Suddenly Dating

I’ve become a strong fan of Julia London’s novels. Both her contemporary and historical romances have become automatic buys for me, though I received this novel as an ARC from Netgalley. However, I would have paid for it otherwise it. What I liked about this novel, Suddenly Dating, was the character development. The heroine, Lola Dunne, faces a familiar quandary in romance novels. Her former boyfriend has abandoned her and she doesn’t want to work in the law firm where he now works. She is the oldest daughter from a family whose mother had done little to raise them. So Lola basically raised her four younger siblings and sacrificed going to college so they could go. She always puts herself last, but now finally she decides to put herself first and work on writing a novel. Her novel sounds like a real hoot; it’s a humorous novel about a woman murdering her ex-boyfriends. Lola ends up at Lake Haven in a lovely vacation home lent to her by a friend involved in an acrimonious divorce. Unfortunately, the man in the divorce has also lent the house to a friend, Harry Westbrook, a civil engineer working hard to getting his own business off the ground. They end up sharing the house and comedic and romantic scenes ensue. Harry is recovering from his own romance in which the woman he thought he loved dropped him because she didn’t appreciate his spending all his time on his business. He is just a very likable guy who is trying to be a decent guy although he’s irritated by Lola’s insufficiently neat habits. But he learns to overlook the messy kitchen when she makes him delicious dinners. They help each other with their careers and sexual frustrations and they start falling with each other. And the reader also will fall for them.