Dad Reviews The Contract by Elizabeth Kelly

Hello there my beautiful Unicorn

Book Cover

Content Warnings for this review & book. Items in hidden-text like this only appear in the spoilers section or in the book itself.

Medium Used: ebook via

Ratings out of 5

Overall Rating: 💜💜💜💜 Sweetness Level: 🍫🍫🍫🍫 Steam Heat Level: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 FMC Likability: 👩🏼‍💻👩🏼‍💻👩🏼‍💻👩🏼‍💻 MMC Likability: 👔👔👔👔 Plot Engagement: 🗒️🗒️🗒️🗒️ At least 1 bad dad (pass/fail): 0️⃣

Spoiler Free Review

The Contract is a F/M workplace romcom that includes mild bdsm (femdom) elements. Our protagonist and FMC is Mae Temple (Ms. Temple) a very competent (and secretly confident) Professional Assistant (PA) at a top law firm in an ambiguous North American City. Our MMC is Liam Knight (Mr. Knight), founder and owner of Knight and Associates, gorgeous bachelor, renowned lawyer, and a well documented dickhead of a boss. Since nobody can stand being Mr. Knight's PA the firm “rotates” PAs every couple of months so the burden of supporting his workaholic tendency and ridiculous expectations is shared. In her two years as a PA at Knight and Associates Mae has successfully avoided assignment to Mr. Knight, until now. The story is told in first person from Mae's perspective.

We quickly learn that Mae has been putting on a bit of an act at the office to appear as though she is easily upset and prone to emotional breakdowns (despite producing high quality work). She has been doing this in an attempt to dodge a rotation to support Mr. Knight. Mae dreads working for Liam Knight not only due to his notorious cruelty but also the fact that she low-key has a crush on him. Mae is comfortable and confident in her 5'4” tall +size body with boring[sic]1 dark hair and dark eyes, however; she is well aware of Liam's typical dates who are tall, thin, blonde, and blue-eyed and isn't exactly psyched about having to be around him 5 days a week knowing [thinking] she does not stand a chance with him.

Here is the the thing...Mae is not taking Liam's shit. In our opening scene when Liam questions his HR manager, Ida, for assigning Mae to him, Mae retorts, “I think you'll find I'm more capable of handling your insane workload demands”. As their working relationship begins and tells her that he doesn't appreciate sarcasm she let's him know that their “going to have a difficult working relationship”. Liam quickly learns he deserved her sass as she is the most capable PA he has ever had.

Is this the best romcom I have read? No. Is this the best office romance I have read? No. Is this the best spice I have read? No, The Contract is a beautiful unicorn that is a quality romcom, a quality boss/employee trope, a +size FMC who is the most beautiful person MMC has ever seen (and not in some weird kinky way), and gosh darn its about love and lust between a woman who likes to take charge and a man who likes to please with a setting that is not a kink club and a theme that is not the lifestyle. So for me this book gets ⭐⭐⭐⭐ in every category because it may not do anything perfectly but it does everything well and its not afraid to go against the grain (especially considering this book is from 2014).

What I liked about this book – The plot follows what I would call the classical romance story beats but we get some gasp relationship development and characterization of the side characters and we didn't need 450 pages to do it. – Mae and Liam are both believable characters and neither one feels like an archetype or hyperbole. (Also, in my experience and observations, millionaires can be down to earth and sometimes fall in love with a regular person, billionaires on the other hand are the 3,000 richest people in the world and are not and most likely do not. – It is a Romcom where parental drama or relationships are not the character defining trait of either MC nor the major third act conflict.

What I did not like about this book – There was an amazing opportunity for a legal-drama-esque B-Plot about some big case or client that the MMCs perfectly complement each other on and we just do not even go there despite a major identity of each of them is really smart and good at what they do. – I understand its fiction so I get over it to enjoy the story, however; it is highly inappropriate2 to be romantically or sexually involved with your employee as a regular manager let alone a business owner and an underpaid assistant (for some reason I find the forbidden tropes harder to look past in contemporary stories compared to fantasy or science fiction). – On a similar note, Liam's character is more like 👔👔👔 because why would a caring down to earth (albeit workaholic) law firm founder, (who is implied to be giving a bunch of money back to the community/charity) not pay his staff above market? It's a small company (we are told 15 lawyers) and you have more money than you want or need. Give your employees a raise you knob!

Spoilers Review

Click to reveal spoilers I found Mae and Liam's misunderstandings refreshing because as they reasonably believable and not assassinations of otherwise enduring characters. As an example, at one point Liam walks in on Mae and his personal driver Russ embracing in the office and incorrectly assumes they are together because he is not aware that Russ is gay (they are slowly becoming besties and Mae is comforting him because his cousin died). Liam has never made uninvited inquiries about his employee's love life because a decent person would not do that. Afterward, Mae immediately understand the misunderstanding but is a good person and knows it is not her place to out her friend to their boss just because she has a crush on him. Prior to the misunderstanding being resolved, Liam does not overreact by firing Russ or forbidding them from spending time together. Instead, Liam acts like any sane successful person would behave when he thinks the girl he has feelings for is with his driver, he is grumpier than before but otherwise lets them be. Compare this to the trope of “I walked in at the exact wrong moment and when my partner tried to explain themselves I just stormed away” and for me3 it just makes the love feel more real.

Another thing I found refreshing about this book was the lack of some overly contrived excuse about why they cannot be a couple or petty disagreement that pauses the relationship. Liam takes Mae as his date to a function, the local gossip press takes pictures and writes about it, and the following Monday Ida tells them “its against company policy for you two to be together” [2]. They eventually agree that Ida is right so everyone goes home...no eventually Mae has to take Liam an important file she forgot to put in his bag so she goes to his house and finds him tied up with a professional dominatrix that looks suspiciously like her. At this point they both accept the physical attraction cannot be denied but also know that a romantic relationship is not appropriate. So instead the titular “Contract” is formed to keep their relationship strictly 'professional', Liam pays Mae $50,000 for 4 weekends of work as his dominatrix / girlfriend but as long as they do not do penetration they will be fine on Monday just going back to PA and Lawyer right? right? “Oops”

What I liked Spoilers – The first steamy scene in a VIP club section during which Mae is teasing covertly teasing Liam while the club owner is trying to schmooze him.🥵 – I have always been a sucker for the one MC gets hurt/sick and the other MC takes care of them trope. We get it twice, once when Mae hurts her ankle and again when she passes out after said VIP section. – Great representation of interacting with children (nephew), I hope to come across more romance books where MCs are seen being good/playful uncles, aunts, guardians, parents, etc. in romance. – I like the way Mae's slump after things go to shit, as things tend to at the 70-85% mark in romantic comedies, she loses weight, a not uncommon symptom of depression & the good people in her life tell her she looks unwell. Only her shithead X compliments her weight loss. The cherry on top was the weight coming back once things got better.

What I did not like Spoilers – Allie is supposed to be Mae's closest friend, albeit kind of a lousy one, and then just kind of stops being around. It doesn't really make sense with Mae's character, like she would not put up with a lousy friend. Where is she when things go to shit? – Major Spoiler for the ending Liam is supposed to be this super top notch lawyer but it takes him 3 months to figure out what had happened?

Who should read this book?

Any fans of workplace romantic comedies will enjoy this one but it may be extra special to folks that seeking out +size FMCs, lighthearted reads with a dominant FMCs, or a wealthy MMC that is merely a millionaire.

1 Kind people of the world, I have never met anyone with boring dark hair or anyone with boring dark eyes. Please love yourself and remember that you are somebody's everything, even if you have not met somebody yet.
3 I appreciate that many people enjoy more dramatic conflicts in romance. People have different taste and I would never claim that mine is any good but I like how The Contract handles it compared to even some books on my Top List, maybe its because I watched too many teen action dramas growing up but the whole “we misunderstand each other because I am keeping a secret for no good reason and/or I am not going to talk to you about it because I am mad / you wronged me” generally taste stale for me.

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