The Professional by Kresley Cole
The Professional
Author: Kresley Cole
Genre: Romance
Date: 12 August 2021
Rating: 3 stars
Review: Anyone who has ever read a dark/smutty romance book before knows how addicting they can be. So it should come as a surprise to no one that I went ahead and picked another book in the Game Maker series.
The Professional is technically the first book in the series. I learned about it from details mentioned in the second book so I knew the ‘surprising’ plot twist going into the book. Did that hamper my experience of reading it? Not at all. Reading one of these books is like reading all of them in the sense that I wasn’t there for the plot. I was there for the banter and the sexy fun times, with the added bonus of another dark-haired, light-eyed Russian hero with a dark past.
The Professional follows the story of Natalie Porter as she sets out to find the identity of her biological father. She is in for a nasty surprise because just as she thinks that she is close to finding out the truth dark, brooding and mafiya enforcer Aleksandr ‘the Siberian’ Sevastyan lands up on her door with express instructions to keep her safe and bring her back to Russia where she will finally get to meet his boss and her long-lost father. What could be better than going on a journey halfway across the world to find out that you are a mafia princess instead of just a broke PhD student? Going on a journey with a man that gets you hot, bothered and dreaming of things that should not be thought of in polite company.
This book has the trope of a girl trying to save or change a man who seems lost. You somehow cannot escape the trope while reading romance. I mean even Imtiaz Ali has made a fortune doing the same thing over and over, so can you blame Kresley Cole? But Natalie is aware of the expectation from her. She knows that just because she likes to jump Aleks’s bones and is definitely falling in love with him she is expected to save him from his dark past and break through the walls he has built to keep everyone out. Does that make her not do these things? No. But it makes for good reading. The field of her study makes the relationship that much more interesting because at every point she uses her research to analyse her relationship, which I thought was a brilliant move for a book in this genre.
It also didn’t hurt that somehow this book seemed even more steamy. Cole ticked all the boxes in the checklist. And does this couple have range! They do the deed in Siberia, in Paris, in Moscow and in Nebraska. Aleksandr is the true Mr Worldwide.To conclude, read this book purely because sometimes your mind needs a rest and your heart needs some exercise stemming from someone else’s sexual antics.