The Offer is a sequel to The Pact by Karina Halle and was a fun contemporary romance focused on Nicola and Bram. I felt pretty similarly about this as I did after reading The Pact . Karina Halle writes romantic comedies really well and I know I'm going to love the realistic characters once I've finished reading one of her books. The main things I took away from this one are great character development, laughs, and a new fascination with Ikea. 
 I immediately connected with Nicola. She's a smart, hardworking, single mom and someone I could see myself being friends with. She just keeps getting kicked around by life and I want to give her a hug and tell her it's going to be all right! For a long time I really wondered if Bram was supposed to be a likeable male lead. He was pretty much a sexually aggressive jackass most of the time and it made for a shitty hero to root for. If he wanted people to see his as more than a player he should behave like more than a player, right? Eventually he grew on me once we got to meet his hidden nice guy and he stepped up to the plate with Ava. But I still had the nagging suspicion about his mysterious dark past involving Taylor. (view spoiler)[ I had a bad feeling it would turn out that he stepped out on a kid and when it turned out being just that, it was such a blow! (hide spoiler)] In the grand scheme of things, both Nicola and Bram felt like they could be real people. I've already said this about Karina Halle's writing style. She can create wonderfully real fully developed characters that you would want to meet and be friends with in real life. 
 At its core, The Offer is a contemporary romantic comedy. It's not really trying to pretend it's anything else and I liked that it had a sense of self. Nicola and Bram are an unlikely match and it was gratifying to not have an "insta-love" situation. This is a bit of a slow build. However, I really enjoyed that the characters built a friendship first before they moved on to anything physical with each other. Also it wasn't cheesy and overly angst filled which was a breath of fresh air. I was hoping for the longest time that maybe there wouldn't be the obligatory break up. I was wrong and it hurt something fierce. I won't get into spoiler filled details but trust me... it hurt! As for the smut, it was certainly steamy. Without the spoiler filled details, there is a scene involving getting caught in the act at Ikea which was as steamy as it was hilarious! 
 So, The Offer kind of had everything I was looking for in a romantic comedy. I got to check all my boxes off because it was funny, gave me feels, it was steamy, had likeable characters, and the premise was believable. I'm excited to continue on with the series with Kayla being the next heroine. She's a real force to be reckoned with and I can't wait to see what mischief she gets into. I'll just leave this review with my favorite quote from Ava: 
 "Bram-a-lama-ding-dong!"