28 April 2015

Overruled (The Legal Briefs #1) by Emma Chase

 A Washington, 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, the 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 her 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.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22923997-overruled?ac=1
A new series by Emma Chase?  Oh, yes please!

Stanton Shaw is a successful defense attorney, and when I say successful I mean both in and out of the bedroom.  He has a quick wit and southern charm that both juries and women find hard to refuse.  He lives by strict rules and has a plan.  The plan in interrupted when he gets a wedding invitation to his High School Sweetheart’s wedding…to someone who is not him.  That is most definitely not the plan.  So he begs his fellow lawyer Sofia to go with him to the wedding to try to help him to win back the woman he had thought would always be his.  Will everything go according to Stanton’s plan?

First off, Stanton is such a jerk, but in a loveable kind of way.  The guy likes him woman and he’s not ashamed of it.  I also think it’s kind of sweet that he always thought he would end up with Jenny.  I mean, sweet in a very selfish way but still sweet.  Stanton definitely has some Drew Evans qualities, so you get what I’m saying when I say that you will both love and hate him and then ultimately end up loving him.

I thought that the small town setting was the best part of this book.  The characters we meet in the middle of nowhere Mississippi are endearing and unforgettable.  This book has Emma’s signature wit and is just a fun book to read all around.  I cannot wait of the next book in this series.  I gotta give this 5 stars!
I LOVED IT! As a fan of Ms. Chase's Tangled series, I jumped at the chance to review Overruled and was delighted that Drew makes a couple of cameo appearances in the book. At his first appearance I got quite giddy at the prospect that the author was going to infuse the same level of humor, conflict, miscommunication, romance, and no-holds-barred sex that she did in the Tangled series. And Ms. Chase absolutely delivered all this and more as she kicks off The Legal Briefs series.

Unlike Tangled, Overruled is told from both Stanton and Sofia's points of view. Mind you, the first three chapters were told from Stanton’s point of view and do a wonderful job of laying the foundation for the book as we learn about the relationship he had with his high school sweetheart, how she refused to let a positive pregnancy test derail his education and career plans, and how their family plans changed over a decade’s time. As I was in the groove of Stanton’s storytelling (and it being reminiscent of spending time in Drew’s head), I was thrown quite a LOT when the author switched to Sofia’s point of view as I completely missed the chapter subheading; but once I laughed at my mistake and the chapter made far more sense coming from Sofia, I got down to brass tacks and buckled in for one seriously witty, unbelievably sexy, and emotionally satisfying romance as Stanton comes to the realization that he has gotten far too comfortable with the life he leads and realizes that he’s the only one happy with it. After all, the man does have his cake and get to eat it too.

I loved the banter between Stanton and Sofia. Their passion for their careers was as obvious as their passion for one another. In the beginning it is clear that theirs is a friends with benefits arrangement between two colleagues who respect one another, are truly friends, and are able to fulfill one another’s sexual needs without crossing the line from loving one another to being in love with one another. This is an important distinction because of the relationship Stanton has with Jenny (one which I suspect will tick off some readers) and the distinction becomes the crux of the problem when one of them begins to worry that they may be crossing that line by falling in love and worries that it will ruin their friendship. But then again, dragging your best friend (who happens to be the woman you’re sleeping with) back home so you can prevent “your girl” (who is the mother of your child) from marrying someone else pretty much guarantees that that friendship will never be the same, no matter the outcome of the trip. And boy what a trip it was! Ms. Chase has created yet another wonderful cast of characters who kept me entertained from beginning to end, whether they had me crying from raw emotion or from laughing so hard that my fact hurt. I absolutely loved Overruled and cannot wait to see what Ms. Chase has in store for them in the next book in the series.

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