This HaBO request is from Prashef, and is hoping to find this romance:
I’ve been searching for this book for years, I’d really appreciate it if you help me close this case 🙂
Year: Before 2015 and probably after 2000. I read it in 2016.
Genre: Contemporary Romance (most likely)
Author: If only I knew
The plot starts off detailing the lives of both the male and female main characters, in parallel and unrelated (IIRC).
The heroine has gone through some stuff in her childhood (can’t remember what kind) and so is emotionally closed off. She grows up to be a wine exec (or owns a winery), and is a high-powered businesswoman.
The hero’s life journey is also detailed. At one point (and I remember this clearly), he’s an intern or paralegal for a lawyer named Sophia or Sophie, with whom he starts an affair. There’s a power imbalance, and she’s his Domme (dominatrix) in addition to being his boss. The affair ends and he quits his job eventually.
Quite a way into the book, the hero and heroine meet when he’s trying to make a business deal with her firm, or as part of a business deal. They have an intense connection and a passionate love story; however, both are damaged (especially the heroine) so there’s the catharsis angle as well.
Can we solve it?! I have faith in the Bitchery!
Sounds kind of like Megan Hart.
The premise matches Power Play by Charlotte Stein, I haven’t read it so I don’t know if the winery details are in there.
I have no idea what this book is, but I really like it when an author writes about damaged people (because so many of us are) in realistic ways and also write about how they find healing, in realistic ways. So I am following this.
There’s no winery in Power Play (they work in publishing, iirc? The office job aspects are really mostly wallpaper) and I don’t think the hero’s prior relationships are ever mentioned. The vibe sounds really similar, though.
That sounds like an early Kelly Jamieson when she was doing BDSM stuff set in California, before she became a hockey romance series writer set in Chicago. There was a book called Power Struggle published in 2010 by Ellora’s Cave … but others as well. I’m not sure if they are still available.