Vanessa was hired to be Aiden’s personal assistant. Aiden, known as the Wall of Winnipeg in the NFO (a fictional football league) is as stoic as his nickname makes him sound. He’s built like a wall, all muscle mass, but he has as much personality as a wall as well! Vanessa has worked for him for two years and even though they spend massive amounts of time together, he has never tried to get to know her, be pleasant to her, or even crack a smile. Vanessa on the other hand, is always cheerful and tries to joke with him, making a challenge out of trying to get him to smile or react. On the inside though, she’s over his uncaring attitude. She is just biding her time until she can save up enough money to take a year off and get her graphic design business up and running. One day, after taking crap from Trevor, Aiden’s manager, and overhearing him insult her and not have Aiden come to her defense, she hits the wall. She quits and walks out of her job. Even though she kind of misses him, she never looks back. Until he’s sitting on her doorstep trying to get her to come back. And boy does she make him work for it.

This story was told entirely from Vanessa’s POV and sometimes I really wanted to see inside of Aiden’s head.  His stoic stare was the same for every person in his life. But when he finally talks Vanessa back into his life, he let’s Vanessa in a little at a time, and we are given hints of him through those minute changes in expression. Each twitch of an eyebrow or quirk of a lip told his life story, and surprisingly to Vanessa, their backgrounds were pretty similar. This novel was a slow and steady wins the race kind of novel. As the two of them got to know each other better, and Vanessa was able to read him more, you could see a really caring partnership growing. This was a true friends to lovers story, and I ate it up!

For me, a great novel is when your main character or characters overcome a personal challenge, and this novel was full of those wins. They both not only had a lot to learn about each other, but they also had to come to grip with a lot of things about themselves. They were both very set in their ways. They both had the same focus in their jobs, Aiden’s was just a lot more physical and so his hours were spent in training. However, they both had to re-map their mind. Aiden, had to learn to let someone in to love, and Vanessa had to learn that love doesn’t always turn into betrayal. When they finally opened their emotions up to each other it was heartrending. That moment didn’t happen until almost 3/4’s of the way through the book! But every moment leading up to it was an important moment in the history of Aiden and Vanessa. I like sex in novels just fine, but I like it a lot more when the heart is truly involved, and it’s not sex, just for sex sake. Theirs was a union of minds, not just of bodies, but that moment when it finally happened was full of fire and I didn’t feel like I was gypped in the romance department at all.

The Wall of Winnipeg and Me is not your typical sports romance, and is definitely worth your time. I read an ebook that clocked in well over 600 pages, but those pages flew by. 

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Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe A Chick Who Reads All Rights Reserved