Self-professed nerd Maddie Maloney is an expert on jewels. Jewel thieves are another matter entirely! So when a mysterious Englishman warns her that a thief known as The Chameleon is after the rare pink diamond on display in her aunt’s shop, she tells herself it’s just a joke. Even if she can’t get Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome out of her mind…
But Fabian Montgomery doesn’t give up easily. He’s everywhere she goes, convinced the thief will strike. And when the diamond does go missing-and Maddie is suspected of stealing it-he whisks her away from the police and together they pursue The Chameleon.
Fabian plunges her into a glamorous world far from her humble workshop and transforms geeky Maddie into a sophisticated siren capable of espionage. Her mission: to seduce The Chameleon and steal back the diamond.
But Fabian isn’t telling her everything-like who he works for, and why he’s so interested in The Chameleon…
I am a fickle reader. I’m telling you this now to prepare you. You’ll need this information later.
There are many things I liked about this book. Maddie Malone is a quirky gem nerd. She wears funky clothing and thinks she’s being a unique little butterfly when really she’s just making everyone around her uncomfortable. Fabian is an uptight upper class smooth mothershutyourmouth James Bond wanna be who has his walter ppk shoved firmly up his *GINNY DON’T YOU DARE* rump… firmly up his rump. When they meet, it’s like mixing poprocks and cola. Maddie’s family? Pure gold. The dialogue is fantastic.
Examples:
“She’d formed a hypothesis, conducted experiments-aka dates-and come to an unassailable conclusion-rich men were dickheads.”
“Maddie owed it to Grace to suss out anyone who came within a bee’s dick of the Rose.”
It was a really solid romance novel with a really solid heist aspect. Yes, the plot is slightly unbelievable, but isn’t the plot of nearly every book?
It’s good. I enjoyed it.
What? Why are you looking at me like that? What do you mean “you can hear a butt” in that sentence? Are you implying I cut one? Because, my friend, the faker is most usually the maker… Oh you meant “but” not “butt”! Yeah, there’s totally one of those there.
It’s good. I enjoyed it. But…
First there’s the twist. You can see it coming from a mile away. It was like watching a horror movie only to have the killer trying to hide behind a lamp post. You can see him, but for some reason the heroine can’t and you’re left going “OH COME ON!”
Actually, there are two twists that are like that.
Then there’s the “end”. When I got to the end I thought that there must be a mistake. There must’ve been pages cut off of my ARC… I climbed into bed (as it was midnight, and I’d stayed up past my bed time to finish it) and starred at the ceiling trying to process it. Finally realizing that I can’t give a book 72 stars just so people will read it and I can discuss the less than satisfactory ending, I turned to my husband. Ruining the ending for him (which wasn’t a big deal since he’d made that face earlier in the night when I explained what I was reading) I ended with the thought that I had as I finished the book.
It was like “seriously, that’s how you’re going to end this piece of shit?”
See, I told you I was fickle. It’s not really a piece of shit. I loved the book and was more than willing to give it four stars right up until the last fifteen pages. Then it has that rather blasé ending. I don’t have a problem with open ended most of the time… but in this book it doesn’t work. In most romance books it doesn’t work. You’re expecting one of two endings, and when you get a flimsy “eh” end you’re left thinking the author couldn’t figure out what to put there so instead she wrote “the end” which is probably not fair, but I’m not feeling very generous right now.
Coy endings… bah! You’re not being cute, you know that right?
Anyways, I give “Gentlemen Prefer Nerds” 3 stars. It’s good; you should read it at the beach. It was kind of like “She’s all that,” but with a zany jewel theft caper.
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