The Bedroom Assignment is an interesting hybrid, pitched somewhere between the usual Harlequin Romance and a Chick lit novel. It’s the second book in the Romance line’s new Tango subseries, which promises “fresh and flirty” books with a more contemporary feel. The Bedroom Assignment partially lived up to its billing, only to slightly disappoint in the end.

Zoe Brown has a reputation among her friends for being a love-’em-and-leave-’em type. She never stays with one boyfriend for long and has never had a serious relationship. Everyone believes she’s too footloose to settle down. What her friends don’t know is that Zoe is a virgin, a fact she is embarrassed to admit to them.

PR executive Jay Christopher dismissed his last assistant when she became too obsessed with getting into his bed. He’s looking to someone to fill the position who won’t fall in love with him. Zoe’s reputation makes her seem like a good fit. But when Zoe’s friend Suze places her in a temp position in Jay’s company, the immediate antagonism between them can’t hide the attraction that is just waiting to be acted on.

At its core, The Bedroom Assignment contains many of the elements of the standard Harlequin Romance: wealthy, successful, too-good-to-be-true hero, virginal heroine, the workplace romance. What distinguishes the story is the modern sensibility and youthful attitude with which it is told. It’s rare to find a romance novel, particularly a series romance, where characters in their twenties act as though they really are that age. Most 20-something characters are far too mature, acting no different than people a decade older, and so many of these stories feel like they could just as easily be taking place ten years ago, or twenty. Alison Kent’s Blaze titles are some of the few I’ve found where the characters seem like younger people in the present day, and The Bedroom Assignment has a similar attitude, but with significantly fewer sex scenes.

From the beginning, Weston does an admirable job capturing the snappy feel that characterizes most Chick lit novels. The characters have their own catch-phrases and shorthand references. The hero and heroine are surrounded by an abundance of secondary characters, with Jay and Zoe’s respective families and their co-workers all coming into play. At first, the story isn’t all about the romance. Jay and Zoe actually have relatively few scenes together for the first half of this book. The author shows Zoe’s interactions with her friends and the women she meets at the office, and Jay’s relationship with his grandfather. I liked London setting, the sense of community the author provided and Jay and Zoe’s well-drawn backgrounds, which gave the book a bigger feel. I’m not saying this book is a Chick lit novel. It’s not even close. But it does have that kind of sensibility and initially at least, it’s fun.

Unfortunately, there is a price to be paid for this rather unconventional approach. As if to make up for the lack of singular emphasis on the relationship in the first half, the romance side of the story began to assert itself in the book’s second half. The plot begins to go through the more typical romance paces, including the dreaded Big Misunderstanding and inevitable reconciliation just in time for the end. The contemporary edge virtually disappears, with the characters acting no different than any other romance hero and heroine of indiscriminate age you can read about anywhere. It’s more serious and less fun. The supporting cast all but vanishes, with the focus solely on Jay and Zoe for a long stretch of the story.

Also, while I understood Zoe’s embarrassment that her friends all thought she was something she wasn’t, she tends to treat the subject with such a level of shame that you’d think 24-year-old Virgin was up there with Ax Murderer.

I know the shift in focus was necessary to fulfill the obligations of the romance genre, but there was something dissatisfying about having a book start out as one thing and change into something else. If Weston had at least managed to maintain the light, snappy tone of the initial sections, I wouldn’t have minded when the story became driven by the romance. But it simply wasn’t as fun in the latter stages, something that may not have been so noticable if the beginning wasn’t so different and wonderful.

If Harlequin can find stories that are more like the beginning of this one, the Tango subseries could be an entertaining addition to the line. I really enjoyed the contemporary sensibility of the first half of this book. I only wish it had been maintained throughout the entire story.