As a very successful private investigator who has caught most of the cheaters in Seattle with their pants down, Rafe Sullivan believes true, lasting love only happens once in a blue moon. Needing to get away from the city to clear his head, he finds the lake house where he spent the best summers of his life is now a wreck...but the sweet girl next door is all grown up and prettier than anything he's ever seen.

While Brooke Jansen is happy making and selling chocolate truffles in her small Pacific Northwest lake town, she secretly longs to experience something wild. So when her favorite “Wild Sullivan” moves in again next door after more than a decade away, and sparks fly between them, she can't stop wondering if being bad is really as good as it always seemed...and just how long it will be before she can find out?

But when their summer fling quickly spirals into deeper emotions than either of them were expecting, can they survive the heat between them? Or will Rafe make the biggest mistake of his life and end up losing the best thing that's ever happened to him?

Tracy’s review of The Way You Look Tonight (The Sullivans #9) by Bella Andre

While Brooke Jansen is happy with her quiet, small-town life, she secretly longs to experience something wild. So when her favorite “Wild Sullivan” moves back after more than a decade away, she can’t stop wondering if being bad is really as good as it always seemed…and just how long it will be before she can find out.

It’s not long before a summer fling spirals into something much deeper. Can Rafe put his faith in love for once, or will he end up losing the best thing that’s ever happened to him?

Rafe was once a cop who eventually started his own PI firm and it has been a good move for him. Unfortunately a huge part of his business is catching cheaters. It makes him a bit crazy and he’s starting to not enjoy his job at all. It makes him cynical about the world in general and that’s having a negative effect on his whole life. His sister Mia wants him to buy a lake home so that he can get away from it all but he’s not sure that’s what he needs. He changes his mind when Mia finds the perfect home – the house that his parents had to give up when he was a teen. The Sullivan’s used to spend every summer there and Rafe loved it almost more than anyone else. He buys the house and within a day he’s back at the lake. The house is a mess and practically torn apart inside but he’s determined to make it right.

Next door to Rafe lives Brooke Jansen. She had spent summers at her grandparents’ house on the lake and had been great friends with the Sullivan’s until they stopped showing up. When her grandparents died they willed the home to Brooke and she has been living in it full time making chocolate truffles and doing a great business.

Rafe and Brooke see each other again and have an instant connection. It’s not long before they are finding every available surface to have sex on and becoming emotionally attached. Rafe, however, isn’t ready to give up his cynical ways and when he makes a huge error in judgment he finds that he may lose the Brooke and everything they’ve built in one fell swoop.

This book had all the charm and goodness that I’ve come to expect in a Sullivan’s novel. I really liked Rafe and Brooke a lot and it was wonderful getting to know the characters in this side of the Sullivan’s family better.

That being said I did have a couple of issues with the book – the biggest one being the central conflict. I could see where it all could go wrong but how the characters reacted really seemed a bit overblown. I guess I could see things from both points of view and if one of the characters hadn’t gone off half-cocked (can you tell I’m trying not to give anything away?) then the pair could have sat and talked and all would have been well. I think this is kind of an on-going theme in Andre’s books, though, with the conflict happening and then the characters spending time away from each other and then realizing their mistakes, etc., so I wasn’t too surprised.

The other issue I had was the speed with which the characters fell in love. I could totally see the lust and growing emotions happening and I loved that, but the “I love you” (for both of them) came so quickly I was almost surprised when it happened. One week just isn’t long enough to fall in love with a person imho, although I’m sure there are couples out there that would naysay that.

So, while I really liked so many different parts of the story and overall had a smile on my face when it ended, I did have a couple of issues with it. This certainly won’t stop me from reading the next book in the series. 🙂

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

This title is available from Harlequin MIRA. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.