Cold Comfort - Book Review

By Audra North

Synopsis

They’re practically strangers until a cross-country road trip turns into a journey toward love…

Josh Neubaum can’t wait to get home for Thanksgiving. He’s even looking forward to the solo drive from California to Connecticut. A little time off of work, the freedom of the road, and family waiting for him at the other end. It couldn’t get any better than that.

But the day before he’s supposed to leave, Josh gets a request he isn’t in a position to refuse: he’ll have to bring the boss’s daughter along on his cross-country drive, since she happens to be moving to the East Coast at the same time.

Transporting the stuck up Monica Patel thousands of miles is already torture enough because she stands between Josh and a promotion. But it doesn’t help that he thinks she’s gorgeous despite her haughty, holier-than-thou attitude. A lot can happen during a week on the road, though…will Josh’s attraction to her grow into something much hotter, or will it end up being nothing more than cold comfort?

Review

What would you say if your impossible-to-please boss asks you to take his daughter on your cross-country road trip back home? When your job is your life and your answer could affect your promotion or even your job, you have no choice but to say yes. What would you say if your impossible-to-please father tells you that you’ll be driving across the country with his favourite employee because he thinks you can’t do it by yourself? When all you want to do is please your father, you have no choice but to say yes. This is how Josh and Monica ended up on the road trip from hell. Both were looking forward to their solo drives across the county until they’re forced together by a man they so desperately want to please.

I really enjoyed reading COLD COMFORT; I liked both Monica and Josh and thought they made a nice couple. Monica is a genius but she has issues with her father that have her making choices for his benefit rather than for hers. All she wants is his praise, but no matter what she does, she never seems to get it, and after thirty years of trying, it’s taken it’s toll. Josh is a workaholic but he’s also an absolute sweetheart. Work has been his life for the past several years, and although he’s had relationships with women, he’s not dated them, so when things with Monica start to get romantic, he’s not sure how to handle it.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, I got flustered and nervous, and by the time I realised what I wanted, it was too late.

COLD COMFORT really brings home that sometimes first impressions aren’t accurate. Both Josh and Monica have been quick to judge the other, but when that’s stripped away, all that’s left is attraction. Over the course of the trip, Monica stops being just a job and becomes a person he genuinely likes the more he learns about her, while Monica learns that it’s not right to blame Josh because her father seems to like him more than he does his own daughter. Through honest conversations and hot hotel sex, they realise there’s more to life than a job and that your own dreams and happiness should never come second. COLD COMFORT is told in dual POVs and while it’s part of a series, it can be read as a stand-alone. It’s a nice, sweet and quick read that left me with a smile on my face.