Hi there and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for THE PLAN organized by AToMR Book Tours and OmniFic Publishing.  For other stops on the tour click here. Today’s book is a steamy contemporary romance from Qwen Salsbury that will tickle your funny bone just as much as your naughty bits…

Day of Employment: 359

11:05 a.m.

Location: Cubicles outside Canon’s office.
Co-workers: Betting on how long Canon’s new PA will last.
Me: No doubts. Ms. Gum-smacker won’t last the day. I need to place my bet.
Manolo Blahnik’s New Fall Shoes: Mine. As soon as Madeline hands over my winnings.

Emma Baker has never spoken a word to Alaric Canon, nor has he to her. But she’s studied him every day across the office tundra for almost a year. Canon is hard and fierce, terrifying and beautiful. He’s also the most stern, unforgiving person Emma has ever seen. Emma’s co-workers run a betting pool for Personal Assistant terminations. There’s a separate pot for the day one leaves without crying. Not likely…Canon made a former Navy SEAL cry.

He has high standards and low tolerance. Everyone knows it. Everyone stays away. Everyone who can, that is. Except Emma. She can’t look away. Alaric Canon is the single most attractive man she’s ever seen. Bar none.

Canon has never noticed her. Not once in almost a year. She’s not even a blip on his radar. But she will be. His radar will be blipless no more.

It is a goal. Emma has a plan.

My Review:

This book brought me to chocked-up, snotty laughter.  I can’t help giggling just remembering. Emma is a strong female lead–determined to make her own way. She’s had to for a while now. Her parents divorced when she was young and each started a new family, leaving Emma…on the outskirts, if you will. She’s working her way through law school and delights in her personal eye candy–Alaric Canon. His brutal temperament is nothing less than fierce and try as she might, she can’t get his gaze to land on her. Not ever.

So, she decides to change things up. Enter the ‘classy lady’ role she has seen Canon’s dates wear. Forgo her bright plumage and beige-down.

I'm a big blender full of subdued. So beige Helen Hunt would 
be envious. Total corporate drone, all business.
Plan forecast: Nothing but black, navy, and beige, with 
scattered gray and a slim chance of red.

Her first attempt to begin an early morning exercise regimen is divine:

My feet hit the cold hardwood floor and I fight the urge
to creep back under my duvet. Sleep is my friend.

Not as faithful a friend as cellulite. It is so loyal.
Always there.

OMG. I nearly wet myself. Emma’s acerbic wit and Spartan diction had me in absolute fits. Especially when she learns her boss is installing her as Canon’s newest Personal Assistant.

I see the look she has leveled at me. She's terrified.
Rebecca.
Terrified.
I may soil myself.

No, Emma’s not ‘a blip’ anymore; she’s front-and-center on the radar screen, and Canon is certainly a trial. He barely even speaks to her–leaving her notes everywhere telling her what to do and how he wants it done. Having observed his antics for the past year, however, Emma does more than hold her own–she shines. So much so that she’s indispensable on the acquisition trip Canon must take to plan the merger of their struggling company with another.

The trip is uproarious, with Emma stashing grounds of Canon’s favorite coffee in her luggage so she can ensure a perfect brew in the morning, and cobbling together the wardrobe of a professional business woman gleaned from all her friends’ closets. Suffering the simpering adoration of Canon’s admirer at the other company unhinges Emma in a way she has never been before. Taking matters–and bits of Canon’s anatomy–into her own hands solidifies Emma’s place in Canon’s mind. The woman is practically a closet dominatrix…

It’s an interesting love story, one where the reader knows Canon’s totally into Emma, but Emma can’t bring herself to believe it, which I enjoy. The trip drags on, and between them Emma is the brute–shoving Canon away, sure she’s going to get hurt. Falling for Canon wasn’t in the plan.

But getting rid of a man like Alaric Canon proves to be twice as difficult as gaining his attention in the first place.

I just loved this book. Emma’s so dead-pan in her cutting humor I was shocked into laughter nearly as often as I was tickled into it. The smexytimes are well-written–descriptive without being pages long and sloppy with it. The two characters are brash, and I delighted in seeing the demanding Canon tamed in the bedroom. So very fun, indeed.

Interested? You can find THE PLAN at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

About the Author

Qwen Salsbury was born in Kansas and somehow keeps ending up back there.  Raised on her grandparent’s five acre homestead within the city limits, her imagination was honed during long days of quiet play and spartan access to a TV signal.  Now mother to handsome boys, she strives to ensure they appreciate potential adventures found within the pages of a book, an honest day’s work, and what ingenuity may yield from mundane objects like a string and a cup.  The boys prefer a PS3.

After spending time in corporate America, she returned to school and received a BA in English, Creative Writing and Poetry from Pittsburg State University, the alma mater of Pulitzer Prize winning poet, James Tate.  She worked on a Masters there until going on to receive a juris doctorate from Washburn School of Law.

A seven-time Sigma Tau Delta writing award winner, her fiction and poetry have appeared in literary magazines and have been selected by fiction communities as featured story of the month and year.  Predominantly a writer of romance, her romantic fiction varies from contemporary to historical to fantasy, though often with a humorous slant and poetic undertones.

For reasons she can’t even articulate herself, she decided to start writing fiction again while solo parenting and attending law school (during Constitutional Law class, to be exact.). You can find Qwen at her website, Facebook,  Twitter, and Goodreads.

***GIVEAWAY***

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Good luck, and keep reading my friends!