Linda Howard has definitely made a name for herself with her romantic suspense novels, but back when she was writing category romances she wrote some rare gems. This review is taking a look at Almost Forever, originally published in 1986 by Silhouette.
I remember buying this book from the shelves when it was originally published and I still have it. It’s falling apart now but I had a re-read of it recently and wanted to share my thoughts on this book.
This is a follow on from Sarah’s Child, Max Conroy featured prominently in that book and left an impression on me, I was thrilled to see him get his own book.
Max is described as beautiful, lethal charm and is used to having his way with the women. He is always in control, never seriously looses his temper as his charm usually gets him what he wants.
Max works for Spencer-Nyle a company about to take over a smaller firm, but his boss wants more information, not wanting to pay over what they had to for the firm so sends Max out under cover to see what he can come up with.
Claire Westbrooke is the secretary to the CEO of this company and Max homes in on her for the information he needs. He is seriously attracted to Claire however and just wants to get the job out of the way so he can concentrate on charming her and winning her over. He knows she will be angry when he finds out who he really is but as usual he is counting on his charm to overcome that.
He underestimates the damage he does to Claire. Claire feels things deeply, though holds up a cool front to the outside world. She doesn’t understand what Max sees in her at first, where as she is pretty she is not the stunning beauty that Max would usually take on. When she discovers Max’s motives behind meeting her it seems clear what that attraction was.
The sheer intensity of Max’s pursuit of Claire to win her back is moving, he can’t charm his way out of this one. Claire’s hurt over what he did is very real, you can understand her not wanting to have anything more to do with him.
This is a great emotional read, yes maybe a little dated, but I still get as much enjoyment out of this story today as I did originally. If you have an opportunity to get a copy of this book I highly recommend it as a classic Linda Howard read.
the books – smells like content
