cover image Expose Me

Expose Me

Kate Hewitt. Harlequin Presents, $9.99 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-0-373-43039-0

The multi-author Fifth Avenue series reaches a satisfactory conclusion (following Caitlin Crews’s Scandalize Me) via a well-trod path. Super-wealthy, super-sexy Alex Diaz and his college friends are determined to bring utter ruin to Jason Treffen, whose high-class pimping lead to the death of Alex’s college friend, Sarah. To get his revenge, Alex enlists Chelsea Maxwell, a daytime TV host who wants to pursue a career in serious journalism, to blindside Jason on live TV. Alex is not quite willing to promise her a job in exchange for throwing her career away on air, but he’s willing to sleep with her to soften her up. While the plot moves quickly and the characters both exhibit vulnerability enough to make them sympathetic, it relies too much on the cliché of a strong, dominant woman who secretly needs a stronger, more dominant man to take charge of her. Nonetheless, the story closes the series in a thematically appropriate way and will appeal to readers who enjoyed the earlier books. (Aug.)