Oliveras, Priscilla. Her Perfect Affair. New York: Kensington, 2018. ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4429-1. $4.99 USD.
5 stars
I quickly came to identify with Rosa’s character when I read the first book, His Perfect Partner, so I was super excited to read her book. And despite the tagline and the blurb focusing a lot on her “walk on the wild side,” I was glad to see that the story focused more on the consequences of this wild encounter in a way that felt realistic, and like nothing I had ever read before. This includes the stakes beyond just possibly a job at a Catholic school, but instead for her it’s losing the opportunity to work in a place that she has felt connected to since she herself was a student, through her own love of books. As a book lover and librarian-in-training, this sentiment spoke to me. I also love that it touched on a real-life complication that some pregnant women deal with, which had previously been documented in the news in connection to Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. While seeing a prominent real-life figure go through it has helped provide some awareness about the condition, I admire Oliveras for portraying what it is like to live with in a more intimate way.
I already liked Jeremy from the first book, and I grew to love him even more this time around, even if he kept going about trying to be in Rosa’s and his child’s life the wrong way. I loved the complexities that made up his character, from his family’s past, which informed his initial reaction to finding out he was going to be a father, to his present family dynamics, which inform his current career choices as the black sheep of the family. I ended up loving some of the moments when he ended up easing up on the insisting he be part of her life and letting her call the shots a bit, especially when he ended up being her nursemaid for a while when she had severe morning sickness.
