I picked up Elizabeth O’Roark’s A Deal With the Devil after I saw a reader comment about it on a blog here at AAR and I’m so glad I did. My first impression was great! I immediately got pleasantly sucked into the smart, witty banter between leads Natalia (Tali) and Hayes and I didn’t want to put the book down. I really like this book – it’s a lovely, slow burn romance with likeable characters and a sexy amount of heat.

Twenty-five year old Tali Bell dropped out of grad school two years earlier and headed to Hollywood with her ex-boyfriend so he could become an actor.  She is working as a bartender while trying to make it as a writer when her best friend Jonathan asks her to fill in for him while he goes to Manilla with his partner to adopt a little girl. The job pays very well – $4000 per week. She’s to be a personal assistant for a famous plastic surgeon, Hayes Flynn. Tali is wary of working for Hayes. For starters, she met him once when she was bartending and watched women swarm him – he is gorgeous. Rumors are, he only ever dates a woman once and goes through a lot of them. She thinks he might be, well, a jerk.

However, Tali is desperately trying to finish writing her novel but has writer’s block and her deadline is fast approaching. She spent her advance on her family in Kansas when they needed help with bills that ran up when her younger sister needed mental health care in a facility after their father’s death a year before and is flat broke now. Plus, she has to turn in a book! She’s also struggling because she’s still getting over a horrible breakup with her ex, a famous actor who confessed to cheating when she was at her dad’s funeral. So, after giving Jonathan’s offer some thought, Tali decides she’ll take the job though she’s ambivalent about her lady killer boss.

I don’t know much about plastic surgeons so I can’t say whether or not the depiction of Hayes is realistic. In any case, Hayes operates only one day a week and offers his patients another day for consultations in his office (he’s part of a shared practice.) The thing that makes his high profile patients adore him is that he does house calls for minor treatments like Botox injections.  Celebrities don’t have to worry about being photographed going in or out of the doctor’s office. Jonathan has been an excellent personal assistant and anyone else Hayes hires he has to trust to be discreet AND handle his schedule, phone calls and personal errands. When Jonathan recommends Tali, Hayes decides to take a risk and hire her.

Hayes and Tali are, together, a hoot. I loved their banter. For example, when Hayes asks Tali to make sure his dates get home in the morning, she is hilariously snarky. She tells him he’s starting to look like a vampire with his late nights. But, over time, their banter becomes something deeper and Tali starts to see the sweetness beneath Hayes’ exterior. For Hayes’ part, his parade of women becomes a thing of the past. However, just as the two are opening their hearts and beginning to trust each other, there’s a crisis and they have to make some big decisions.

A Deal with the Devil is not without flaws. It takes too long for the couple to get together. Plus, once they do, they don’t communicate well and I found that frustrating. However, even with these problems, I loved this book. It gets a B+ from me and is one of the best romances I’ve read this year.  I’m happy there are two more books already out in The Devils series plus a new one, The Devil Gets His Due, coming December 1st. If you like witty, sexy, contemporary romance, this one’s for you!