Behind Closed Doors

by J L Berg

[Cocktails and Books]

This review was originally posted on Cocktails and Books

I was so happy when I discovered this book was about Roman Cavanaugh. He was the elusive older brother to Jude Cavanaugh in the Walls Duet and I wanted to know what his story was.

Roman is a self-professed asshole. He knows it and he doesn't hide from it. His assholishness is a front. A way to build a wall around himself to keep everyone out. A way to ensure he can't be hurt. He was hurt by words he overheard his father say when he was younger. Those words molded him into a man who didn't know his own self-worth and believed no one would love him because his own father didn't. So he became an asshole and built his wall. For the most part, the wall worked...with the exception of a few: his brother, his sister-in-law and his temporary secretary, Cara.

Cara arrives in NYC hoping to start her life with her long-term boyfriend. She's hoping temporary work will tend her over until she finds a job in her field. She's naive about a lot of things and it was hard for me to embrace Cara because of that. Maybe because I have had more of a plan when I moved thousands of miles from my house. Living with my boyfriend and hopefully getting a job wouldn't have cut it. But that's what Cara did. She believed things were going to be OK because they always were with a guy who's always lived apart from her. It's no wonder that when she's suddenly faced with Roman she doesn't know what to do with herself.

I will admit, for some reason these two worked together. Cara humanized Roman. Brought out his caring nature and changed how he interacted with others in his family. And that caring nature showed Cara what it meant to be truly loved. To be cherished by a man for who she is, not how she looked.

I liked this story, but I had an issue with Cara's boyfriend and how they broke up. That whole scene played out in a way that I felt was unrealistic. Would a guy you dated since high school, who supposedly loved you mere hours before, really toss you out on your ass in the middle of the night when the reason he was tossing you out was because of his dumb actions? I would hope not. And it's that little plot twist that left me scratching my head and leaving me less than satisfied with how the romance between Roman and Cara unfolded. He still could have done what he did, but make it plausible (he'd done this before, etc) but not just something out of the blue like that and without a conversation later that ended the relationship permanently before moving on.

This was still a good read, it just wasn't one of my favorite JL Berg books. It lacked the angsty feel her other books had. I didn't find myself emotionally attached to either of the characters or the storyline. In the end I was happy for Roman and Cara, I just wasn't rooting for them to get that HEA.