I haven’t read a lot of books by Kim Fielding but I’ve loved the ones I have and Teddy Spenser Isn’t Looking for Love didn’t break that streak. This was a sweet story with a bit of an enemies-to-lovers vibe and a definite forced proximity trope.

Teddy and Romeo aren’t exactly enemies; they work for the same company but they don’t seem to get along too well. Teddy is a designer and Romeo writes software; they are working on a project together and Teddy feels like Romeo is doing everything he can to ruin Teddy’s design concept for the “smart vase” their company is looking to produce.

Forced to work closely together in order to secure much needed funding for the project they end up in a hotel room with only one bed. This, along with the puzzling tasks that the project’s potential investor puts them through, has Teddy seeing a side of Romeo that he didn’t before.

The story is full of good feels. I laughed in spots and also shed a few tears. The heat level is low, with not too much on page sexy time, but I love books with all different levels of steam. Once acknowledged, their relationship progresses fairly quickly but it didn’t feel like insta-love to me at all.

This book was particularly fun for me to read because I’ve spent some time in Chicago, where Teddy and Romeo live, and I also vacationed in Seattle a couple of years ago. I enjoyed revisiting both of these cities while I read. The description of Chicago winters matched what I experienced when I was there when temps were as low as negative 16 F. I found the descriptions of Seattle’s downtown area, and the hills that Teddy walked, very accurate. I was totally naïve before visiting Seattle and was completely caught by surprise by the magnitude of the hills that my husband and I managed to navigate even though we were badly out of shape. 😊

Epilogues are often my favorite part of a book and I loved the one for Teddy and Romeo.

Reviews for Kim Fielding

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“Hey.”Teddy hadn’t noticed anyone come up behind him, and he startled so violently that he almost knocked over his coffee. He spun the chair around and discovered Romeo Blue looking down at him, stone-faced.“What?” Teddy knew he was scowling and didn’t care.

“Can we speak in my office, please?” As usual, Ro¬meo’s voice was low, his words clipped. As if he refused to spare much energy to speak to Teddy.

“I’m busy right now.”

“As soon as you can then.” Romeo spun and marched back to his office, leaving its door slightly ajar.

Teddy could have followed him; Imani’s numbers weren’t so urgent that they couldn’t wait awhile. But he remained stubbornly at his desk even though he could no longer focus on the computer screen. Romeo Blue. Teddy had googled him once, just for the hell of it—not at all to dispel lingering notions that his coworker was a spy working under a really stupid alias. It turned out that Lenny Kravitz used Romeo Blue as a stage name back in the eighties, and that was more than a little weird since this Romeo resembled a young Lenny Kravitz, albeit with a darker complexion and a different clothing aesthetic. Kravitz probably didn’t wear suits from Zara. And to be honest, although Kravitz was gorgeous, Romeo was even more so, with perfect eyebrows, velvety eyes, and a mouth that—

“Nope!” Teddy stood abruptly and grabbed his coffee mug. He needed a refill.

He finished off that cup, visited the depressing bath¬room he’d been fruitlessly begging Lauren to redecorate, and chatted briefly with the cute copy-machine repair-man before finally knocking on Romeo’s open door and stepping inside. And then, as always when he entered this room, Teddy glowered.

It was a fraction of the size of Lauren’s office, with barely enough room for a desk, two chairs, and a com¬puter stand. Despite that, it was a real office instead of a cubicle. But what truly annoyed Teddy was that Romeo hadn’t even bothered to decorate the space. There wasn’t a single knickknack or picture, and the mismatched of¬fice supplies—a black stapler and taupe tape dispenser—appeared to be from the discount bin at Staples. The only touches of personality were the three computer monitors—three of them, for God’s sake—and, of course, Romeo himself.

Maybe Romeo thought himself so decorative that his mere presence sufficed. Or he didn’t want any other objects to detract from his glory.

Also, he smelled like sandalwood, bergamot, and vanilla. Dammit.