ARC REVIEW If I Had You by Heather Hiestand

I love the Roaring Twenties the dresses, art nouveau, the dancing, the Jazz! I'll pass on the gin though. I really liked Alecia I think if I had been alive in the twenties I would have been like her a little country mouse moving to the big city with dreams of being a jazz baby. I like Ivan because he has accepted his lot in life even after what happened to his family and he's all about the here and now and not dwell on what has happened, he likes his job and he does it well. I love the active setting, I can easily picture the Grand Russe Hotel the fancy art nouveau style the jazz playing in the background. All the characters were interesting, all the other hotel employees have you wondering which one will be next to have a book about them.

Alecia Loudon moved to London to work as a secretary for a Director/actor and his actress wife. She lives with them in one of the suites of the Grand Russe Hotel and every night she sneaks downstairs to listen to the jazz music through the wall that the hotel shares with the nightclub. She has been dreaming of life as a jazz baby and the good looking and mysterious security guard working the night shift. Ivan and his sister are refugees from Russia, they were luckily enough to be out of the country when a family member turned in their parents and their other sister for treason. Ivan has moved on but his sister has not let it go and when the man responsible for their parents death arrives in London and is staying at The Grand Russe she wants her pound of flesh. Ivan is happy with their life now and he doesn't want to risk his life or his sister's life with revenge that won't help only hurt and it won't bring back their family. But she gets in with the wrong crowd and the assassination plot becomes a serious problem.

Ivan finally gets up the nerve to talk to the beautiful blue eyed woman he always sees on his rounds with her head against the wall listening to the music through the wall. Alecia is a shy and sweet young woman who dreams of a life of glamour but after meeting Ivan and experiencing what the life could be like she realizes she would rather be a wife and mother but first she has to help Ivan figure out what to do with his sister and the assassination of not just the Russian Diplomat but British political leaders too. Overall, I really liked this one I love that even after they became intimate they were worried about propriety and not living together until they got married.