RogerBW's Blog

Bad Reputation, Emma Barry 04 July 2025

2024 romance. Cole James was the bad boy on a soap opera, bought into the image a bit too much, and has being trying to rehabilitate his life and career ever since. Maggie Niven was a school drama teacher forced out by a parental complaint, now starting a new career as an intimacy coordinator. They're both working on the Bridgerton-esque TV adaptation of The Heart of Midlothian.

My goodness this is a romance for grown-ups; what a refreshing approach! Yes, all right, both our protagonists get into the mindset that while they are falling in lust or love, the other person is clearly just being professionally polite; but even once they get past that, they make a specific point of not acting on their attraction until their jobs in the production are finished, to avoid any possible conflict of interest.

And while there is certainly lust the development is much more about these people learning about each other, and the things they care about, which seems to me a better fit if there's actually going to be a happy ever after rather than a pleasant few months.

If you think "woke" is a bad thing, you won't enjoy this book (but then you probably don't enjoy my writing either). There's a fair bit of detail about the job of an intimacy coordinator, and why it's a role worth having as a lubricating layer between the actors and the production team; not just confirming what someone is comfortable with doing on camera, but how when the script just says "sex scene" it can be expanded into something that doesn't only get the viewer hot but also has something to add to the characterisation of the people involved. (And the book's one sequence of lovemaking has ongoing and enthusiastic seeking and giving of consent.)

Where things do go awry for me are in the final third, when a MeToo-esque revelation leads to actions that leave one character's motivations in question—and that question is not resolved in the book. Why did they do that, when it was clearly not to their advantage to do so? Was this a sudden decision or part of a long-term plan? One can come up with possible answers, but it's a dangling thread that left me feeling unsatisfied.

Still, apart from that slight let-down, I very much enjoyed this book, and I'll seek out more by Barry.

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