Love Bites by Ophelia London

Sharona Blaire is an auditor who is travelling from Miami to Sydney on business. Wandering into first class by mistake, Sharona compounds her errors by accidentally tipping a whole Bloody Mary over one of the first class passengers as she escorted back to economy class.  Later that evening Sharona goes to the hotel bar to relax. Deciding that the night is a bust she turns around to walk away, and manages to spill her drink over a gorgeous stranger – the same gorgeous stranger – for the second time that day. This breaks the ice and they start to talk, finding they have a real connection.

Although Sharona has never been a one night stand kind of girl she feels she could do with a confidence boost. She broke off her relationship with her fiancé (also her boss) about 6 months ago. He didn’t respect her then, and he doesn’t respect her now, meaning her work life is under pressure too. She isn’t looking forward to the next day’s work either, and she’s longing for a chance to escape reality, just for a little while, but will she go through with it?

"Something about being halfway around the world made her feel... unencumbered. Or maybe it was the effects of her Long Island iced tea combined with his dreamy, ocean-blue eyes."

Although Jeff is not somebody who makes a habit of having no strings attached nights of passion the American hottie he has just met who is insisting on no names or personal details being exchanged is hard to resist as the attraction between them is pretty intense. Conservation scientist Jeff is also fairly new on the singles scene – his marriage broke down a while ago after his wife betrayed his trust to sell some of his intellectual property and he hasn’t been interested in putting himself out there until the temptation of tonight. Although Jeff loves his job, he’s dreading tomorrow, as he’ll have the distraction of having to deal with an auditor...

This was a very interesting setting for a romance – a research boat looking at the travel and mating habits of the great white shark. There is a level of resentment and distrust between the main characters due to how the previous night ended and the baggage from their respective exes.

Sharona seemed very nice, although why she continued to work with her foul ex was a mystery, an auditing job isn’t that hard to come by! So often in romances the protagonists have really glamorous jobs and I thought it made a nice change to have a more prosaic profession. Jeff was a super hot, intelligent conservationist with a good sense of humour, described as having a grin that was 'an interesting cross between Han Solo and Thor'. What’s not to like?!

Since this is a novella there wasn’t much time for the story to build and their relationship developed between them very quickly, but given the nature of the setting, a one day boat trip with some time at the hotel before and after things would have to develop quickly to have any kind of story. There was a grand gesture which I felt was unnecessary and also a little unbelievable, but I thought this was an enjoyable story, and just the ticket if you wanted a quick escape with a short, untaxing read. I'd rate this as 3½ stars.

*Many thanks to the publishers, Entangled Publishing, and Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc of this book for my honest review.