Normally, I'd have probably enjoyed this book more. The story was a bit rote, but nothing that couldn't have been saved with a little nuance or individualism. Unfortunately, the tension in this story revolves around a deeply ingrained classism and unquestioning political tropes that are just a little too intrusive to be tolerable. Logan is a plastic, one-dimensional strawman, at best. A lawyer from a well-to-do family who chooses to "live off his earnings" and ignore his trust-fund. His earnings, mind, as a public defender where he works because he wants to "protect people, not corporations". If that's not mindlessly dogmatic enough, his father is a conservative judge pushing his son into a political career, even though Logan has repeatedly told him he doesn't want that.
I suppose if I were a liberal woman, I'd be drooling, but there's just no hint of nuance here. It wouldn't have taken much to improve, either. Maybe admitting that Logan represents the occasional criminal? He can even be torn up about it, but at least give this pronounced aspect of his life some depth. Or let his dad soften up even just a little bit, ever. But no, we're meant to take these tropes as shorthand for how wonderful Logan is and how much he doesn't partake of the presumably evil heart of his "class".
And did I mention the classism? The worst aspect of the book's classist attitude is how often Cat expresses the blind assertion that they couldn't possibly make it because they're from different classes. Even though Logan eschews every trapping of his upbringing. Even though his lifestyle is barely different from her own. And even though he is so eager to make compromises for her to make her feel comfortable in the life he has chosen—a life, remember, that is middle-class to the core.
And Cat's no great catch, either. She's so damaged from growing up without a father that several times she walks away from a shared relationship with the man she acknowledges that she loves, and who she knows loves her, just because it might not work out. Yeah, daddy issues can be complex and deeply ingrained, but I thought this went on way past where you could reasonably be expected to have sympathy with it. Grew up without a father and resent it? Then make sure you don't marry a bum! Again, this might have worked better if the author had cared enough to give a little more depth to Cat's neurosis. If a former boyfriend hurt her, maybe. Or a friend with a husband who walked away after producing children. It's not like there wasn't room in this already-short book for a little added detail.
The book isn't a complete disaster. The writing is competent, at any rate. But while not a complete disaster, this book just left me cold. I really wish it hasn't been my first experience of Carly Phillips. I'm not sure I want to chance another, even as I hope and suspect they aren't all so very shallow.