Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It (Zebra Contemporary Romance) [Paperback]

Lucy Monroe (Author)

Book Description

Series: Zebra Contemporary Romance | Publication Date: December 1, 2005

The last woman business consultant Marcus Danvers expects to find at Kline Electronics is Veronica Richards. He's supposed to be rooting out a corporate spy, not rehashing an old love affair - with the woman who sold out the company they both used to work for and then took off without so much as a kiss goodbye. All the clues point to Ronnie as the firm's newest mole, which means he'll have to spend time with the stubbornly reticent woman he hasn't been able to forget, and uncover every last thing she has to hide...It's just Ronnie's luck. The one man she'd hoped never to see again is suddenly everywhere she looks - and taking up a starring role in her daydreams, too. Remembering the passion she and Marcus once shared certainly isn't going to help, though, not when she has so many secrets, and no explanation for the way she left him eighteen months ago - or at least not one he'll want to hear. The problem is, when Marcus is around all her good intentions go up in smoke...

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Lucy Monroe captures the very heart of the genre. She pulls the reader into the story from the first to the last page."

Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: Zebra; First Printing 2005 edition (December 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821777718
• ISBN-13: 978-0821777718
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #332,693 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

With more than 6 million copies of her books in print, USA Today bestseller Lucy Monroe has published more than 50 books and had her stories translated for sale in dozens of countries. While she writes several subgenres of romance (paranormal, historical, single title and short contemporary) for multiple publishers, all of her books are sexy, emotional and show that love will conquer all. She's a passionate devotee of romance and shares her love for the genre with her readers through her books and a policy of open communication. You can find Lucy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LucyMonroe.Romance) her blog (http://lucymonroeblog.blogspot.com), her official website (http://lucymonroe.com).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read, November 24, 2005

By 

Cryna Palmiere "bluebroom" (Calgary, Alberta) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It (Zebra Contemporary Romance) (Paperback)

Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It is a follow-up book on Marcus Danvers and Veronica Richards who we first encountered in Come Up And See Me Sometime. Spin ahead eighteen months when Marcus is hired by Kline Technologies to find a mole and encounters Veronica again. The sexual tensions between them is hard to deny, but the overwhelming circumstances and misconceptions that both have to overcome makes this a page turning book. It is one I did not want to put down and factored into it all is the other secret that Veronica has withheld from Marcus. This is a magnificent book that has you angry at times, wanting to cry at others and on an emotional roller coaster along with Marcus and Veronica. You can feel what they are feeling. It is also nice to catch up with Alex and Isabel and to interact with the other sub plot that runs through the book. All in all this is a great book and a must read for the true romantic.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Goodness definitely has nothing to do with it, March 8, 2007

By 

Tracy Vest (Northern California) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It (Zebra Contemporary Romance) (Paperback)

Corporate investigator Marcus Danvers has been hired to locate a mole in at Kline Electronics. The last person he expects to see on the payroll is former flame Veronica Richards, who sold corporate secrets from his firm before disappearing. Working undercover, Marcus tries to resist Veronica, but soon the two resume their affair, despite a lack of trust (and even though Veronica knows that once she reveals a secret she has kept the last 18 months, he won't be able to forgive her).

A sequel to Monroe's "Come Up and See me Sometime," this one is just a rehashing of the same theme, and falls short of even that. Even the constant sexual couplings lack heat. Lack of chemistry, too-thin plot, lame secondary love story, and too much introspection (did we have to "hear" them constantly remembering things they told each other in italics?) keep the story from gaining a passing interest. As for the mysterious mole... it was laughable, as the revealing of the culprit and his reaction to being caught was simply revealed in a character's summation in the epilogue. Marcus seemed like an engaging, sexy and charming devil in the first book. In this one, he is reduced to a too easily manipulated, wardrobe challenged (tacky Hawaiian shirts) dolt tamed by a woman who repeatedly lied and kept a pretty damning secret.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very Little Goodness, Actually, May 22, 2006

By 

Just Passing Through (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It (Zebra Contemporary Romance) (Paperback)

George Kline suspects that a corporate spy is at work in the marketing department of Kline Electronics, so he hires business consultant Marcus Danvers to secretly investigate. Marcus is shocked to discover that one of the employees is Veronica Richards, the very woman who sold out CIS, the company he is now a partner in, when she also used to work there. Veronica vanished, along w/ her payoff, eighteen months previously and Marcus hadn't seen her since. In addition to her now becoming the primary suspect at Kline Electronics, Marcus is determined his former lover will provide a long-overdue explanation for her betrayal and disappearance.

Veronica is an efficient administrative assistant--calm and collected to the point where she seems to verge on icicle status. The only man who has ever come close to melting her was Marcus, but she has kept more secrets than just corporate espionage from him. His reappearance in her life threatens both her professional and personal well-being, so she is as determined to keep him at arms' length as Marcus is on getting her back in his arms.

This book is a continuation of a story begun in Come Up and See Me Sometime. You don't need to have read CUASMS to read this book, but there are a lot of references to that earlier story and Veronica's motivations for her previous actions are revealed. In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of this book was peeling the onion layers of Veronica's life back and showing her truly touching relationship w/ her family.

Despite her seeming coldness, Veronica is a fairly sympathetic character. Her reserve is the result of overwhelming personal burdens and the need to be self-reliant. Marcus was somewhat less sympathetic to me. He seemed immature, self-absorbed, and self-indulgent, but he redeemed himself as he opened his heart to Veronica and revealed some of his own past heartache.

Overall, this was a pleasant story, but it did have some drawbacks for me:

--I was never really "sold" on the relationship between Veronica and Marcus.

--As another reviewer noted, the whole story had a decidedly dated quality to it. If I hadn't known this book was copyrighted in 2005, I would have sworn I was reading a 1985-era office romance--and that's not a compliment.

--In addition to feeling out of time, the book also felt out of place somehow. The setting is Seattle but, aside from a few references, could be "anyplace." This feeling was exacerbated by a very British reference to a "car park," rather than a "parking lot."

--I hated the side story of the relationship between George Kline and his secretary/executive assistant. His controlling attitude and the whole sleeping w/ his subordinate thing had an icky and 80s feel to it. (My vindictive streak is coming out again--I wish the assistant had walked out on him for good.)

--The mystery of the identity of the corporate spy wasn't especially deep or hard to figure out.

--And, for the really petty complaint, the cover of this book was terrible and had nothing to do w/ the story. (The dark-haired man in the tux certainly wasn't the fair-haired Marcus who favored Hawaiian shirts.)

I don't mean to be overly harsh or overstate the negatives. As I mentioned, it was a pleasant enough, if not memorable, story and worth spending a few hours of your entertainment time on. Other readers might be better able to ignore the peeves I had and concentrate on the unfolding story of Veronica and Marcus and their feelings for one another.