‘The Takeover’ by Cara Tanamachi
Published: January 30, 2024
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Genre: Romance, Contemporary Romance
Format: e-book
Spice Level:
Stars:
Synopsis
Sometimes, when you ask the universe for your soulmate, you wind up with your hate mate instead.
On Nami’s 30th birthday, she’s reminded at every turn that her life isn’t what she planned. She’s always excelled at everything – until now. Her fiancé blew up their engagement. Her pride and joy, the tech company she helped to found, is about to lose funding. And her sister, Sora, is getting married to the man of her dreams, Jack, and instead of being happy for her, as she knows she ought to be, she’s fighting off jealousy.
Frustrated with her life, she makes a wish on a birthday candle to find her soulmate. Instead, the universe delivers her hate mate, Nami’s old high school nemesis, Jae Lee, the most popular kid from high school, who also narrowly beat her out for valedictorian. More than a decade later, Jae is still as effortlessly cool, charming, and stylish as ever, and, to make matters worse, is planning a hostile take-over of her start-up. Cue: sharp elbows and even sharper banter as the two go head-to-head to see who’ll win this time. But when their rivalry ignites a different kind of passion, Nami starts to realize that it’s not just her company that’s in danger of being taken over, but her heart as well.
My Thoughts
There is that classic saying that there is a fine line between hate and love. Nami and Jae are an example of how fine that line is. Okay, most of the hate is one-sided but it still shows how close those two emotions are. ‘The Takeover’ is a classic enemy-to-lover storyline but the characters that Cara gives us are all so amazing we can’t help but keep reading. From main characters to side characters, I have fallen in love with each one. The office prank that happened was also refreshing to see throughout the book and made me chuckle. That was so great to see how much of a family unit the team at Nami’s company is.
Nami and Jae had the relationship of needing to be better than the other person in high school. This really did make them who they are as adults, and even as adults the support system they ended up seeing was always there for them was nice to see.
Cara did give us the typical third-act break-up, but I think this was done well and something that needed to happen between these two characters to figure out themselves before they found each other again. The break-up wasn’t long and done very well just like the whole book. ‘The Takeover’ gets a solid 4 stars from me and has a little bit of spice. It’s level 2 on the spice scale (but there is a scene that brings tears and more to Nami and Jae as it’s spicy). This book is out now and available to get wherever you get your books. Cara did a great job writing ‘The Takeover’ and you will want to read this book again right away when you put it down.
