No Need to Ask

by Margo Candela

When it comes to making sure a room looks effortlessly perfect, Jillian Winters is the one to call. She loves her job as the set decorator for a hit TV show, she and her ex have come to mutually beneficial arrangement and her dream of launching her own decorating business is closer to becoming a reality.

And just when things couldn’t get any more perfect, everything goes in the opposite direction. Her ex proves to be just as untrustworthy as always, her boss makes it clear as to who will be taking credit for her work and unexpected expenses shrink her nest egg to hummingbird proportions.

When recently divorced Ethan Marshall gives her carte blanche as well has his credit card to turn his new and very empty loft into a home, she finds herself falling in love with it and the man she’s creating it for.

Genres: Contemporary, Romance

46 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 25, 2012

About the author

Margo Candela is an award-winning author born and raised in Los Angeles and began her writing career when she joined her community college's student newspaper. She transferred to a state university as a journalism major, and upon graduation began writing for websites and magazines before switching to fiction. She wrote and published four novels between 2007 and 2010 :Underneath It All and Life Over Easy Good-bye to All That and More Than This. The Neapolitan Sisters, a 2023 International Latino Book Award winner, is her fifth novel and her first after a decade-long hiatus from writing.

Reviews

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you ever get the feeling a book was written for you? Not that the author sat down with you in mind, but that you said to yourself one day that you'd like to read a book with this type of character and this kind of pacing and this resolution? And then, you picked up a book, and read it, and got the funny feeling the Universe had granted you a request?

If I'd known I'd get that wish, I probably would've wished for something different. But still, a book that hit all my tastes at once, well, I'll take it.

This book, which is novella length, follows Jillian Winters, a set designer for a TV show which shares several elements with a few TV shows I recognize, though not so many Maisy York, the spoiled star of the show, could be matched up to an existing actress.

Then, while Jillian is hunting for the perfect lamp, she meets Ethan Marshall, who asks her to decorate his spacious loft. He's handsome and successful and recently divorced. Her love life consists of the leftovers her jerk ex-husband, Owen, is willing to share, so she's ready to entertain romantic notions.

The story is sweet, though not the most complicated one I've ever read. I did believe that these two people genuinely liked and were attracted to one another, and that the obstacles in their paths were truly obstacles and not anyone being stupid. The romance is sexy without ever getting explicit, leaving it to the reader's imagination why Jillian is grinning like that.

Once again, Margo Candela uses elements that I liked in the last book of hers I read, Just Like That . Jillian is smart and successful, and she has a strong friendship that never takes a back seat to her relationship. Her banter with Trudy, her best friend, makes for some of the best lines in the story.

I understand this book is getting a repackage from the release I originally read, including a new cover. It was a good investment even before the repackage. If you like fun stories about wonderful women getting what they deserve, I'd strongly recommend you pick this up.

[L V · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by: Celia



Review: As always, hilarious! I simply can’t get enough of Candela’s snarky, smart-ass humor.


Jillian is someone most of us can relate to—she’s broke, she gets sick of her job sometimes, and love couldn’t be further away for this strung-up divorcee. What’s even more interesting is that she’s also in this twisted love affair with her ex—a pompous, pig of a man. What’s even more twisted is that she claims this is something she’s just doing for “fun.”


Sparks rapidly fly as soon as she meets Ethan Marshall, and then, suddenly, it seems that she’s never been happier….until the ex shows up and (of course) ruins it all.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Romantic Chick-Lit with a Naughty Twist
SweetSpots; Sexy. Smart. Sassy.

I really enjoyed this novella!