Date Shark

Date Shark, DelSheree Gladden's first adult novel, has a cute premise: Eli is a date shark, a psychologist who gives date advice to struggling women. But when he meets Leila, he's perplexed. Not only is there no obvious reason for Leila's dating struggles, Eli is strongly drawn to her--to the point where he gives her his phone number, something he never does with clients.

For her part, Leila is also interested in Eli, but she's convinced his interest is professional/friendly. As she begins to date Luke, she finds her friendship with Eli flourishing on the side. Ultimately, she has to make a choice about what she really wants.

The story took a little for me to get into it--I couldn't understand why Leila had such a low self-esteem, when to all appearances she is lovely, intelligent, and likeable. In fact, if I had an issue with the book, it's that the characters all seem a little too good to be true. But for a clean, escapist romance, that might not be  a bad thing.