Attending the charity masquerade ball was my chance to let loose for one night. And as soon as I see him, I let the handsome stranger show me the hottest night of my life.
Except then I learn he isn’t a stranger.
He’s my new boss.
Tessa
I’m Windward born and bred. I love my family, my town, and my dream job managing my hotel. But now we’ve been bought by Langston Hotels. Cue stress and panic.
I’ll do anything to make sure they don’t ruin the charm and turn my hotel into a slick, modern, soulless shell.
What I wasn’t counting on was jet-setting hotelier Ambrose Langston. Handsome, bossy, with a wide workaholic streak.
It doesn’t take me long to realize he’s also the man I let do very wicked things to me.
Ro
Transforming the Windward Resort is next on my plan. I’m on a mission to make Langston Hotels thrive and rub my father’s face in it.
What I never expected was the locals of Windward being less than happy with my acquisition. And I definitely wasn’t expecting Tessa Ashford.
I’ve always been professional with my employees, unlike my philandering father, but smart, beautiful Tessa—the mysterious woman who rocked my world—makes it a challenge.
Working side by side, all I can think about is her. I never stay. I work, then leave. But she has me questioning everything.
Then the strange “accidents” start happening. Someone doesn’t want me in Windward.
Now, I need to keep Tessa safe from whoever wants me gone.

My Review:

Tessa Ashford has always, always wanted to be the manager of the Windward Resort in her beautiful Colorado hometown. The thing about achieving your dream and being on top of the world is that there’s nowhere to go. Not that Tessa isn’t enjoying maintaining the iconic resort in the style and status to which it, and the locals in the surrounding town that rely on it, have come to expect.

But things are changing, and there’s no way to know whether that change will be for the better. Tessa is afraid that it won’t, at least not for the staff. And possibly not for the locals who need the Windward, the town’s biggest economic engine, to keep on chugging along.

The original owner of the Windward, however, just received a big payday, in the form of Langston Hotels, a luxury hotel empire, buying the Windward. And being very clear that their first order of business is to bring the Windward up to the Langston’s standard of luxury, even if that requires knocking off a bit of the mountain resort’s signature charm.

Or tearing it down and starting over, which is what Tessa truly fears. She may have an ironclad contract for two more years, but her entire staff would be out of work and the whole town would lose its biggest moneymaker for the time it took to tear the resort down and build it back.

So Tessa’s worried about her new boss, Ambrose Langston, and all the changes he’s going to bring with him and his team.

Which is why her friends convince her to take, not even a whole night, but to do a bit of reverse Cinderella and join the Charity Masquerade Ball that’s being hosted at the Windward that very night even though she won’t arrive until after midnight.

Even workaholics need a break now and again – whether they are able to admit it to themselves or not.

Which is how Tessa finds herself dressed as a ‘dark fairy queen’, masked and anonymous, playing wallflower at a ball in her own hotel. At least until a masked and anonymous, but clearly also tall, dark and handsome stranger appears just in time to whisk her away for the kind of adventure she’s never taken the time to have.

Only to discover a few mornings later that her sexy stranger is her new boss, and that neither of them can seem to forget the best night either of them has ever had – even if it only lasted an hour.

Escape Rating A: This first entry in the author’s new Langston Hotels series was delightfully fun because it was just a bit more on the light and frothy side than her usual. Not that I haven’t loved her action-adventure romances and especially her science fiction romances but this one was a delicious change of pace in that the romance stood front and center and the dramatic tension was on the back burner to the very end. Marvelously, however, the UST – which doesn’t stay unresolved all that long – drove the story forward. (Also in other directions. Ahem.)

(Although speaking of directions, I’ve used the special edition cover of the book for this review and for the instagram post. I just like it better. Like lots, LOTS better. Maybe that’s part of what makes it special. But if you are curious, the original cover is at left so you’ll know what you’re looking for.)

What also made this a bit different from the author’s usual direction is that, as the series opener, it sets up a story that looks like it’s going to remain close to the location and to the team that sets it all up. Meaning that we’ve already got hints of the next two stories and they look like they’ll be between Tessa’s and Ro’s inner circle teammates AND be at least partially set at Langston Windward.

This initial romance begins with a classic trope, the one-night stand between strangers who turn out to be stuck working together. And it’s beautifully done because the excuse for them being strangers is also a classic. Masked balls may be rarer these days, but it’s the perfect setup for this meet-cute-and-strange. (That should be its own trope.)

And this is where the story slips straight into enemies-to-lovers, because Tessa and Ro are already set up to be on opposite sides. She wants to keep everything exactly the way it is, because she’s protecting the people involved in that ‘everything’. He needs to make changes, both to put his own brand’s stamp on the place AND because nothing is perfect and the Windward Resort isn’t either.

Which is where their meeting of the minds finally comes in, because, well, they’ve already met EVERYWHERE else. Although there are plenty of misplaced assumptions on the way to that meeting of minds, which works because their workplace tension isn’t so much a result of a misunderstandammit as it is a function of 21st century workplace communication.

We all know that email sucks at conveying nuance. It’s cold and impersonal and that leans into Ro’s interpersonal style a bit too well even as it triggers all of Tessa’s anxieties about her people with every curt, clipped exchange.

The romantic suspense subplot of this story was, well, not fun as having someone out to get you is never fun, but it was well-done and different as it wasn’t some danger following either of them around for years, neither of them was stupid about it, and it also tied into those misplaced assumptions as the investigation focused in the wrong but logical direction for quite a bit, making the reveal that much more of a surprise.

All in all – and clearly there’s been a lot of that all in this review, I had a great time with Tessa and Ro and both of their teams at the Langston Windward and I’m really looking forward to more, in August with Before and After.