Mr. Big

Nothing has ever been easy for Holland O’Dell. She grew up in foster care and has worked hard for everything she has achieved. Luckily, she is smart, was able to go to college and now she works for a great company. Unfortunately, it's not her dream job, but she is working on that. Holland is driven, goal oriented, sassy and opinionated. One day she has a chance meeting with Oliver Cody, the owner of the company she works for and it changes the course if her life.

Oliver is disillusioned with his life and is broody, withdrawn and has cut himself off from everyone. When he meets Holland, there is something about her that pulls him to her. He doesn't understand why, but Holland makes Oliver feel alive again and better than he has in a long time.

Oliver and Holland meet each other at the perfect time in their lives. Oliver is having a difficult time and meeting Holland helps him figure out what is important. In turn, Oliver helps Holland achieve some of her dreams. When they meet everything about their relationship feels right and they finally feel whole. Where one is weak, the other is strong. Oliver and Holland are realistic and easy to sympathize with and they have smoldering chemistry. This is a heartwarming story with interesting characters and a good plot line.

I was given an advanced copy of this book to write an honest review for Netgalley and Cocktails and Books.

I have never read this author before and was asked to read this book in exchange for an honest review. I must say, I was very impressed. The characters were likeable...the story was funny and interesting....and I just couldn't put this book down.

Oliver Cody's world has completely imploded. The world as he knew it has been turned upside down by a horrible event. First he was on top of the world, and next he was crashing down at the bottom. Ollie is the CEO of Cody Technology, having taken over the reigns from his dad. The last thing he wants to be doing is working so he takes a six week break from his life. When Ollie shows back up at the office one day, he stops at the company coffeehouse and runs into someone who has given him back a spark of life. Enter Holland O'Dell. Oh, man did I LOVE this meeting. Great laugh out loud sparring! Ollie realizes he needs to know more about this girl.

Holland O'Dell has dreamed of working at Cody Technology pursuing her love of statistics and sports. Fresh from earning her master's degree, Holland gets hired on at Cody Technology, but not doing what she had hoped to be doing. It seems to get that job, you need to be a male. Holland just plans to work on a secret project that she can woo upper management with that would guarantee her a promotion. She is going to improve the company's StrokeStat program that is no longer be used and customize it for Major League Baseball.

Ollie starts hanging out at the coffeehouse hoping to run into Holland again. Of course he does and then the real fun begins. He realizes she is working on StrokeStat. Considering he designed and wrote it, and she has no idea who he really is, he knows this will be fun. He finally gets Holland to agree to let him help her with the hope of spending more time together. As they spend more time together, things really begin to blossom and turn serious pretty quickly. Just when it looks like his life is finally improving, the rug gets pulled out from under him and he has to face his issues and decide what he really wants in his life.

Ollie and Holland together were great. The awesome banter in the beginning was priceless. As their relationship progressed, things were only getting better. Overall, I really loved these two characters and the journey they had to take to get to their happy ending. I laughed, swooned and even cried.

Oliver Cody had the perfect life. Loving parents who always encouraged his ideas, specially the one that got him his own company by the time he graduated high school. Even thou his position was held for him as CEO, till he graduated from college, Cody knew he had it all. Or so he thought. After a while he kept wondering if his life was his or his Father's. All of a sudden one day he snapped and left everything behind to go find himself. Surfing his life away. When he gets a call one day, thinking it was his Mom, it actually was an attorney letting him know his parents had passed away tragically. It was the other secret that came that turned his whole world upside down. Returning home for the funeral, he no longer felt the need to survive, to run his company. He was angry and wanted to be left alone.
Holland was at the top of her class at the university and had always dreamed of being an analyst at Cody Corporation, instead she was hired as a sales rep. Figuring she would work her way up. Now that she had the schematics on the MLB, she dreamed of presenting her idea to the top executives and find her ticket up the company. Running into a grumpy, scruffy looking guy at the coffee shop, she started yelling at him for cutting in front of everyone in line. Cody felt such strength looking at this woman, that he felt he had to get to know her. Except he couldn't let her know who he was. Giving her his nickname in college, he starts helping her with her presentation. What starts out as lust, turns into so much more.
This was so well written and the story line I found to be incredible. Fabulous book.