The Nora Theory

Well, once again Sara Cate has caused me to abandon all adult responsibilities in favor of reading. I forgot to eat all day until I finished the last page and realized I was starving. This is not normal, I realize that, but it is also a testament to how excellent Keep Me is.

Keep Me by Sara Cate is a contemporary romance featuring a broody hero, an incredibly ballsy heroine, and a marriage of convenience that’s destined for the best kind of trouble.

Sylvie Devereaux is on vacation in Scotland when she decides on a whim to break into an old manor house to take a picture of her boyfriend’s great-grandfather’s typewriter. This sounds insane, and her boyfriend points out as much, but Sylvie doesn’t care. Inside the house, she’s caught by the man who lives there. He’s furious, but she makes an impression.

Killian Barclay lives in a manor house alone, and that’s just how the broody Scotsman likes it. But when a random girl stumbles into his house his life is turned upside down. Sylvie Devereux’s (how great are these names?) wealthy and absent parents cut her off, and being a 25-year-old floating through life with no steady job this presents quite a problem. And then she finds out her boyfriend is sleeping with her best friend. 

All seems hopeless when a strange woman shows up at the door, offering her ten million dollars to move to Scotland and marry her brother for a year. Sylvie takes the deal, but these complicated family dynamics won’t make it easy. Not to mention that she and her new husband can barely stand the sight of each other. But as they live together over the course of the year, that rage turns into something more passionate, and everything turns upside down once again.

The story is told in dual points-of-view, a favorite in contemporary romances, and has intense banter that is absolutely divine. They’re so mean to each other in the first half of this book and somehow it is so hot.

I love Sylvie as a character. I feel for her so much and I can relate to her on so many levels, and her relationship with Killian fits so perfectly. Killian is my favorite kind of book hero, broody yet passionate, fighting his demons, and a perfect 6’6″ to top it all off.  

The spice was impeccable. It was not quite as kinky as I had expected, but it feels perfectly authentic to the main characters, and don’t get me wrong there is absolutely some kink there. It’s just less structured than some of Sara Cate’s other books. There is no sex club, just two people having great sex. It works spectacularly well in this story.

Keep Me is so easy to sink into that it felt like I blinked and all of a sudden it was midnight and I was halfway through it. Part of this is the speedy timeline — the marriage contract lasts a year and this book spans the entire year in 300ish pages, but the other part is just how these characters and their fights suck in the reader.

This book made me cry. It broke my heart and then pieced it back together in the best way, and left me thanking the romance novel gods for a guaranteed happily ever after. Contemporary romance lovers should run straight to this book. You will not be sorry.

Writing: 5

Spice: 3.5

Kindle: $7.39

Paperback: $13.94

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