Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James

When it comes to the law's of attraction...

Payton Kendall and J.D. Jameson are lawyers who know the meaning of objection. A feminist to the bone, Payton has fought hard to succeed in a profession dominated by men. Born wealthy, privileged, and cocky, J.D. has fought hard to ignore her. Face-to-face, they're perfectly civil. They have to be. For eight years they have kept a safe distance and tolerated each other as coworkers for one reason only: to make partner at the firm.

...There are no rules.

But all bets are off when they're asked to join forces on a major case. Though apprehensive at first, they begin to appreciate each other's dedication to the law--and the sparks between them quickly turn into attraction. But the increasingly hot connection does not last long when they discover that only one of the will be named partner. Now it's an all-out war. And the battle between the sexes is bound to make these lawyers hot under the collar...


I first heard of Julie when her debut novel came out. Just The Sexiest Man Alive garnered a lot of positive buzz. For some reason, I never picked it up. Then she came on the DIK blog and I really liked the way she thought. So, yesterday when I was looking for books to read, I decided to pick up Practice Makes Perfect. And I'm glad I did.

This book starts off quite comically. It's from Payton's POV and we find out that she's been in competition w/ J.D. for the past eight years. And that she's in lust with him. Okay, she thinks he's attractive. Unfortunately, the attraction causes her to be quite...cranky when it comes to him and she tends to shoot her mouth of before she thinks, causing some interesting dialogue to go on between the two of them.

J.D. is cocky and a bit arrogant, but he's also got a good heart. Watching the two of them for the first 50 or so pages was quite funny, esp. once their competitive natures got the best of them and they actually started...well, I won't go into detail. Suffice it to say, they get quite...competitive towards each other.

Once they find out they're supposed to work together on a case AND that only one of them will make partner, things start to get VERY interesting. J.D. begins to see her as who she really is and realizes that there's more than meets the eye (GI Joe reference! Ha!).

As the battle between the sexes heats up, so does the attraction between them. All I can say is...yummy!


All right, now that I've got the basic overall storyline down for you...on to the Good/Bad List! *happy dance*


The Bad (starting w/ those first)-

I thought some of the rivalry went a smidge too far. There's a scene that, even though it's quite funny was almost too much. Yes, I can understand, but thought it was a bit distasteful.

The Misunderstandings...And there were quite a few. They admittedly got a bit old after awhile.


The Good:

Payton: I grew to like her. At first she came across as a bit obnoxious and too driven, but by the end of the book I'd really warmed up to her.

J.D.: Also didn't like him at the beginning, but by the end I really did like him.

The Overall Storyline: You can tell that Ms. James has history in the law. It was quite refreshing and interesting.

The Heat: It really wasn't very hot, but the chemistry between them was very nice. I think the sex scenes could've gone w/ a bit more detail, but that's just me.

The Humor: Boy, oh boy was there a lot of humor in this book. I won't go into detail as to a particular scene, but there's one on pages 172-175 that uses Pride & Prejudice in an extremely entertaining way. Anyone who's read the book will know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.


All in all I really did like the story. I think there are some things that would've made it better, specifically a confrontation between J.D. and his overbearing father, but that's it.

If you like an entertaining war of the roses type romance with great banter and just a nice overall story, I recommend this book. It was nice to get a good laugh in.


My Rating: B