So there’s forced proximity, plus mutual dislike and past history, plus starting over vs. They have to immediately set their dislike aside and work together with sufficient easy, visible camaraderie to gain the trust of their target.

In addition, they both harbor a pretty strong dislike for one another after having been in competition at Quantico, where they found one another’s style and strengths very off-putting. In The Thing About Love, the tension is partly that Jessica is reestablishing her life and adjusting her career in Chicago, while John is about to leave Chicago to restart his somewhere else. There are a number of things I enjoy about Julie James’ books, among them the portrayal of ambitious characters who love their careers, and the way in which a simple and subtle conflict, like work/life balance for busy career-focused people, can be expanded into a realistic tension that informs most of the story. Because Jessica and John are partnered on an undercover operation that takes place in Florida, they end up spending a lot of time together, and revising their opinions of one another. He’s just completed a grueling test to qualify for the FBI Hostage Rescue Team and gone through a miserable breakup. If he’s selected, he’d be leaving Chicago and restarting his life in a different direction. John is in a somewhat similar situation to Jessica’s, though while she’s arriving, he might be departing. On her first assignment in Chicago, she’s reunited with John Shepard, a fellow agent who was in her training class and got on her last nerve – a feeling which was entirely mutual.

Synopsis time! FBI Special Agent Jessica Harlow has relocated home to Chicago from LA after a divorce to start several parts of her life over again. I spent one weekend reading The Thing About Love, and it was so enjoyable and so much fun that knowing that I still had more of it to read left me in the best mood. It lifted my entire weekend, and when people ask me about it, I grin and wave my hands around and make Good Book Noise® (and then those people probably regret asking me). Theme: Friends to Lovers, Forced Proximity (stranded, safehouse, etc)

The thing about love julie james