Blog Tour Review: Up Close and Personal by Kathryn Freeman

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

These characters had some of the best chemistry I’ve ever seen, from start to finish!

Foreword

Thank you so much to Rachel at https://www.rachelsrandomresources.com/ and Kathryn Freeman for allowing me to be part of this experience and also providing me with a complimentary digital copy and blog tour media kit!

If you’d like to get a copy of Up Close & Personal, you can find it on Amazon US and Amazon UK.

About the Author

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A former pharmacist, I’m now a medical writer who also writes romance. Some days a racing heart is a medical condition, others it’s the reaction to a hunky hero.

I’ve two sons and a husband who asks every Valentine’s Day whether he has to buy a card (yes, he does), so any romance is all in my head. Then again, his unstinting support of my career change proves love isn’t always about hearts and flowers – and heroes come in many disguises.

Review

Book CWs:

• Character death
• Sexually explicit scenes (mild)
• Murder
• Attempted murder
• Stalking
• Parental abuse

Premise

British actor Zac Edwards is the latest heartthrob to hit the red carpets. Hot, talented and rich, he sends women wild…all except one.

Close protection officer Kat Parker hasn’t got time to play celebrity games.  She has one job: to protect Zac from the stalker that seems to be dogging his every move.

Zac might get her hot under her very starched collar, but Kat’s a professional – and sleeping with Zac is no way part of her remit…

Review (No Spoilers)

Wow! I was so close to rating this a 4.5/5 because I loved watching these characters as they opened up and got to know each other. These characters had so much chemistry that it was practically radiating off the page! It was by far the best part of the book.

The story has an amazing meet-cute beginning and I could tell right away that I was in for a comedic treat. What I didn’t expect was for it to somehow go from a romance, to a mystery, to a thriller, back to a romance, all while keeping me incredibly invested.

The main reason why I had to knock this down a star was because the male love interest was written to be…kind of problematic. Basically from the get go Kat lays down her boundaries and Zac spends a good amount of the book purposefully overstepping them. When it comes to “will they, won’t they” romances, I find it all too common for authors to write in lines that may seem okay, but actually sound really slimy to me. I’m not interested in seeing characters crossing each others boundaries in romances. What I’m interested in is watching these character shift their boundaries to accommodate their undeniable connection to each other. I think it can be a hard line to toe when it comes to writing romances like these but when it gets to the point where a character is talking about touching a woman’s skin in public because he knows she can’t move away…that’s not okay with me.

That being said, once I decided to put aside these parts, I really enjoyed the rest. Kat and Zac managed to be so frustratingly cute together that I basically spent a good portion of the book mentally screaming JUST GET IT OVER WITH AND LOVE EACH OTHER at them in the hope that they would somehow listen to me.

I do wish that there wasn’t so much emphasis on the MCs not understanding teenage language because they’re in their early 30s (I think) and definitely should have known basically all of the slangs included. Words like “salty” have been around for many many years. The author, Kathryn Freeman, is a Boomer though so once I learned that fact, the confusion over teenage slang made much more sense. I’ll also admit that including “Gucci” in the book was something I found inexplicably hilarious.

I feel like it’s safe to say that this will likely be slotted on my mental “to reread shelf” based on how much I enjoyed my overall experience. If you want to check out other reviews on this blog tour, see the graphic below!