Eyes Like Those by Melissa Brayden

Eyes Like Those by Melissa Brayden

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review.

A young woman, relatively speaking, of roughly 28-29 years of age dejectedly returns home from work. Ex-work. She’s been fired, yet again. Over fennel. She’s, obviously enough, quite sad. She explains her sadness to Fat Tony, who is her uncle and a gangster. He whacks everyone at the restaurant. The end.

Wait, sorry, Fat Tony is Isabel’s grumpy cat. Not a mobster. So, instead of ‘killing’ everyone who wronged her, the cat attacks her feet. Moments later Isabel’s life turns a completely different direction – her former college friend, wait, no, still friend, her friend from college sets Isabel up with an interview with a television series to be a writer on it. She hurriedly sets things up, gets hired, and promptly dumps coffee onto her new boss. And thus is Isabel meet, and thus is the book started.

As noted, Isabel is rapidly approaching her thirties and has spent her life winning awards at film festivals and . . . struggling mightily to have that actually mean anything (like in her bank account). Basically, what I’m saying is that she has received critical success on short films, but no financial success. Oh, and she has no lover in her life.

Enter . . . Gia, Hadley, Autumn and . . . um, well there’s also Stephanie . . and . . well, a bunch of people who live in Isabel’s cozy apartment building on the beach. Wait, you thought I was going to mention a love interest? Are you sure I haven’t? Right, so, my point is/was: Isabel, unlike her normal nature, instantly finds some friends to hang out with. Plus, she has that great gig on a high rated television show.

Meanwhile, a woman of about 32 has been running a highly rated television show for the past 5 or so years (well, this is season 5, so, past 4 years?). She has no one currently in her life, romantically, but then – she has no time for something like that. She’s run ragged from script meetings, to meetings with producers, to meetings with the budget people, to meetings with the network, to . . . well, you get the idea.

Well, she does occasionally have naked (or at least topless) women in her office (and in her life). Except . . . that’s the ex who won’t stop attempting to prolong the relationship. Taylor Andrews, who I now realize I forgot to name, has learned at least one lesson from her life, well many lessons but one specific one matters for this story, - she’ll never again have a relationship with someone she works with.

Isabel finds Taylor to be gorgeous. Taylor can’t stop examining Isabel’s traits, habits, clothing, and body. Things proceed from there.

This is/was a rather good book here. Good solid plot, great side characters (both those seen as friends off the set, and those on the set), great romance, and, and this one surprised me, great bits of humor. I don’t actually remember if that’s normal or not for a Brayden book. I’d have to go back and look over my reviews, but when I think of a Brayden book I think of well written books with great characters, good romances, and a certain formulistic foreshadowing of key plot points (specifically the key plot point that’ll cause mischief and problems with the budding relationship). Humor? Not an immediate thought that comes to mind.

But this book kept making me laugh, and all the other great points of a Brayden book were also there (unless you think that foreshadowing thing is a great advantage – because that seemed to be missing – which I liked). The ‘point of contention’ seemed logical to the story, and yet wasn’t foreshadowed with large glowing neon arrows.

My mind has suddenly become blank. Why’d that happen? Mmphs.

Right, so – there is a dog in this story, plus a cat. Both have important roles to play, though the dog more so than the cat. Family pops up, but more as an aside – as in, Isabel thinks of her father once or twice. I am not sure Taylor ever had family (okay, yes, her parents were mentioned, but I don’t think they played any role in this book). No kids were harmed in the telling of this story (also, no kids appeared, not even stray ones unrelated to the story).

Sex occurred. Graphically. Sometimes publically.

Right . . . so . . . great book.

Oh! Remembered something: POV? Both main characters have their point of view seen by the reader. Plus, unrelated, this is the first in a series and the second book has already been revealed - and stars Autumn of Cat's PJ's.

Rating: 4.84

September 15 2017




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