Drive Me Crazy

Everything about this screams that I shouldn't like it, but I fell completely in love with this quirky romance. Candice is having an affair with her boss and she has fallen hook, line and sinker for his line that he and his wife are only together because Starr Haulage is a "family business". I'm not entirely sure whether Candice is naive or desperate but as a start to a book it put my judgmental hackles up. As the first few chapters progress you see how manipulated she is and how she changes her speech and her dress to please this middle-aged man, allowing him to completely dominate her life - the reason a week long business trip where they can experience a "normal relationship". I would normally give up at this point and ditch the book, somehow Portia McIntosh kept me reading. I am so glad she did. There is just something so charming about the whole thing - watching Candice blossom under her friendship with Geordie Shore when they are forced to take the business trip together is actually rather marvellous. I don't know if it's the time of year (read a few days before Valentine's Day) but this book gave me the warm fuzzies and made me chuckle. Yes, some of the scenarios are so far fetched as to beggar belief but there is so much heart within these pages you just find yourself going along with all. The pacing is fast and there is a fair bit of internal monolguing from Candice (which normally irritates me) but it just works. It really, really shouldn't and I am sure even the most laissez faire feminist would have palpitations at the contents but, it is FUN and what more can you ask for?

I tried. I really did. Just... out of one incredibly awful abusive relationship straight into another emotionally abusive unequal one... I couldn't finish it.