Michael Sebastian thought Curacao would be the perfect place to have a little fun in the sun—and between the sheets. So far, no one has struck his interest, until Sam Anderson walks into the bar. With one look at his tense body and expensive suit, Michael knows that this is a man in need of release. And Michael is more than willing to lend a hand.

Shattered by the most intense sex he’s ever had, Sam has to face the facts—one night with a handsome, dominating stranger is all he gets before returning to the closet he’s been suffocating in for years. But when Sam starts his new job as the CEO of a failing technology company, he discovers that Michael is one of his new employees.

While Michael is desperate for another night with Sam, he knows he shouldn’t get involved with his boss, let alone another man who can’t accept who he is. But as they’re forced to work together to save the company, the desire sparking between them becomes impossible to ignore…

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Review:

Full Disclosure Slash Confession Time: I read this for the first time back in September 2016 as preparation for GRL, knowing I’d have a good chance to meet the author. (AND I DID!) I got side-tracked and didn’t review it back then. Also, I’m shamefully behind on a LOT of reviews, and I’m working on fixing that. I read this a SECOND time just last week because book FOUR is coming out REALLY SOON and I needed a re-cap after reading books two and three in prep for book four. AND FINALLY, ANNA ZABO IS SCHEDULED HERE ON HER BLOG TOUR, and I want to do an extra bit with the PROMO by highlighting all the books leading up to THE NEW ONE.

Got all that? It’s a LOAD off my chest.

Takeover. It’s OFFICE PLACE Romance. It’s CHANCE MEETING/SECOND CHANCE Romance. It’s KINKY Romance (which I was NOT expecting the first go ‘round, but delighted me beyond measure).

In short, IT IS PRETTY DAMN AWESOME.

It starts out with a tropical island fling, a chance one-night thing which was kinda risky, but sexy as all get-out. There’s Michael — the guy who appears all laid back casual in his parrot patterned tropical shirt and flip-flops, sucking back cocktails and lamenting that his vacation in paradise is almost over and he hasn’t hooked up with the kind of guy who flips his switches. But in walks Sam — in a suit, looking all corporate and harassed, and like he might need a firm hand kind of roll-in-the-hay, just this once. Need I say more?

Sure I do.

But I don’t want to give stuff away.

Because obviously, this One Night turns into Something More, a second chance neither could have anticipated — and goes against all the rules of corporate culture.

After the island bit, the rest of the story is firmly rooted in the Technical Sector of Corporate America. This is just one element of the story, and the series, that has captivated me. I work in tech…have for more than 20 years. I don’t have enough fingers to count the buyouts, takeovers, bankruptcies, or layoffs I’ve survived. Unfortunately, it’s par for the course — and very difficult to find a niche that holds any sense of security. I’ve been very lucky. So far.

The story has a goodly bit of office politics and intrigue that, ordinarily, I might not care a whole lot about in romance. Instead, since so much of it felt familiar and somewhat relatable it only served to pull me in even more. For those not living this type of corporate culture, I can say that I never felt it was overdone or overly complicated — and all of it served the plot in super strong ways.

Sam and Michael were superbly drawn characters with the perfect balance of flaws and ultimate growth when they were able to get out of their own way. They each had a lot of inner demons to face in order to get to that HEA and I kind of wish they’d done more of that work together. Ultimately, though, they fit in magnificent ways and are the perfect cornerstone couple for future books in the series.

Takeover flips the tables on a few common perceptions of dominance and submission that are typically found in romance books. The guy who’s the boss and wears the suits is the submissive one. It’s the dude in tropical shirts and boat shoes who knows a hefty thing or two about putting a guy on his knees. And that was a LOT of fun because real life doesn’t care about that…it just is what it is.

Delicious, y’all.

Purchase Links:

 Amazon | Amazon UK | BN | GooglePlay | iBooks | KOBO

Other Books in the Series:

About the Author:

Anna Zabo writes contemporary and paranormal romance for all colors of the rainbow, and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which isn’t nearly as boring as most people think.

Anna has an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, where he fell in with a roving band of romance writers and never looked back. Anna also has a BA in Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon University.

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