Review: Something About You, by Julie James

With her first two novels, Julie James gave us contemporary romance for adults: witty dialogue, intelligent humor, incredible sexual tension, and flawed but lovable characters to care about and root for. I’m happy to report that Something About You makes it a hat trick for Ms. James.

This is one of those reviews I have a hard time writing because there are so many other great reviews out there. James has a comprehensive list — all glowing — here. So this will be short.

As the book opens, Assistant US Attorney Cameron Lynde is being kept awake by loud sex in the next door hotel room. Eventually she falls asleep, and when she wakes up, the place is swarming with cops and the FBI: the woman next door has been murdered. When FBI Special Agent Jack Pallas walks in, Cameron’s heart sinks: this is the guy who went undercover to nab a Chicago crime boss, at great personal cost (he was tortured for two days when his cover was blown) only to have Cameron’s office decide not to try the case. When Jack unleashed his rage at Cameron on national TV, he was punished by being transferred to Nebraska, a second insult for which he blames her. In fact, Cameron’s involvement in both the dismissal of the case and Jack’s career trajectory was much more benign that Jack knows, but she is sworn to secrecy about the details.

This review might make it seem as if a Big Misunderstanding provides most of the conflict in this book, but that would be too simple. For one thing, Cameron and Jack each did something to the other that, no matter how you slice it, was hurtful. For another, as they rewrite the narrative of their shared past, another external conflict looms large to take its place: Cameron, having looked out her hotel room’s peephole to spy the killer leaving the room, is the only witness. This puts her in mortal danger, and Jack and his team are assigned to guard her.

I normally don’t really enjoy romantic suspense, but I did really like this one, because the focus stayed on Jack and Cameron, because there were no “let’s take a moment to grope each other before the gun toting killer rounds the corner” scenes, and because the suspense plot didn’t make me feel like the author thought I was dumb as a bag of rocks. I would describe the suspense plot as simple but effective, much the way I would describe the In Death suspense plots. I especially liked the passages from the killer’s point of view: the scene when he remembers the woman (who happened to be the paid lover of a US Senator) as “the mess he’d left behind” was chilling, since he wasn’t a depraved maniac, but someone who had, over time, gotten his hands dirtier and dirtier to the point where he didn’t know where they ended and the evil messes he made began. (and that’s as much bad poetical writing as you’ll get today, folks. I swear.).

James’ first two books felt lighter and snappier, more like the screenplays the author used to write (although James still works in a cute movie reference to It Happened One Night, when Cameron and Jack have to share a hotel room, but agree to stay on opposite sides of a “Wall of Jericho”). This book was heavier due to the seriousness of Cameron’s situation, the long shadow of the past, and Jack’s personality, which is much more typical alpha than James’s first two heroes. James has a little bit of meta fun with this, having Cameron use the romance buzz word “glowering” to describe the dark looks Jack throws around. While Jack’s protectiveness made sense given the situation and his job description, sometimes he got a bit too macho, as when he chided Cameron about a revealing dress, and about her close relationship with her gay male best friend.

It wasn’t clear to me why they ended up having sex when they did, although for anyone wondering, after reading James’s rather chaste first and second novels, whether she can write a more explicit scene and maintain both her trademark style and the sexual tension for the rest of the book, the answer is a definite yes.

There is a great deal of very effective humor in Something About You, not only in the exchanges between Cameron and Jack, but in their interactions with friends and colleagues. For example, here’s Cameron talking with her best friend Amy about Jack:

Cameron peered back up at Amy in the mirror. “Besides, I generally have this rule about not sleeping with a guy until he’s taken me out on some kind of date.”
“When he saves your life, I think you can bypass that part.”
“He did have dinner delivered the other night, although I think the FBI picked up the tab. Do you think I can count that?

Three last comments, one negative, one positive, one a question. First, although I liked the characterization of the murderer, some language was added in the second half of the book that veered into “I hate women” territory, a catch all motive that wasn’t really needed here and comes off as cliched to me whenever I encounter it in fiction.

Second, the characters go to some lengths to not make moral judgments about the murdered prostitute. Despite having dirty hands herself in ways that are revealed in the book, she was always presented as a human being worthy of a better life and better death than she got. That was something I appreciated very much.

Third, in each James book, if I remember correctly, the heroine has an androgynous name (Taylor, Payton, and Cameron) and has a career — lawyering — she loves and is good at. By the end of each book, the heroine is not only happily in love, but she has had some major, unexpected, but richly deserved career success. Finally, in each book, the heroine and hero are related in some way by their work.

So, I think it is fair to say that deliberately intertwining a fantasy about work success with the fantasy of romantic success is a James trademark. Is she unique in this? Or have I just not read enough contemporary romance?