Ready For Love?

‘Ready For Romance’ by Debbie Macomber is a clean contemporary romance.

Jessica Kellerman has had a crush on Evan Dryden since she was in high school. She truly believed that one day they would get married. It’s been many years and she’s grown into a woman who’s embarrassed by that time in her life. She has recently graduated with a certificate as a legal assistant and is trying for a job at the law offices of the Dryden law firm. Evan’s older brother Damian hires her as the new assistant for Evan. But she’s also been hired because she had a crush on him years ago and he needs a woman in his life to cheer him up. It seems that Evan fell in love with a woman named Mary Jo, but then she left him, leaving him down in the dumps ever since. Why can’t everyone understand that she’s grown up and matured past her high school crush stage?

Damian Dryden lived next door to the Kellerman’s while growing up. He knew that Jessica had a crush on Evan. He’s also the one to have caught her red-handed when she kissed Evan’s car mirrors with bright red lip stick. He hears that Jessica has outgrown that crush, but even if that’s true, he needs her more for Evan’s sake. Evan has fallen into a slump that has left him bored, restless, and not able to focus properly on work. Maybe with Jessica at work to give Evan something to focus his time on, he’ll start spending more time at work. The only problem is that Damian is falling for Jessica. Only he needs to let Evan have her because Evan’s finally acting more like his old self. What’s a man falling in love to do?

‘Ready For Marriage’ by Debbie Macomber picks up where ‘Ready For Romance’ left off.

Mary Jo Summerhill has loved Evan all this time, but feels that the relationship between them would never have worked. His family’s rich and her isn’t. He wants to become a politician one day, and she doesn’t want anything to do with the lime light. If it wasn’t for the sake of her parents she wouldn’t be going to him at all. She knows that seeing him will be painful. She saw all the papers a few years ago with Jessica Kellerman and Evan Dryden pictures printed weekly, and then the announcement about how the Kellerman’s and Dryden’s were going to celebrate a wedding together. It wasn’t until she arrived at the office that she found that Jessica had married Damian and not Evan!

Evan Dryden found out through a shared friend that Mary Jo never got married. She had broken off their relationship by stating that she had fallen in love with someone else. Evan had been devastated. He had dated a lot over the years, but she was the first woman he ever got serious over and wanted to marry. He had even got her to agree to marry him. Mary Jo didn’t seem the kind of girl to agree to marry someone without being in love, right? But apparently he had been wrong. Now she was back in his life and he was going to exact every last bit of satisfaction he could. Her parents couldn’t possibly pay the huge legal fees from him, so agrees to waive the fees if Mary Jo will work as his secretary for the summer while she’s not teaching. Only it takes mere days before he can’t hold on to his grudge and he’s falling for her all over again.

Both of these books were originally published separately, but when they were re-printed they were put together in one book called ‘Ready For Love’. You can get the book with both stories and you can get the e-books separately or together.