CBR16 Book 10: "En enda natt" (All In) by Simona Ahrnstedt

Page count: 495 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo: First in a finished series

CBR16 Sweet Books: New (new author AND first time reading romance in Swedish)

Financial bad boy and seemingly ruthless venture capitalist David Hammar is a self-made man and has acquired his wealth and power for one purpose, which he is close to achieving. He is determined to take over Investum, one of the biggest companies in Sweden, owned and controlled by the powerful De la Grip family. Since the takeover might go smoother if his company has at least one member of the family on their side, he arranges to meet the daughter of the family, Natalia De la Grip, for a business lunch. 

Natalia is extremely good at her job and keeps getting great references from current and previous employers. Working as a financial analyst, she desperately wants to prove herself capable and skilled enough to earn a place on the board of Investum. After her fiancée left her, she more or less lives at her work. She has no idea why David Hammar, considered a dangerous young upstart by her father, would want to meet with her, but is curious enough to go to the appointment (especially after her best friend Åsa goes on about how handsome and sexy David is). It doesn't take David long to conclude that Natalia is far too eager to please her father to ever betray the family name and join his revenge plot. The two have undeniable chemistry, however, and although he knows it's a terrible idea, he goes out of his way to do her a personal favour, even though he should forget about her and continue with his takeover plans.

Natalia knows her father and brother consider David Hammar some sort of personal nemesis, but when he claims to have double-booked so he won't be able to attend a concert (this is a total lie), offering her the tickets instead (an intimate concert with her favourite artist), they start texting, and soon he's invited her to dinner, which ends with them spending a passionate night together. It's only supposed to be one single night (the Swedish title of the book, in fact), but despite both knowing it's a terrible idea, they keep meeting and gradually falling for one another. David's best friend and business partner, Michel, is deeply uncomfortable about the rapidly escalating situation and keeps asking his friend to let Natalia down gently, before she discovers he's been lying to her the whole time, and his major personal and professional motivation is to ruin her family.

So this book has been on my actual physical bookshelf since 2016. I tracked down a copy and bought it in paperback after reading this very favourable review over on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and since then it's lingered unread. More fool me, this book was a cracking read, with so many soap opera elements. It not only kept me up far too late at night reading after I started reading it, but I spent most of a Sunday doing almost nothing but reading to finish it. 

I'm trying to severely limit my reading challenges this year, after a few years of having most of my reading choices dictated by them. Nevertheless, I need to set myself SOME guidelines, especially to keep chipping away at my TBR list, and one of the goals I've set for myself is to read at least one of the Swedish or Norwegian books on my shelf per month. I barely ever read anything but English, which I'm starting to feel rather guilty about, especially considering how many Norwegian and Swedish language books have accumulated on my shelves. I've made some attempts at reading Norwegian contemporary fiction, much of it very critically lauded, and with very few exceptions, I'm bored senseless. One would think the answer would instead be to read the genres I enjoy in my first and second languages, especially since I literally already bought and paid for the books. Romance, fantasy, historical fiction - it's all there, being ignored because of all the shiny English-language books I let distract me. 

TL, DR - I decided to finally read this book, and should clearly have done so sooner. Ahrnstedt started out writing historical romances (must see if I can track those down as well) and it clearly made her good at research. I don't know all that much about high finance or corporate shenanigans, but all of the stuff included in the book felt very realistic. It probably doesn't hurt that I spent much of the second half of last year finally watching all four seasons of Succession. So many deplorable rich people, intrigue, double-dealing, and betrayal. It made all of the stuff that happens in this book seem highly plausible.

Being used to reading English-language romance, I'm used to there being only one or maybe two POV characters. We usually only get the story from the heroine and/or hero's perspective. Here, Ahrnstedt gives us insight into quite a few characters, not just Natalia and David, our protagonists, but also Natalia's best friend, Åsa; David's best friend and business partner, Michel, occasionally also one of Natalia's brothers. There's a also very slow-burn secondary romance developed between Åsa and Michel, who used to be friends in their university days. 

Because of some seriously bad stuff in his and his family's past, David's anger towards Gustav and Peter De la Grip (Natalia's father and eldest brother) is understandable, but even his best friend and partner doesn't know the full extent of his animosity and why he's so determined to take over their company and ruin their lives. He keeps being told by his best friend and mentor that vengeance won't actually give him the satisfaction he thinks it will, especially if it means absolutely devastating a woman he clearly cares for. It takes him a long time to realise that they are correct. 

Natalia is a very engaging romance heroine. She's driven and very competent, and while I don't know anything about high finance, the author clearly did her research and shows us in a number of ways, rather than just telling us how capable Natalia is. She really wants to work for the family business, unfortunately, her father, the CEO of Investum, is infamously sexist and doesn't believe women can hack it in business. He keeps proving this to himself by occasionally hiring women, making it so difficult for them to do their jobs, ending with them quitting, usually utterly crushed. The only one of his children he even vaguely has to have time for is his eldest son and heir, Peter, and only because he wouldn't dare do anything to piss off dear old dad. 

Both Natalia's mother and Peter's wife are women who support Gustav's old-fashioned and draconian view of gender roles, happily staying at home and expressing disbelief over women like Natalia who want careers and professional recognition. Why can't she just find herself a nice, rich husband who will support her, so she can live a life of leisure and settle down to have babies?

Basically, if Natalia wasn't so likable, I think I would be entirely in David's corner, cheering on his plan to take down and humiliate the De la Grip family, who are also part of the Swedish nobility and pretty much perfect examples of selfish and clueless rich assholes. Natalia has always felt like the odd one out of her family. The only one who seems to care for her at all is her younger brother Alexander, the handsome wastrel son who revels in drinking and carousing and never seems to stay in one place for very long. Her only friend is another driven career woman, who due to terrible personal losses early in life, seems to have difficulties showing affection or closeness to anyone (and hence acts like a b*tch a lot of the time when Natalia could use support).

Becoming more socialist with every passing day, a plot to take down and humiliate rich people very much appeals to me. The fact that David is a superwealthy venture capitalist tarnishes his halo a tad, and he ends up really breaking Natalia's heart. I do not think he groveled nearly enough towards the end of this novel and that Natalia was far too quick to forgive him for his many thoughtless actions, which is why I can't rate this higher than four stars. That, and the book just felt too long. I'm very glad I have the next two books in the series on my bookshelf, though. The next one is about Alexander, the playboy who is apparently haunted by mysterious shit, and a beautiful doctor lady who works in wartorn countries, and who from their encounters in this book seems to loathe him. So that promises to be fun.

Judging a book by its cover: It's not that the red evening dress on the cover isn't striking, and I love the way it flows down like some lush wave to the bottom of the cover image, but our heroine wears exactly one red dress over the course of the story, and there is a detailed description of how much leg said dress shows. This dress, for all its prettiness, shows absolutely no leg. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR14 Book 46: "Ship Wrecked" by Olivia Dade

Page count: 413 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Maria and Peter share one unforgettable night of passion together, which leads to some awkwardness after Maria leaves without so much as a note the next morning. They then discover that they're about to become co-stars on the incredibly popular fantasy show Gods of the Gates. As their characters' storylines involved being ship-wrecked on a small island by themselves, Maria and Peter, along with a small film crew are basically supposed to stay on location for years, and after they work through the awkwardness of Maria leaving (Peter has baggage that made him react especially badly to being ghosted), they decide that while their chemistry is sizzling, it would be a terrible idea to act on their attraction while it might impact not just their own working environment, but that of their crew. So no further exploration of their pants feelings until they've finished their last scenes.

Of course, both Maria and Peter's characters end up being wildly popular, and while their friendship grows, so does their attraction. Meanwhile, their mutual pining and natural chemistry mean that fans of the show ship them just as much off-screen as on, and they get used to fending off questions about their relationship during their various press tours. Only when the show is in its final season, and their characters have finally filmed their end scenes, can Maria and Peter finally reunite as lovers. Of course, with their contracts ended, both Peter and Maria need to decide what their futures hold. 

Maria is incredibly close to her big, loving family and is seriously considering moving back to Sweden to not be so far away from them anymore. Peter, on the other hand, is pretty much totally estranged from his father but fears losing the financial and professional security the role on God of the Gates has afforded him. While they love each other, they have such wildly different priorities and wants for the future that their relationship may be doomed. 

This is the first time I've ever read a romance novel with a Swedish protagonist. Maria keeps peppering Swedish expressions throughout and using some pretty obscure idioms, and because Olivia Dade is married to a Swede, they mostly work. However, one of the things that kept taking me out of the book whenever it was used, was Maria's chosen term of endearment for Peter, sötnos. The term literally translates as "sweet nose" and I have never in my 43-year-old life heard anyone refer to their lover consistently as that. The book claims that it is used like "sweetheart", but it's more like "sweetie" or "cutie", and the only time I've heard the term used is with small children and maybe pets. See, if Dade had chosen älskling as Maria's endearment of choice, I wouldn't be getting persnickety. That pretty much means "love" or "beloved" and I can basically mentally search and replace all uses of sötnos for älskling and the book would be better for it. Obviously, this is not going to be a nitpick that a lot of readers of this romance object to. I otherwise pretty much loved and was greatly amused by all the other Swedish-isms, including Maria's good-natured roasting of Peter, and her near-supernatural ability to always have a jar of pickled herring around to threaten to beat him over the head with. However, this is a romance, and I would like the actual relationship bits to feel real to me.

This book, with the exception of the pretty scorching one-night-stand Maria and Peter share at the beginning, is very slow burn with a lot of pining for much of the story. Only in the final third or so do Maria and Peter finally act on their six years of pent-up attraction and lust. Then there's obviously the section where their differing priorities tear the apart for a while (I'm more and more coming around to romances without a big third-act separation) before they reunite to live happily ever after. 

Both protagonists happily describe themselves as fat, and there's a running subplot about how Maria's confidence and healthy body image makes her refuse the unreasonable demands of the show's producers to lose weight or in other ways conform to society's so-called beauty standards. Peter is unwilling to risk the wrath of the producers, he needs the part too much and keeps being amazed by Maria's claims that if the job becomes too demanding, she'll just quit and return to Sweden. She acts because she enjoys the job, not because she has to or feels like she has anything to prove to anyone. 

While this book does work as a standalone, it is the final book in Dade's Spoiler Alert series, and there are references to and cameos by the previous couples in the series, as well as the various actors who also star in Gods of the Gates with Peter and Maria. It's more fun to read the bits that involve the actors interacting if you have the established backstory from the previous books. 

Inappropriate lover nickname aside, I really enjoyed this book and thought it was a great ending to the series. It was very strange, but also rather fun, to have Maria's Swedish expressions sprinkled throughout the story. In her acknowledgments, Dade confesses to struggling to complete the novel. I'm glad she had enough time and support to finish it. 

Judging a book by its cover: I don't think I've seen a single Leni Kauffman cover that isn't amazing. She just manages to choose the perfect image to illustrate a book, every time. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.