Review: Lisa Kleypas's CHASING CASSANDRA.

Q: what’s the last book you were thrilled to get?

If you only knew how much I fervently hoped for this book. Let’s just say that I have been waiting for Tom Severin’s face-plant into love since the first book I read from the Ravenels series.

A mercenary businessman and, in one memorable incident, a mercenary friend, Tom’s been asking for a HEA from the beginning. That’s what Lisa Kleypas gives us in Chasing Cassandra, with a woman who is exquisitely soft but also unexpectedly stubborn and Tom’s perfect pairing.

Tom’s immediate attraction for Cassandra burns through his numbness but, after proposing marriage to her, he maintains that he’s unable to love. All Cassandra wants is her own family to love and to be loved by so she declines his invitation.

An almost classic kind of conflict and yet Kleypas does it beautifully. Their first meetings are just so gentle that I fell in love with the pairing on the spot. He can’t help but feel for Cassandra and you know that he’s wrong about being able to love and YOU WILL ADMIT IT SOON, TOM, WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT.

I wasn’t expecting this book to be soooo funny (Tom, please join #romancestagram) or to see children born from the unions of characters in her other books pop up (Helloooo, Mr. Westcliffe). The body positivity is beautiful, though I wanted to see Cassandra own her beauty and power even more.

The crisis feels a little untraditional to me, and it’s fitting for the book. In Chasing Cassandra it’s Tom’s subtle, eventual wearing down that’s lovely, the inevitable and yet so slow you could miss it phenomenon akin to ice melting in a glass.

BRB going to read this one again.
5⭐️




CW: sexual assault

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Edelweiss+ and Avon Books but all opinions provided are my own.