Julie James’s second novel, Practice Makes Perfect (March 2009), is a fun contemporary romance in a legal setting.
Payton Kendall & J.D. Jameson are associates in a prominent law firm. They’ve spent the past eight years avoiding each other & working their proverbial butts off to make partner. There is an undeniable attraction between them but they refuse to admit it.
When their boss asks them to join forces on a major case just weeks before their dream is due to come true, they grudgingly accept. Tensions rise & sparks fly but they are determined to resist temptation. Once it is revealed that only one of them will make the grade, however, the battle of the sexes begins in earnest!
Once the element of direct competition is introduced, Payton & J.D. play a series of practical jokes on each other which could have descended into farce. Thankfully, James avoids this by ending the joke phase with a truly hilarious courtroom scene.
On the surface, Payton & J.D. couldn’t be more different. Payton has worked her way up from a poor background. She’s a woman in a man’s world & is very much aware of it. She’s hard-working & has virtually no social life as a result of her quest to get to the top. Her toughness & self-assurance narrowly avoid coldness. I must admit that it took me a while to warm to Payton but I was rooting for her by the end of the book.
J.D., on the other hand, is the quintessential frat boy. He works hard & he plays hard. He comes from a long line of eminent lawyers & has all the outward trappings of wealth. Payton assumes he’s had an easy ride because of it. In a way, he has, but we learn more of his family as the story progresses.
Despite their apparent differences, Payton & J.D. come to realise they have more in common than they thought. There is a wonderful scene in which their respective families meet & Payton’s eccentric mother & J.D.’s pushy father add a further dimension to understanding their characters.
There’s also an incident when Payton helps J.D. out in a crisis, even though she could have left him to look bad in front of their boss, thus lowering his chances of the partnership & increasing hers. She hesitates to help him initially but eventually does the right thing. When she doubts he would have done the same for her had their roles been reversed, J.D. tells her he would have done it in a heartbeat.
When Payton & J.D finally get together, I really felt the timing was perfect. They had grown over the course of the story & I truly believed they belonged together. The book’s denouement is one of the best I’ve read in a romance in a long time, but if I said more, it would spoil the story!
All in all, I really enjoyed this book. The only reason it was not a Keeper for me is that I don’t like guys in suits! I thought Julie James’s debut book Just the Sexiest Man Alive (2008) showed promise & she more than lived up to it in Practice Makes Perfect. Grade B+
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Congrats on the blog!
Hi Sarah! Congratulations on the blog! And wow– Practice Makes Perfect is the first post! I’m so honored!! Thank you so much for the great review– it’s wonderful to hear that you enjoyed the book. Even if you don’t like guys in suits.
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