Book Review + Giveaway: An Appearance of Impropriety by Jayna Breigh

Jayna Breigh is a retired attorney living in the southeastern United States and the author of The Hunted Heir. She brings to her writing over a decade of experience in trust and estate litigation in Los Angeles.

Connect with Jayna by visiting www.jaynabreigh.com. to follow her on social media or subscribe to email newsletter updates.

If y’all have tagged along here for a while, you might remember that I loved Jayna Breigh’s debut novel, The Hunted Heir (see my review here). I am just as enamored of her second novel, An Appearance of Impropriety.

Mahalia Jackson (no relation to the famous singer of the same name) is the youngest female judge in Los Angeles. She’s in the running for a pretty sweet promotion, and she’s determined to achieve that goal, to make her family proud. She has some hard and fast rules about her life, one of the big ones being “no dating a lawyer.” But plaintiff’s attorney Jimmy Dean “JD” Cash, who shows up in her courtroom ready to fight for a widow’s justice against a major trucking company, presents a big challenge to that rule. Mahalia’s struggle only grows when she’s voluntold that since her mentor, Judge Goldstein, is sidelined with a health issue, she’ll be participating in the Junior Jurors program, a mock trial program for teens—led by none other than Mr. Cash. As they get to know each other, attraction pulls at them, but maintaining a professional appearance—avoiding any appearance of impropriety—compels them to stay apart. Both are mindful of the ethical requirements imposed on them by their professions, and JD Cash, while certainly appealing, doesn’t fit Mahalia’s vision of her “Midnight Prince,” her happily ever after that she’s had in mind for years.

But not everyone wants to see Judge Jackson succeed. Soon, allegations of the dreaded appearance of impropriety are circulating, coming from those in the shadows who would like to see the young judge’s career derailed and reputation ruined. Can Mahalia and JD keep their relationship professional and above reproach? Will they risk everything to take a chance on each other?

This book, y’all! Once again, Breigh writes an engaging story set in a legal environment – she writes what she knows. Both Mahalia and JD are wonderful characters. Both had their own challenges growing up: Mahalia, the expectation that she would make something of herself, as all her family members had done; JD, the difficulty of growing up with no father, with a mother who tried her best as she fought to keep poverty and her own addiction from consuming her family. Mahalia is driven to live up to her family’s expectations by advancing up the ladder. JD spends his life saving others, fighting the guilt he feels at his inability to save his mother. Despite their very different backgrounds, they are very much alike.

The book looks at racism in a different light. The issue is not that Mahalia is black and JD is white. No, the racism comes from within Mahalia’s own people. The darker tone of her skin is often viewed as less desirable than a lighter tone, and some people have no problem expressing their thoughts about that.That just hurt my heart for her. Bad enough to be judged by people different from you. How much worse for your own people to find you somehow lacking simply because they think your skin tone is too much.

Breigh uses snippets of text messages and what appear to be social media chat conversations at the end of some chapters to convey information about situations. I liked the device, and I thought it was very effective at sharing hints without completely giving away who was saying what.

The romance is absolutely clean, but oh so swoonworthy! The tension between Mahalia and JD is deliciously frustrating, and I found myself really cheering for them to be able to put expectations aside and just let their relationship blossom. They both drew heavily on faith, especially as the story got further along, to guide their choices.

Sweet romance, a suspenseful threat to reputation and career, excellently written legal scenes, characters I love – Jayna Breigh has written another winner in my book. She’s on my must-read list!

Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book from JustRead Publicity Tours. I was not required to leave a review. All opinions here are mine, and I don’t say nice things about books I don’t actually like.