Author: K.A. Linde
Length: 12 hours 10 min
Off the Record is the first book in the ‘Record’ series. I don’t usually read contemporary romance, it’s not really my thing. But this one sounded interesting and I was able to listen free with Kindle Unlimited so I gave it a try. It follows a college reporter, Liz Dougherty, as she begins a secret relationship with Brady Maxwell, a politician who’s in the middle of running for…something. Ha! I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was fantastic.
The main character, Liz, was immediately likable. She had a good head on her shoulders and her inner voice spoke common sense to her even if she didn’t always listen to it. As the reader we’re along with her for the ride from the beginning of the affair, when she is head over heels for Brady. As time goes on however, her feelings do get stronger but that common sense I mentioned starts to kick in. She starts to realize that she maybe doesn’t want to be somebody’s secret girlfriend. But every time she meets up with Brady her feelings for him intensify so she just ends up torn and confused.
Brady doesn’t do too much to make it any easier on her. He’s gentlemanly, but mostly he has the ‘this-is-what-you-signed-up-for’ attitude whenever she tells him how she feels. He’s also in the habit of bringing other, more “appropriate” women as his date to public functions, which further hurts Liz. He explains it away by saying he was pressured by his campaign manager (who is a BEEYOTCH) or even his mom to bring this person or that person on his arm, but my response to that is really? He is a grown man. And it’s not like Liz is some shady character – although she previously wrote some not-so-favorable articles about Brady’s education policy for her college newspaper, she doesn’t have any skeletons in her closet. But she continues to be treated like some dirty little secret and I could just feel myself getting angrier and angrier on her behalf as the book went on. Especially when I felt like she connected well with Hayden, another male character. I also enjoyed her being charmed by Clay and thought they were both better candidates for her attention than Brady. But the heart wants what it wants and all that crap…
I’ve never read K.A. Linde before and she brought a very human feel to every character. Her writing combined with the great narration made this a solid three star book for me. Maybe if I was more a contemporary romance girl I’d give it a higher rating but honestly that’s the only thing that kept me from getting immersed in this book. I’d like to know what Liz decides in the future (as this book ends in a cliffhanger) but not so much that I want to continue on in the series.
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