This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by Meg. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Erotic Romance category.

Here is Meg's review:

When I read through the preview of Off the Clock, what struck me initially about the story were the paragraphs of exquisitely written smut being written by one of the characters — then the author of those sentences groaning and pitching the draft of his script away. It was the perfect depiction of every person ever who has tried to write a sex scene.

I’m not sure when I last bought an erotic romance so fast.

The book centers around two sex therapists who once attended school together. During a week of spring break when Marin is 18 and Donovan is a grad student, Marin winds up helping Donovan develop a series of audio fantasies that will be used in sex therapy. It culminates in them coming together for one magical encounter before Marin’s life implodes in a heartbreaking way that you’re not expecting.

Leap to eight years later. As full-time guardian of her teenage brother, Marin is now a sex psychologist specializing in research but with barely any practical experience in dealing with patients or her own sexuality. As Amanda noted in her review, this tends to be a common trope for heroines in this area. But the book sells me on it given what Marin goes through in the years between encounters with Donovan.

She takes a job as a therapist, way outside her comfort zone, at celebrity rehabilitation complex The Grove to afford her brother the chance to attend the school of his dreams. There, she literally runs into Donovan, who has become world-famous as the Orgasm Whisperer for the work that she largely helped him with. The chemistry between them is stronger than ever, and despite them recognizing it is a VERY BAD IDEA ™, they can’t keep their hands off each other.

The book is pleasant subversive in a lot of ways. A lot of the erotic romances I have read tend to lean more on the side of tons of sex scenes with a loose plot weaving the story together. Off the Clock is the opposite. There is a lot of time and care taken into developing Marin and Donovan, and they don’t frequently bump uglies until more than halfway through the book. It treads the line of being a BDSM story, but I wouldn’t say it entirely goes there. Almost every sex scene served a purpose in furthering Marin and Donovan’s relationship or their own personal growth. This serves to make the already hot acts nearly scorching, because of how invested you get in Marin and Donovan as actual people and not characters merely there to insert tab A into slot B repeatedly.

And you’ll never see a bottle of wine the same way ever again.

The natural friction points you would expect between Marin and Donovan aren’t there. Marin doesn’t mind she’s uncredited for being a big inspiration for the work that made Donovan famous. I was fully expecting Donovan to hold Marin’s evasion about her age over her, but he doesn’t. He’s surprised and shocked, but never mean about it. It’s obvious the two respect each other immensely.

I had a tough time with the grade of this book, because as much as I love Marin and Donovan, I hated the cliche way that Donovan’s fuckbuddy, Elle, is written. Even though I know she’s the star of the sequel, along with the utterly adorable and seriously hot Lane, there was nothing in this book that made me want to read her story.

Most of the cast surrounding Donovan and Marin are lovingly fleshed out, especially Marin’s brother, Nathan. Marin’s true allyship of her brother is so lovely to read. The patients at The Grove range from heartbreaking to hilarious, with one of my favorite scenes being Marin literally walking in on some quite naughty action going down … on her desk.

That’s why Elle’s actions are so jarring. While I know she will be fleshed out in her own story, the cartoonish way she is depicted in Off the Clock is jarring compared with the way pretty much every major character (and most minor ones) are shown. It reminds me of Paris Gellar of Gilmore Girls before she became one of the best characters in the series. If Elle goes the Paris route of awful to awesome in her own book, sign me up.

Speaking of Lane, I’m normally not into threesomes, but I would had totally gone for one with Marin, him, and Donovan. Just saying.

The other thing that threw me off is the last sexual act depicted in the book – when Marin and Donovan have anal sex. It’s half personal preference (I am just not into that sort of thing) and half the wrong tonal note. Even though it’s shown that Donovan has taken care to prepare Marin, it seems like they went from zero to 10 very fast in that area and I found myself wincing. A lot. It’s dismissed with a line that Marin used the sex toys available to her to explore in that area. I wish the subject had been introduced earlier in the book during the part where Marin was experimenting with said sex toys prior to being with Donovan. Maybe I wouldn’t had been wincing so much on Marin’s behalf there at the end.

Neither of these ruined my overall enjoyment of the book, and I loved the ending and how it showed the characters continuing to grow even after the hookup. Marin’s personal victories made me nearly stand up and cheer, especially.

If you enjoy your erotic romance with a hefty dose of meaty plot, some angst, and some frankly fantastic characters, then Off the Clock is the book for you. This is my first from Roni Loren, but it won’t be the last.

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Off the Clock by Roni Loren received a B+ in a previous review by Amanda.