You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO request comes from Suleikha, who’s searching for a romantic suspense:
I cannot for the life of me remember the title and author of this book. I know it’s romantic suspense featuring lawyers. It may have been a Harlequin Intrigue.
The heroine’s basically been butthurt for years that the hero rejected her article for a law review. When they actually start interacting long after law school, she’s hostile because of that incident. She even flings the words “I find nothing in this remotely appealing” back in his face after he plants a kiss on her. But it turns out that the paper she wrote and submitted was about his parents’ murders, and that’s why he rejected it so harshly. This is all I recall.
I don’t know what else happens in this book, though I really hope there was some groveling after she realized her grudge was baseless.
I really want to read this. Anyone else?
The book is All the Evidence by M.J. Rodgers.
@NT: If you’re right, this is the quickest a HaBO has been solved!
A few more details (because this is a favorite of mine)–he doesn’t just reject it. In law school, she was awkward and unattractive; he was beautiful and the editor of the law review. She slaved over the article, wanting to impress him. When she approached his desk and handed it to him, he looked at the cover, said “Not interested” and dumped it in the trash in front of her. So yeah, she held a grudge, because he was a dick about it and she didn’t know why. It’s only over the course of the story she learns the case she chose was the trial where his father was convicted of murder his mother (his relatives had changed his last name afterward).
They meet years later when she’s the prosecutor and he’s the defense attorney on a murder trial. By now, she’s had plastic surgery and looks kickass and he doesn’t recognize her. We never get to see the reveal at the end where she reveals they went to law school together. At the end he tells her something like, “I loved you since the first moment I saw you.” And she smirks to herself and thinks, “Uh, no. You didn’t.” I came across a review of this book a few years ago that bashed it and claimed it’s “not exactly feminist” because he didn’t notice her until she remade herself. I don’t have a problem with it at all, because she didn’t remake herself for him; she did it for herself. Based on the description of what she looked like before surgery, she was unfortunate looking. As someone who was not a particularly attractive child or teenager or young adult, the ugly duckling fantasy still hits me hard. Because, yeah, blah blah blah, the fantasy should probably be finding someone who loves you no matter what you look like, but as someone who knows what it’s like to be ugly, it was less about him finding her attractive now than about her improving and remaking herself into something she’s satisfied with. This was the kind of story that gave 14-year-old me hope.
Sorry to ramble. Obviously I have thoughts about the book.
OMG! Thank you, NT! This is definitely it! I just looked up the cover and it’s totally one of the Intrigues I used to own back in the day. The hero’s name is Graham Knight, but I believe his last name was originally Sterling. (It’s amazing I remembered THAT detail but not the author or the title.)
One last note, assuming I’m talking about the right book, this one’s actually available on the Open Library:
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16037541W/All_the_evidence
This has been a trip down memory lane! I loved the book, too, NT! But I sold a ton of stuff to Half-Price Books before I moved to New York, so I only kept 2-3 precious category romances. I still regret that.
Sukeikha,
Glad to help! There are so many of those old category romances that I loved that are never mentioned and sometimes feels like I’m the only one who’s ever heard of, so it’s good to know someone else remembers and loved this one!
@ NT I didn’t read this book but there are lot of people (mostly women) who read and reread the older romance books. I joined a Facebook group called Old school romance, or skool, and they only talk about books published year 2000 or earlier. I personally have over 16,000 books, almost all romances. I also like to plug Thriftbooks.com as a good place to get old books at reasonable prices. Also I look at Amazon resellers. Keep the faith.
I’ve been reading and reviewing old category romances that I loved, and it’s downright amazing the stuff I vividly remember vs. the things I completely forget! Brains are weird!