Partners By Design

by Pamela Stone

Savannah Holt has one goal. To make a success of her interior design business so she never has to depend on anyone, especially a guy, for security. Since her father’s death, she’s watched her pampered mother jump from one bad relationship to the next in an effort to survive financially. After Savannah leases the perfect office space, she discovers that the architect she’ll be sharing it with is the boy who broke her teenage heart eight years before. But she’d rather face Logan every day than admit he still has the power to affect her.Logan Reid has only been in love once, but he was forced to break it off. Now, he’s put romance on hold and focused his energy on working three jobs while earning his degree and architect license. When Savannah walks back into his office, and his life, he soon realizes he’s still in love with her. But Logan must stay away from Savannah, or his secret could destroy them both.

Genres: Contemporary Romance

280 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 6, 2013

Reviews

[Brooke · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a cute story although there were a few times I rolled my eyes with incredulity & was annoyed at some of the repetition.

Savannah & Logan "dated" for 16 days when she was 16 and he was 18. In that short span of time, at that tender age, they were desperately in love. They didn't even know each other before those 16 days. That aspect was the biggest bit of incredulity for me. I mean, seriously??? But it's a romance novel, so whatever...

So now, 8 years later, she's an interior designer and he's an architect finishing up his Master's. Even though she doesn't have any clients or contracts, she decides (with her friend) that they're going to start up their own interior decorating business & rent office space & such. Her friend leases the space from Logan, who is also starting his own company even though he doesn't have his Master's yet, doesn't have any clients, and doesn't have any jobs lined up yet. Plus, he's interning with an architect and he's basically the project manager, so that's a full time job and he's teaching a course at the university to pay for his Master's. There aren't enough hours in the day for his schedule...

So ANYWAY, Savannah doesn't realize Logan is the architect they will be sharing office space with until after the lease is signed. Not looking real good from a business aspect to me...

So Savannah grew up with some money. Never wanted for anything. Her mother's lavish lifestyle, however, put the family in some pretty major debt and when her father died, his insurance policy wasn't enough to live on. It was a hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy. What wealthy business man has a life insurance policy that small??? That part was unbelievable also. So anyway, her mom pissed the money away and has been trying to find herself a sugar daddy to support her financially. She's also been grooming her girls to be socialites to nab themselves wealthy men to take care of them.

Savannah wants to marry for love, not money. So there's a guy, Tom, who is the most eligible bachelor. He's cute and all, but he's seriously lacking in the personality department. Her mother keeps trying to get her to marry Tom and even though Savannah tells her mom AND Tom that she doesn't want a romantic relationship with him, they both totally ignore that. Her mom even starts having Tom pay her bills!!! It's CRAZY!!!

Another unbelievable thing - These people are all uppity and high class and shit, right? So when Savannah and her mom go to dinner at Tom's parent's house, Savannah excuses herself from the table. Her mother accosts her in the hallway and lays into her for not at least pretending to like Tom since he's so loaded. Her mother drags her out onto the patio where she proceeds to guilt trip Savannah about how she's about to lose her house and her electricity is about to be shut off and how it's Savannah's responsibility to take care of her. So Savannah whips out her check book right there and writes her mom a check for the electric bill and her mother is all, "What's this suppose to cover? It doesn't even begin to put a dent in my bills." Ummm.... Get a friggin job, Bitch, and stop draining your daughter dry! But what struck me as ridiculous is that these women don't take their checkbooks to dinner parties at their friends' houses! Who does that??? The whole scene was bizarre...

Logan and Savannah danced around each other until almost the end before they decided to try a real relationship between them. All the while, Savannah wants to know why Logan disappeared way back when after he'd made all sorts of promises to her about how they'd live happily ever after... Yeah, because those promises were realistic... Her mom had done something to drive him away and is now trying to blackmail with it to leave her alone now.

Her mother is a despicable human being. I liked Logan a lot. Savannah was alright, but she sort of annoyed me because she wanted to be all independent and everything, but she didn't have a backbone to stand up for herself against mom or even Tom until almost the very end. She didn't stand up for her sister either when her sister reprimanded her for 'being selfish' because she was so set on being independent and didn't want to support her mother financially! She finally got a backbone and I was happy about that, but all her doubts through the whole book annoyed me. If she was worried about why he disappeared all those years ago, she should've made him answer the question straight out instead of being all willy nilly about it and then go onto something else. Her roommate and 'friend' wasn't a very good friend. Right after they sign the lease on the office space with Logan, she gets engaged and is going to move to another state, leaving Savannah with even more financial strain and still wants her to be the maid of honor.

The story was good and had quite a bit of potential. The hero was great. The heroine was mediocre. The supporting characters weren't great people. The writing was alright. It felt a bit young to me - not real refined - but it wasn't as bad as some I've read. There weren't an abundance of typos or errors which is always a relief.

So it was just ok. I didn't hate it, but I also didn't particularly care for it.

[Bex · Rating 1 out of 5]

Can't stand the huge gaps between all the paragraphs.

[Lila Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book description is really interesting, but the book did not deliver. It started with a good pace, but it lacked drama and a good development. Secondary characters were presented nicely as well as settings. The book needed to be a little bit more in-depth. It only cover some of the aspects presented and some characters simply did not provided enough to he book. I think it needed several more chapters and an epilogue. At some point it felt rush.

With a little more conflict and resolution this could be a great book.

3.5 out of 5.

[Rachel Blomberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book to read. I enjoyed it. The plot was well written and easy to follow. Couldn't put it down.