Appealed
Series: The Legal Briefs #3
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: Emma Chase
Release Date: January 19, 2015

When Brent Mason looks at Kennedy Randolph, he doesn’t see the awkward, sweet girl who grew up next door. He sees a self-assured, stunning woman…who wants to crush the most intimate – and prized – parts of his anatomy beneath the heels of her Christian Louboutins.

Brent has never let the loss of his leg in a childhood accident affect his ability to lead a fulfilling life. He sets high goals–and then he reaches them.

And now he has his sights set on Kennedy.
**
When Kennedy looks at Brent Mason, all she sees is the selfish, Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue-worthy teenager who humiliated her in high school to join the popular crowd. A crowd that made those years a living hell.

She’s not a lovesick social outcast anymore – she’s a DC prosecutor with a long winning streak behind her. Brent is the opposing attorney in her next case and she thinks it’s time to put him through a little hell of his own.

But things aren’t exactly working out that way.

Because every fiery exchange has her wondering if he’s as passionate in the bedroom as he is in the courtroom. Each argument and objection only makes him want her more. In the end, Brent and Kennedy may just find themselves in love…or in contempt of court.

APPEALED is a sexy, humorous romance about first crushes, second chances and the final verdict of the heart.

AMAZON | B&N | iBOOKS | KOBO

Over the last fourteen years I’ve thought a lot about what it’d be like to see Kennedy Randolph again- but I never thought it’d be on the opposite side of a courtroom.

You know when you read an epilogue that’s so good, it not only manages to be the perfect conclusion to the book but it actually flawlessly ties the entire series up. Like you have this amazingly delicious three-tiered cake, and it’s already prefect without anything, but then you add that icing that takes it from delicious to amazing? That’s what the epilogue of Appealed was to me. It was simple perfection. It deserves 5 stars just for that. But let’s talk about the actual book for a hot second here, shall we?

Arguing is our foreplay. One time, she was so worked up she hauled off and took a swing at me- and my reaction was a boner that wouldn’t be denied.

So that quote up there? Yeah. That’s basically a literary orgasm for me. You see there is nothing, nothing I love better than a good hate-to-love trope. And when that particular trope is also based on a bit of a second chance romance? I am absolute putty in your hands. Brent and Kennedy were childhood. Their parents are friends and they always hoped they’d get together. And one perfect night they did, until something happened that made Kennedy disappear from Brent’s life and also hate him with the fire of the worst kind of venereal disease. Graphic? Sure. But sums it up nicely. Brent hasn’t seen her since high school, so when she not only comes back looking nothing like the Kennedy he knows but a stunner, he thinks he can take off where they left off. There’s only one problem, Kennedy wants nothing to do with him…
And if that’s not delicious enough, she also happens to be the prosecutor on a case that he’s the defending attorney for.

She looks me straight in the face. “I could never be with someone like you- you have the maturity of a twelve-year-old boy.”
I raise my glass. “And you have the chest of one.”

So at this point of the book, I’m as giddy as a Bilieber at a Justin Bieber concert. Their constant barbs in the courtroom and outside of it are laden with a heavy undercurrent of lust and you’re reading just waiting for them to give into the undeniable chemistry that’s brewing between them. And let’s be honest, what’s better than hate-to-lust? When it’s gloriously written entirely in the male POV and I fell hard for Brent from the very first chapter. He may be the happy-go-lucky friend of the group, but there was always something to him that just drew me. It may be because it’s not often you’ll read about a hero with a prosthetic leg that didn’t suffer his injury during a deployment. Or it may be because of his humor. But really it’s because when this man falls, he falls hard and he has no issue showing it and fighting for what he wants.
Kennedy was such a great heroine as well. She really makes Brent work for it. She’s not the awkward teenager he grew up with. She’s a tough prosecutor, and her looks are just as killer as her cross examination. I loved the tension between these two. It practically sizzled it was so good. But what I loved the most is really seeing Brent working for it. This is not a man that denies his attraction or his feelings, even though he’s never had a real meaningful relationship…nor did he want one. He knows that he’ll accept nothing less from Kennedy, though. And even if he has to prove it to her considering their past, he’ll do whatever it takes.

I’m in love with you. And if it takes awhile for you to wrap your head around that- to wrap your heart around it- then I’ll wait. Because you’re worth waiting for. You always were.”

This book is perfection. It’s snark wrapped in humor, tied together by a swoony romance. I couldn’t put it down for even a second. It’s just one of those romances that will entertain you and make you fall hard all at the same time. Emma Chase just gets better and better. Appealed was easily my favorite book in the series. Then that epilogue happened and I was like a pile of giddy goo. It was just that good.

READ IT IN ORDER

OVERRULED | SUSTAINED | APPEALED

Want to win a paperback copy of Appealed? GIVEAWAY is now live on my Facebook page HERE