Overruled (The Legal Briefs, #1)
Emma Chase
Emma Chase, New York Times bestselling author of the Tangled Series, returns with the first installment of the Legal Briefs Series. As a DC defense attorney, Stanton Shaw keeps his head cool, his questions sharp, and his arguments irrefutable. They don’t call him the Jury Charmer for nothing – with his southern drawl, disarming smile and captivating green eyes – he’s a hard man to say no to. Men want to be him and women want to be thoroughly cross examined by him. Stanton’s a man with a plan. And for a while, life was going according to that plan. Until the day he receives an invitation to the wedding of his high school sweetheart and mother of his beloved ten-year old daughter. Jenny is getting married — to someone who isn’t him. That's definitely not part of the plan. *** Sofia Santos is a city raised, no-nonsense litigator who plans to become the most revered criminal defense attorney in the country. She doesn’t have time for relationships or distractions. But when Stanton, her "friend with mind-blowing benefits" begs for help, she finds herself out of her element, out of her depth, and obviously out of her mind. Because she agrees to go with him – to The-Middle-Of-Nowhere, Mississippi – to do all she can to help Stanton win back the woman he loves. Her head tells her she's crazy...and her heart says something else entirely. *** What happens when you mix a one stop-light town, two professional arguers, a homecoming queen, four big brothers, some Jimmy Dean sausage and a gun-toting Nana? The Bourbon flows, passions rise and even the best laid plans get overruled by the desires of the heart.
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Super fun read but there were some spelling errors. Hope the next book is better
0Well, this book didn't start out the way I thought it would, nor did it really continue the way I thought, which I think overall was a good thing!
So I got this on audio from the library and I thought it'd just be a silly romance, easily breezed through, but it was much more than a smutty romance that I was looking for. The book starts out with our main man at 17/18, realizing he and his high school love are knocked up. They decide to have the baby, he will not give up his dream and will still go to law school. Fast forward a bit later and the baby is turning 1, and Stanton and Jenny agree to not be exclusive all the time but only when they are both together in their hometown.
Like 11 years later, Stanton is a big lawyer in DC and banging his hot lawyer partner, and he gets very upset to get an invite to Jenny's wedding, so he and Sophia drive to Mississippi to basically stop the wedding and for Stanton to win Jenny back. It's super obvious from page 1 of Sophia's POV that she loves him, but Stanton is much less clear: he has complicated residual feelings for Jenny. Of course he and Sophia are having sex all the time, breaking the rules they set for themselves as soon as they are set. And Sophia is not happy to see him trying to win Jenny, and she ultimately leaves because its too hard and because she thinks Stanton doesn't return her feelings. Stanton has only pages before realized his feelings for Sophia and so is able to go after her. Sophia is like "we can't be together, you need time so I'm not a rebound" and Stanton's like "pick you up at 8?" and they live happily ever after.
SO I'm glad it had a bit of substance to it, but also it was still pretty fluffy, so it was a bit weird for me. Not enough sex scenes to really be smutty/they came too far apart, but also it was not super well written or had enough character exploring to be in the general fiction section.
Plus, it was 85% in Stanton's POV and only 15% Sophia's, so I wanted a bit more balance. Sophia felt like a weird stuck-in character, as if the first draft of this book did have Jenny and Stanton back together and Sophia was a minor character. But how it ended up, she feels more stock and didn't have much personality compared to Stanton.
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