Suddenly Sexy - Linda Francis Lee

When a legendary bad boy returns to town, Kate must summon her inner temptress.

Kate Bloom's ordered world is turned upside down when notorious bad boy and superstar athlete Jesse Chapman comes home. Seeing him again reminds Kate of all the reasons she harbored a Texas-sized crush on him back when they were kids. But she isn't a little girl anymore . . . and she's ready to show this hell-raising playboy just how sexy she can be.

After a reporter starts digging into his past, Jesse Chapman returns home looking for space. The last thing he needs is a distraction, but that's just what he gets when he sees his little Katie. Suddenly the girl next door is hot and sexy-and more than even this legendary ladies' man can handle.

I can't remember why I put this one in the TBR pile anymore but my guess is that it was because it is a mix of second chance at love / friends to lovers kind of story. After finishing it I am left with mixed feelings about it because I felt there were too many things happening at once.

Kate Bloom is a news anchor in a small Texas town; she has been in love with Jesse Chapman, now a famous golfer, since they were children. Jesse, however, did not feel he was good enough for Kate and has stayed away. Now he has returned to their hometown to do some serious thinking about his life. He arrives right when Kate is starting a new program to refresh her image and improve viewer ratings. After an almost disastrous live cooking program Kate's friend convinces them that he could stay in Kate's guest house and so they start spending time together.

I think my main problem was that, despite his attraction to Kate, Jesse had a lot of things to deal with that came up first than she did. He had to make peace with his past, with his brother, then he has to deal with an illegitimate kid and there's also the problem of what really happened in his latest golf tournament. Some of these things could have been solved if people talked to each other (or with a psychologist).

Kate seems like a nice, sensible woman but she keeps getting into trouble. Most of her programs are complete disasters, which somehow helps with the ratings but make her look like an idiot. Then her dealings with her friend Julia also seemed a bit surreal. It takes a skilled writer to make an idiot seem like a good heroine and I wasn't completely satisfied with how that was dealt with here. In the end it left me feeling it could have been a nice story but that it didn't fulfill my expectations.

Grade: 3/5