Against Best Practice

by Mel Ryle

After Kyla's friends convince her to rebound from her cheating ex-boyfriend with a one-night stand, she's sure she's got love and lust out of her system for good. Now she can focus on her career as a marketing assistant. But little does she know that the handsome stranger who just rocked her world is her new boss. Kyla decides to keep their relationship professional, but her billionaire boss isn't easily deterred...

This is a workplace, CEO, billionaire, pregnancy romance, and is rated 18+. The cheating happens in the very first chapter with another man, and then never again.

Genres: Romance, Workplace, Billionaire Romance, Booktok

Kindle Edition

Published January 18, 2023

About the author

Mel Ryle is a Filipina writer and graphic designer. The author of the Mr. Mogul series, she won a Wattys in 2014, a Wattpad annual writing competition, for Meeting Mr. Mogul.
Her literary works are available in both Wattpad and Inkitt.
When she isn’t writing about strong-willed, lead women characters, she’s mostly drawing another artwork or watching movies. Also, she is a huge fan of watermelon design plushies and accessories.

Reviews

[juhi]

I decided to read this after it coming up on my tiktok. However, the tiktoks did not accurately represent the scenes in the book. The characters are so theatrical but still lack personality. There are such sharp personality changes it's shocking when they react in these overly dramatic ways. Overall, it was just lackluster.

[Alyceea Dalton]

Okay so I read this because of TikTok and when I say it was the worst book I’ve ever read I’m not joking. I would give it 0 stars if I could. It felt like a teenager wrote it. 🤣

[Laura]

DNF after 5 chapters. Too many errors to justify continuing.

[Amber Ferraby-Davies]

it’s a booktok book

It was hard to get through which is a shame because the story had promise. I liked the idea of the story but the story it’s self was lacking. It wasn’t factually correct ( a hotel on call nurse prescribing prescription for painkillers?). But also the baby story line felt like a added rush in the last 10% to make the book longer.

[Harriet Williams]

Awful

No personality, no vibe. It's the beige wallpaint of romance books. Also just badly written, predictable without any real feeling so many better books out there. Not worth the memory space on kindle

[Victoria]

Overall I liked this book. It has a good story line and characters. I especially love that the MMC talks toward the end of the book about having problems with having anxiety, how is family reacted so negatively about it and how it took him a long time to realize there wasn’t anything “wrong” with him and that a lot of men suffer from anxiety. I did however have some issues with it. In the beginning of the book there are several chapters that seem like they are supposed to be happening from one day to the next and the FMC’s outfit keeps changing. First, she is wearing a lace shirt and a skirt, then later it says she puts on the trousers she had on the night before. Then, she take one of his shirts an wears the button up to work, he sees her there and comments about how it looks familiar, but then later on in that same day it says she is wearing a dress. None of these times was it mentioned that she changed clothes so it seemed as if it was an inconsistency from one scene to the next. There was also some confusion about time line in this same section. She wakes up and is late for work after her one-night-stand and goes to work to find him there, all seeming like it is flowing from one day to the next, but then when she realizes he is her new boss and is flirting with her she tells him to stop and he says something out their hookup being “last Saturday”. So the time line did not seem to flow well. There were a few other places the time line seemed a little obscure/muddled through the book. They also run into her sister. Who introduced herself to him but there is no mention in the introduction of her being the FMC sister, and after the interaction he makes a comment about them being serious because he was already meeting the family. How did he know she was her family, neither the FMC or the sister said they were related. So overall there were some consistency issues and time line flow issues, but the overall plot and story line was good.

[Tamara Harrington]

DNF @ 21%
I see that we all seem to have the same thing happen. It came up on my TikTok which sounded great but I am finding this book sooooo hard to get through.
Firstly I feel like this needs to be heavily edited. She wakes up and leaves for work but it turns into days later from getting into the cab to getting out at work. The characters have no personality. I would actually struggle of there wasn't naming going on as there is barely any difference between them on the pages. It lacked substance and was just a little cringy and predictable.
So this one wasn't for me.
This is my honest and unbiased review.

[Hannah Hynes]

I liked the first half of the book but then it went downhill. The plot seemed very rushed and I feel some events should have been discussed further with greater detail. The timeline of this book is very unclear. One second the characters are doing one thing and the next they are doing something completely different with no transition. I was constantly wondering how the characters got from place to the next; it was really hard to follow along with. Also details would change throughout the story. We would hear one thing on one page and two pages later the detail would be different. It drove me crazy, but I finished the book and I can confidently say that I did not enjoy reading it.

[Cat]

I really didn't like this book. I have no idea what the time line was. It was supposed to be she saw him on Sunday, and then it was Monday with her at work then it said it was Sunday and she was at work. Her outfits changed in the same scene she was wearing a button down shirt and then a page later she was wearing a dress.
I think this book could be good if the author went back through it and fixed the mistakes.
There were also a lot of tropes that were thrown in here that didn't really make sense to put them in with the context of the story.

[Petrice]

I can’t finish this book! There’s no character depth and the behaviour changes are so back and forth erratic almost.
The timeline is so jumbled and inconsistent, along with minor details such as clothing… one minute it’s trousers and his shirt and then in the same breath it’s a dress..

Sorry, with all the best intentions in the world. The inconsistencies stress me out so much I just can’t enjoy it.

[Menolly Ruth]

I found this book to be a little disappointing. It had a great setup, great ideas and tropes. But the story had some major issues, the writing felt very disjointed. I found myself disappointed in the romance between Jensen and Kyla, and the switching perspectives were very jarring, especially as it seemed like they changed for no reason. There were some plot threads that were not tied up sufficiently, and some narrative choices that I just didn’t agree with.

[Aiman Mandli]

the only reason i finished this book was because i don't dnf books. if i could i would. i would like to say that the amount of grammatical errors in this book were insane. also the reason as to why i read this book was because i saw it on tik tok, and let me say that it was not even the correct scene. i was literally reading a book waiting for something to happen, AND IT NEVER DID. i would simply like to say i was THROUGHLY DISAPPOINTED.

[D]

Kyla and Jensen

Jensens character is written very good. He is sure if his feelings and believes in love at first sight. Kyla character was a tad annoying. It has a hea but if you want further hea you have to read on galleta. This book talked about stuff that it didn’t follow up on ie- Josie, Aldean, Leach, just a bit choppy and didn’t flow. It did have spice.

[Emily]

Good but disappointing

I loved the plot, but definitely thought it could’ve been longer and drawn me in more. If you want to read on you have to download an app to a separate website. The book was good but not that good to warrant an app and potential new monthly subscription for a book that I am not obsessed with.

[Lauren Lopez]

It serves the genre

A cheater. A heart break. A one night stand turned forever romance. A Romeo. And a boss that’s a total despicable human. It was an alright book. Romeo did the gas too quick for me to really see characters develop. I live for happily ever after so it works, I guess.

[Lucia]

Tiktok made me read this but I didn't see the one scene that was on tiktok in the book so there's that.

The concept of time needs to be more clear.

I think the friends are okay okayish but I would prefer to rather have Rhea as Kayla's friend than the rest.

The plot needs some work as well as how the story develops.

Overall it was a decent story with some smut but it could be better.

[DJ]

While I usually like a male lead who knows what he wants, this lead really toed the line with harassment. I would understand trying outside of work when she is leaving or coming in, but he wouldn't give her any space, and then her job was up in flames. Granted, he tried to fix it, but I don't think the female lead should have been grateful because he caused it all.

[Samantha]

decent story

Decent story. The timing doesn’t stay consistent, one event will be 3 months ago and 4 pages later they refer to it as half a year ago and then later again as only 3 months ago.

[Tyler]

I wanted to love this book but there was just no depth

This story had great potential and the direction for the characters was great but it moved way to fast and the main character did so much that they said they would never do it went against their character so much.

[Chris]

Definitely an HEA

This was a great story of Jensen and Kyla. How they met and the trials that go with it.
Some of the lines were hilarious, and having a so-called villain as in Mr. Leach was great.

[Michelle]

My Thoughts

This was a cute story.
It helped me get over my reading slump.
I'm usually not one for insta-love but I didn't mind it.
For being such a short book, it was packed with a storyline and great side characters.

[Nicole]

This could have been a very cute story but there were soooo many continuity errors and mistakes made that it was hard to pay attention to the actual story.
The FMC was also incredibly annoying to me. so that didn't help.

[LoveRomance]

Weak -- TikTok fail!

3 person POV, very confusing when brother suddenly in first person for a few pages here and there

Just really not a great book

[Kween]

its ok

Idk its well written but kyla rubs me the wrong way and coleen and her friends seem pushy and that bothered me but overall its a good book

[Eliana]

I founds it very hard to finish. The characters were not developed and the text conversations made me want to DNF every time I came across one.

[Emily Sørene]

umm… tiktok you really REALLY did me dirty with this one.
and that one scene that hooked me from tiktok? NOT IN THE BOOK.

[livsbookcorner]

So hard to not dnf… did anyone proof read this? Bad grammar mistakes and the plot wasn’t there. It was so hot and cold throughout the whole book.

[Laura Jorge]

Decided to read after I saw it on tiktok. Cheesy romance that got me back from my reading block. I’m a little disappointed that what I saw on tiktok wasn’t on the book.

[Samantha]

I don’t even remember reading this. I’m sure it wasn’t anything good if it’s this unmemorable.

[Jaycie Ford]

Great book! Little confused because I found it on tiktok it showed one scene that I never found in the book but it was a good book.