Just the Sexiest Man Alive by Julie James

Okay, I couldn't believe how damn delightful Just the Sexiest Man Alive was. What a complete and total pleasure to read!!

Even doing this review now, I find myself thinking back on reading the book almost the way I'd look back on a really wonderful thing that happened to me. Do you ever get that? This is definitely one of my best books of 2009 so far! This and Kiss of a Demon King.

The plot, quickly: Taylor Donovan is this high-caliber Chicago lawyer who gets sent to L.A. on a case. Taylor ends up being forced, much to her annoyance, to take time out of her busy schedule to coach a mega-movie star Jason Andrews to help him prepare for his new courtroom drama. (Guess who I was going with for the star. And his initials are not RC.)

Basically, Jason the movie star acts like an entitled jerk, Taylor decides she hates him, Jason falls in love with her, she'll have none of it.

The fantasy of it was just delicious clear through. There was a bit of the Cinderella story in here, and while I'm generally cynical toward the whole Cinderella thing (I'm much more a Little Red Riding Hood gal), this was such sassy and clever Cinderella action, I couldn't resist. The thing is full of great moments.

Example: Big movie star Jason blows off the first meeting his assistant schedules with Taylor, and then their second meeting, too, making career-minded Taylor miss some critical stuff on her important case.

Finally, days later, Mr. Entitlement waltzes in while Taylor's in court, and afterwards expects her to drop everything and stay behind and do some tutoring on how a lawyer is supposed to act. Not very squiriferous!

So let me set the stage: they're alone in the courtroom. She's pissed. Jason's like, c'mon lady lawyer, put me on the stand and show how to question a witness. So she puts him up there--I just love this scene:

Taylor launched into the first question of her "mock" cross-examination.

"Mr. Andrews--you are aware, are you not, that your assistant made arrangements for you to be at my office last Thursday?"

Jason smiled as if he found her challenge to be amusing. He eased back in the witness stand, getting comfortable. "Yes, I am aware of that, Ms. Donovan."

"You did not show up for that appointment, did you?"

"That is correct."

"And you are aware that after failing to show up for that first appointment, your assistant made subsequent arrangements for you to be at my office on Friday morning; is that correct?"

Jason stretched out and crossed one leg over the other, seemingly unconcerned with such a trifling line of questioning.

She goes on to inquire whether he owns a cell phone, and if he knows how to operate one, and is soon busting him on fudging answers about where he was the day of the first meeting, and on and on. And then this:

When his gaze met Taylor's, he detected the faintest trace of a smug smile in her eyes. It was then he realized something.
She was toying with him.
She was toying with him.

I just want to type out this whole scene, because it's so fun. Suffice to say, Taylor totally toys with him, makes him look like a fool, then walks out, leaving Jason sitting there, shocked.

A lot has been made of the banter between these two characters, and rightly so. I have two things to add there. One, it's a fabulous feat of the old show-don't-tell maxim. The dialogue between Taylor and Jason just sparkles. It sings! And then when Taylor interacts with other possible suitors within the story, the chemistry isn't there, and the reader gets, in this wonderfully direct way, that the hero and heroine SO belong together.

Thing two: I think Julie James has a fantastic writerly memory of her own text. These characters are constantly pulling little things up out of past conversations and incidents and evolving all these little inside jokes and callbacks, sort of creating their own world out of their banter...oh, it really is just wonderful.

What's more, Julie James sort of does that callback thing with the reader, too, puts in these little details that she turns around and uses later. The result is that, as a reader, I felt "on the inside" with this book, instead of on the outside. Do you know what I mean?

Here's a really minor example: the button thing. Taylor has to rendezvous with Jason for a dinner "meeting" he's finagled. What to wear? She doesn't want to look like she thinks she's on a date, and deliberates at length on her white shirt: "two buttons open, or three? Two or three? She went back and forth in the bathroom mirror at least ten times." You don't find out the answer; suddenly she's parking, at the restaurant, she's arrived late. She apologizes, yada yada, and two pages later:

Taylor watched as his eyes skimmed over her shirt with an appreciative look.
Dammit. She knew she shouldn't have gone with the three buttons.

Great callbacks. What fun. Bottom line: I loved living in the world and the fun situations of this book, and I was sad to leave it. But that's okay, because I understand from a little bird that James' follow-up, Practice Makes Perfect, which hits stores in a week, is every bit as excellent.

Reviewed by the Romance Reader here, Dear Author here, Aaaah Romance here, and loved to pieces by powerpuffs Katie Babbling about Books and Ana at Book Smugglers. Nominated tops of 2008 in two categories at RNTV, and one of the best authors of 2008 by Book Binge.