This past week has been a bit of a nightmare, with child illness, exhaustion and worry all combined. It’s been a week when I’ve had a hard time settling into reading anything, partly because I’m so frustrated at not having the time/energy to do my own writing. But last night I found a book that let me escape and laugh and feel so much better as I was reading it, and yup, it was another Harlequin.

Wow, it was silly of me to avoid them all for so long.

Jill Shalvis‘s Time Out sits somewhere on the line between romance and romantic comedy, and I enjoyed it a LOT. The mood and the tone reminded me of Jennifer Crusie, in a very good way, but without the all-out wackiness of most Crusie plots and characters. It wasn’t an out-and-out comedy, but the tone was light and funny and there were a couple of really well-done moments that even skirted slapstick.

Most of all, I just loved that the hero and heroine enjoyed each other so much.

Rainey Saunders and Mark Diego grew up together, and Rainey – who was a good friend of Mark’s younger brother – had a crush on him for years. Unfortunately, it all exploded in a night of total humiliation for her when she tried to come on to him as a sixteen-year-old, and he – four years older than her and very aware of the age difference – turned her down flat. Fourteen years later, she still cringes every time she thinks back to it, and she’s avoided him every time he’s come back home since then. Still, she can’t forget him entirely because he’s stayed prominently in the news as a National Hockey League coach.

Now, Rainey’s working at the rec center that Mark’s younger brother runs, working with disadvantaged kids – and Mark and two of the members of his hockey team have come home for the summer to volunteer at the center. That means that they’re together ALL the time, and this time, Mark’s just as fascinated by Rainey as she always has been with him, like it or not.

This is one of those books that’s completely driven by the fact that one partner – Rainey, in this case – is utterly determined NOT to give in to her attraction or, worse yet, let herself really fall in love…but she can’t help giving in over and over and over again when they’re together (in a series of “just one more time” one-night stands), because the chemistry is SO intense – and like it or not, they really are perfect for each other on an emotional level as well.

They’re both incredibly likable characters, both of them total control freaks but also both incredibly strong and natural caretakers, determined to look after everyone around them. Rainey isn’t just attracted to Mark because she thinks he’s hot – rather, he has an intensity that’s incredibly compelling to her on a personal level, he’s just as smart as she is (which is very), and he has a wicked sense of humor, which she really desperately needs in her life. Similarly, the thing that Mark finds most appealing about Rainey is her strength and her air of unshakable competence.

Honestly, one of my only problems with the novel is that there really isn’t that much holding them apart and keeping them from their happily-ever-after until the end of the novel. I completely bought Rainey’s leftover emotional wounds from that early humiliation, and the fact that she had been telling herself for over a decade that Mark was the epitome of Unavailability. That part, I absolutely understood as it held her back from admitting, either to him or to herself, that she wanted anything more from him than sex. But what exactly was holding Mark back from trying for a real relationship? That part confused me.

There was one early moment in the novel when Mark recognized that Rainey saw him as a bad bet for a relationship. At that point, he thought to himself that other NHL coaches did manage real relationships despite the travel and the work pressure, so it wasn’t really a problem, despite her worries…

…but then later in the book, when Rainey finally admitted to him that she wanted more than a purely physical relationship, he told her that – sorry – he was only available on a day-to-day basis. And I thought, “Huh?”

Because honestly, that seemed to come out of nowhere. I really didn’t see any explanation in the book for that attitude on his part. It felt more like an issue that had popped up purely so that they couldn’t get together at that point, only 70% of the way through the book. By the end, of course, he realized he did want a real relationship, but my feeling was: Surprise? I had just never believed anything different about him.

So, I wished that there had been a more compelling issue at stake to keep them apart – or at least that Shalvis had seeded Mark’s relationship avoidance issues earlier in the book so that they would have felt real to me when they finally had an effect on the plot.

And okay, here’s my one other nit: Rainey feels insecure from the beginning about the fact that she’s just normal-looking, whereas Mark will have met and dated tons of supermodels while working with the NHL. Okay, I can buy that, and I think it’s a reasonable issue for her to have…

…or rather, it would have been except that every single nonattached male in the entire BOOK tries to seduce Rainey! (Or is restrained from trying to seduce her, in the case of Mark’s hockey players, whom he firmly warns off after their first sight of her.) I am not exaggerating. Every single non-partnered adult male Rainey comes into personal contact with in the entire book wants to date/sleep with her, with no exceptions. Add that to the fact that Mark describes her body as “perfect” from the first (and in an objective rather than biased way), and…well. What exactly is the physical difference between her and the incomparable supermodels? Maybe just the fact that she doesn’t wear makeup and does wear sporty clothes while at the rec center?

That part baffled and even slightly annoyed me, because I thought her worries about her appearance would have been a whole lot more compelling and reasonable if she had been pretty but not THE HOTTEST AND MOST IRRESISTIBLE WOMAN EVER. (Plus, lifelong insecurity or no, how could such an intelligent woman think of her looks as nothing special when she is constantly being hit on by every man she meets!)

So, those two issues kept this from being a book that I absolutely loved…but they didn’t stop me from liking and enjoying it a LOT. If I were giving out grades, I’d give this book a strong B+. The banter is so good throughout this book, both between Rainey and Mark – who have such a strong, fun connection – and between, well, basically everyone else in the book! This novel is populated by smart people who are fun to watch and listen to. The style of the book is frothy and funny and FUN.

In the end, I thought the title was perfect. This book is a perfect time-out entertainment. It made me smile as I read it, and at points it even made me laugh out loud. It isn’t deep, and I wished that the issues holding the characters apart had been better-developed – but I really enjoyed those characters and their interactions so much, and I’ll definitely be looking for more Jill Shalvis novels to read. Reading this book was a perfect time-out from reality.

(The cover, though, which is down to Harlequin rather than Jill Shalvis, did completely weird me out. The hero is named Mark Diego. His father came from Mexico. He identifies as Latino. Would you guess that for an instant from the cover? Sigh…)

Note: I read an e-galley of the book, which I got through Netgalley.