An Appearance of Impropriety

Don't let the cover put you off. This was sooo heart warming, mature and cuuuute-ah!!!

That cover is so misleading and definitely almost made me miss out on this mature, adorable, fun, cleverly written contemporary romance. 😮‍💨 It was LOVELLLLYYY!!!🥰

I love that it is a story between a succesful Black lady and a successful Caucasian man in their thirties. Not to mention they lean quite deeply into their faith in God. Right up my alley. I related on several levels.

The tone of the writing is the right balance of serious and lighthearted. Plus the whole cast of characters from main to minor are all so interesting! The author does a spectacular job at using them to build a very realistic and believable world. I heartily enjoyed travelling through their world!

Because our leading lady is a Black American, having it narrated by a Black American lady was pure genius. She really made the story come alive for me (she is so good I need to find more books she's read). It was so perfectly matched. I only wish that because it was a double POV, that they would have a gotten a male narrator for the leading man. But all the same the narrator does a nice job with the man's voice too.

JD is just a good good man!! I'm like excuse me?? How wonderful are you sir? He might just be my favorite book leading man this year! More of this kind please writers of the world.

Mahalia is strong confident determined but also soft and gentle. It was so healing reading about her experiences and seeing how she navigated through life.

Quite a normal amount of legal talk (naturally). Not too much time though is spent in court. Most time was spent in the lives of the cast with forrays into the court every now and then. We mostly see the cast of characters' lives outside of it and thus how they are as every day people. I really liked that.

The characters come off as very real and this definitely makes you very invested in the story and what is going on in their lives. Caught myself literally holding my breath for their wins in life and feeling heart broken along with them for their hurts and losses. Very great immersive writing from the author.

Christian themes are threaded throughout the every day lives of the characters in practical ways and it was beautiful to read. Causes the reader to do some introspection and look carefully at how their walk with God is going. Loved this a lot.

It would have been a treat to have much much more on page interaction between the leads. Whenever they did it was cute and heart warming. They were just a good time to be honest. Also the ending felt too rushed. The author did not allow the audience to sit in the happy conclusion after all the upheaval we had experienced. I feel like we had barely gotten to take in what we had been waiting for all along. It needed an epilogue to soften the ending and give proper closure to all things.

Because of this and some bits here and there that seemed only a tad off, I took off a star. Otherwise I would have happily given it 5 stars - which I rarely give.

I really had a great time reading a book written, narrated, plus led by Black women. I should do this more often. I have experienced a world quite similar to mine in so many ways in this particular story. It's my favourite contemporary fiction book of the year so far. And coming from someone who hardly ever enjoys contemporary fiction that says a lot.

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