Bel is an investigative journalist working in a tiny satellite office in Manchester with her coworker Aaron and a rotating intern. The latest intern is Connor. Older than the usual intern, Connor has recently switched career tracks from finance to journalism. He's not happy about being up in Manchester, he recently dealt with a bout of depression, and he's unsure about his relationship with his girlfriend of five years. So, his first impression of Bel, Aaron, and the Manchester office is not positive, and he doesn't hide his feelings. Bel immediately labels Connor a snobby finance bro and wants nothing to do with him.
Bel hears from a source that the mayor is having inappropriate relationships with young women in his office. She decides to go undercover to befriend the woman who runs the AirBnB the mayor uses for his liaisons. When Connor stumbles into her at an inopportune time, he is roped into the undercover business as her boyfriend.
As Connor and Bel work together, their relationship slowly thaws into a good working relationship and then into friends. Part of why this case is so important to Bel is that she recently fell into a similar trap with an older man at her previous work. Even worse, when she wizened up and left, he began stalking and harassing her.
Bel and Connor's romance is a very slow burn, but I liked their interactions and I didn't get bored while reading. I also thought McFarlane did well in explaining how Bel felt about the man at her previous work who was pretty nefarious. The guilt and blame she put on herself was tremendous, but I imagine a lot of women could relate.
Connor was dreamy, but he sometimes felt too good to be real. And speaking of realistic, almost every male character in this book was obsessed with Bel. We have Connor, of course; Bel's ex-boyfriend; Bel's office fling/stalker; co-worker Aaron; and even the mayor of Manchester as soon as he sees her. It was a little much, but didn't detract from my enjoyment of the novel.
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