreciate the investigation process a lot more, and also, accounting: who would have thought?

The story was solid, the writing was even better (and lovelier! G.B. Gordon has some serious storytelling skills), but the thing that actually made me fall in love with this book was, as usual, the compelling characters. Or, one specific compelling main character.
So, okay, I did like Ben: he's not at all what I was expecting, and he kept on surprising the hell out of me (and also out of Nick). He's not at all helpless or vulnerable as he first appears, and his bossy/controlling side eventually won me over. What I didn't like of him was how he kept on hindering the investigation, hiding stuff and in general, disregarding his own (and others) safety without a second thought. I know, amateur sleuth 101, but in him it wasn't endearing at all. I did appreciate him though.
Nick was the true surprise of this book, though. Like Ben, he ends up being completely different from what I initially thought. He's privileged, older, an FBI agent with all the power... but he's actually a mess. He can be snarky and flirty, but also stand-offish and unwelcoming and petty, BUT ALSO anxious and unsure, with a surprising amount of hidden vulnerabilities and needs. We only get small glimpses of his past, and I'm so damn curious to discover more. I needed more of him. I also adored his relationship with George (seriously, she's fantastic and I need more of them being adorably irascible BFFs) and Duncan (he's the best).

The romance aspect of the book was fairly minimal: both Ben and Nick spend more than half of the book pining over the other, so there's still a lot of room for their relationship to develop (especially in regards to what I was saying earlier, about this book subverting the expected relationship dynamics). Nonetheless, I was still quite satisfied with them: the romance aspect is quite minimal, but the sexual and emotional chemistry is VERY present.

The book ends with a fairly satisfying HFN, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be disappointed if it were to end like this: I need to know more about the case, and I need more Nick. Much more. I'll be impatiently waiting for the sequel.

CW: murder, brief mention of a hate crime (past)
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A bit of romantic suspense was exactly what I’ve been craving. I enjoyed the mystery and I’m curious to see what else is revealed in book 2. I have a theory and I’m anxious to see if I’m right!
This was a short read, but I feel like I got to know the characters well enough. I enjoyed their romance; all of that sexual tension was nice. I looking forward to seeing how their relationship progresses in book 2!
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4 stars, BY THE BOOK by G. B. Gordon is available June 14! Thank you to Carina Press and Netgalley for providing me an eARC to review.

In By The Book G.B. Gordon delivers a thrilling mystery, danger, and forbidden desire as Ben and Nick work to figure out how to put the dangerous men after Ben behind bars. Interesting, fun, and engaging throughout.

I enjoyed my time with this book, even if it felt a little formulaic at points. It's not a bad thing, but when you've read as many of these types of books as I have then you tend to see things coming.

I did like the pairing, an FBI gent with an accountant rather than another FBI agent or someone else in law enforcement. It was a good little switch up, and it made accounting seem less boring than it actually is! The romance was fun, if a little underdeveloped. The book itself was pretty short, and you can tell that a lot is obviously being kept back for an eventual sequel.

All in all, I had fun with it and would recommend it to anyone who wanted a quick read in this particular genera. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but that's not always needed.

This book was sent to me by Netgalley electronically for review. Mystery and intrigue...mayhem...this author has woven a story that is not easily put down...grab a warm blanket, a cup of steaming tea...enter the world of crime and the FBI...reads like a television series...enjoy this one.

I liked the combination of suspense and romance in By The Book, and the pairing of FBI agent + accountant, but the book felt too short. The ending threw me off and felt abrupt. I felt that the crime part of the story wasn't sufficiently resolved. I realize that might have been intentional, to left room for a sequel or series, but still, the loose ends didn't feel tied up enough, to the point that I felt cheated and was concerned that both or either Ben or Nick would still be in danger.