LET IT LOVE

A personal trainer agonizes over whether to dump her jerk of a boyfriend in favor of a rich dreamboat in Aiseman’s fizzy romance.

Chloe Barrett is a 20-something Baltimore-area brunette whose unemployed, live-in boyfriend Jimmy is possibly the world’s worst: He constantly criticizes her looks and clothes, derides her ambition to finish college and open a combination Pilates/yoga/nutritional counseling studio, openly flirts with other women, and says things like “you could lose some pounds, you know” and “even your parents knew nothing good would come out of you” (Chloe was raised in foster homes). Enter the dashing young Will Allentown, who runs his family’s billion-dollar real estate business and is “slightly too handsome to be real” with his captivating dark eyes and awesome lats and deltoids. Will takes Chloe’s business dreams seriously, and she supports his dream of becoming a writer; the two bond over s’mores, steamy hands-on personal training sessions, and Will’s intervention when he rescues Chloe from a creepy groper. Unfortunately, Chloe’s self-esteem is so undermined by Jimmy’s abuse that she can’t bear to leave him, even after he steals $6,000 from her to invest in a nutritional-supplement scam. A further complication arises in the person of Sydney Bell, a gorgeous real estate agent whom Will’s snooty mom Alina wants Will to marry. Aiseman’s colorful, evocative prose ably conveys both catty comedy (“Sydney gets up to hug [Will], making sure her cleavage rubs onto his chest”) and the tremulous buildup of passion (“She moves a tad closer to him almost reflexively…he must notice that little hitch in her breath, because his smile curves upward a little more”). Chloe is a winsome hero, hesitant, wary, and determinedly independent but suffused with quiet yearning; readers will root for her to land the right man.

An entertaining love story featuring sharply etched, appealing characters with palpable chemistry.