Our Tense Love Affair
by Ali Parker
My review:
“Our Tense Love Affair” is part of the Bancroft Billionaire Brothers universe of novels by Ali Parker. This is an engaging enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers story that will make your head spin – in a really good way. Sometimes you’ll want to hug Taylor and Megan, sometimes you’ll want to shake them, and the whole time you’ll want to keep reading about them.
Taylor is a level-headed businessman who has made a fortune as a real estate flipper; he buys and renovates rundown properties to turn them into profitable ventures. Then he sells them. His latest project involves transforming a decrepit old theater into nice but affordable condos and retaily businesses that will be good for the neighborhood. Everything looks great until he encounters Megan, the lead actress at the live theater company that makes its home in the place he’s about to obliterate. She’s fiercely determined to stop him and save her beloved theater. The young woman is obsessed with that theater! Taylor and Megan repeatedly clash over his plan to go ahead with his plans and her dogged determination to somehow stop him. For them, arguing enhances the wild physical attraction they have for one another.
Taylor also happens to be a Big Brother to a wonderful Little Brother in that program, in a storyline that provides a lot of drama and some humor. There is still more drama going on with Taylor’s twin brother, their half-brother who they are close with, and a lot of half-brothers who don’t know they exist. Stress and worry about his beloved mother’s struggle with sobriety and his strong dislike for her husband add to the volatility of Taylor’s life. Megan struggles to find a new mental identity for herself now that her theater ‘family’ has been torn apart. She also tries to figure out how to pay her bills moving forward.
This is not a quick read, but it’s an enjoyable one. I admit I was Team Taylor from the beginning, but by the end I also was a Megan supporter. The dialogue between them is entertaining and their steamy chemistry is explosive. There were a couple of things I would have liked to have known more about going into the epilogue, but that’s just my personal curiosity. There was so much covered in this story, the author impressed me with how smoothly it all worked. I thought the ending was nicely done, and I’m looking forward to the next brother having his story told. By the way, is anyone else ‘shipping’ Taylor’s twin brother and a certain single mom?