Professed - Nicola Rendell Review

 "At a secret masked ball at Yale, Naomi Costa is literally swept off her stiletto-blistered feet by a man with a killer jawline, a perfect body, and an even-better kiss. They bust out of an emergency exit and have axis-shaking sex. He pours whiskey in her belly button and after they run out of condoms, they have to get creative. That kind of sex.
The next day, she learns that he is none other than Dr. Benjamin Beck, a brand new member of the Yale faculty and the hottest thing to happen to academia since… well, ever. She has to take his damned junior seminar to graduate, but it gets worse. He’s also her College Master: her boss, her advisor, her everything. And he’s just moved in, right downstairs.
They can’t stay away from each other. They're either fusion or fission or both. They’re making out in libraries, hiding notes between stones, and sneaking off to nautically themed AirBnbs. Hear that sound? It’s the academic code of ethics going up in flames.
If they're found out, he’ll lose his job and his reputation. She'll lose her scholarship and be forced to return to the life of lobster fishing that she thought she’d escaped.
And they will be found out, yes they will.
So what the hell are they going to do?"

 

This book is currently free for Kindle download on AmazonUK and Amazon US!

I downloaded this to read mainly because it sounded good and was free to download so if I didn’t like it then there was no loss. I’m so glad that I did because I absolutely loved it! This was a forbidden romance book with a student / professor relationship and is the first one I’ve read.

It starts off with a secret masked party which both Professor Beck and Naomi have been invited to and it’s here where they meet, have a night of mind blowing sex and then part ways the next day. I thought that this was a great way for them to meet except this masked party is never explained much past the first chapters of the book and although we find out that Naomi was invited because of her friend Lucy, we don’t ever find out why Professor Beck is invited – especially since it was his first night in town. The only thing I would have changed in his book was their meeting and would have probably been more realistic if they’d met in a club or something similar.

The chemistry between Ben and Naomi was obvious from the start with their night of crazy sex and although they tried to deny it, for obvious reasons, they always ended up finding themselves being drawn back together. They have a lot more lust filled sex in a lot of places; in a park and in the back of Bens car to name a few and this chemistry wasn’t going unnoticed by anyone. Dean Osgood never wanted Ben to come to Yale and a be the Master as Ben is a Bachelor and the previous Master had to be removed due to a scandal. Osgood therefore said that he’d be keeping an eye on Ben and if he sensed any scandal brewing or if Ben is breaking the rules then he’ll be gone. Naomi is also on scholarship to Yale and knows that if her and Ben get caught, that she will be out and lose her scholarship too. Obviously this creates a lot of issues with the chemistry between and the possibility of a relationship but I did feel like Dean Osgood was slightly overdone here and seemed to be on constant patrol to try and catch Ben up to something which did seem unrealistic.

I did struggle to get into it at first due to the Author’s writing style being a bit different to what I’m use to but once I got into it, I just couldn’t put it down. It seemed like every time I had to stop reading it was leaving it some sort of cliff hanger and I just had to find out what was happening next. Despite this, I didn’t feel like they’re were too many unrealistic plot twists. It was just one of those books where you needed to find out what was going to happen next with Naomi or with Ben because you were so invested.

I really wish that there was a follow up book for this because I feel like you get so engrossed in Naomi and Ben’s relationship and their lives that you want to know what happens next. I want to see how Naomi does at university, what happens with her dad and when he meets Ben, what Ben does and how their relationship progresses – especially since Ben is so much older than Naomi, as they will obviously have different 5-year plans and current aims due to their age difference and it would have been great to see how they progressed with that. 

I’d definitely recommend this if you’re a fan of teacher / student romances or even if you just like romances which involve the couple having to have a secretive relationship or must overcome something to be in their relationship. As mentioned above, this is also currently free to download for kindle on Amazon UK and Amazon US so you can always go and download it for nothing an give it go – if you don’t like it then you won’t have wasted any money! 😊