tl;dr: could not get invested into this sorta-forbidden, sorta-office romance
The Story:
Context is key in romance. I learned this from Emily Nagoski, whose book Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life was eye-opening in not only a personal relationships sort of way, but also in the way that helps me explain why a romance novel works or doesn’t work for me. As far as romance novels go, the reader needs to have a sense of who the characters are, because most of the plot is driven by the emotional response to what is happening between the two characters. In Family Jewels, I couldn’t get enough of a sense of either character, and how they related to each other, in order to care about their romance.