Review: Call Me Anytime (The Protectors #1) by Max Monroe

Call Me Anytime, the first in the The Protectors series, by Max Monroe is NOW AVAILABLE!

📱Ebook/Kindle Unlimited: https://geni.us/CMA_Ebook
📖Paperback: https://geni.us/CMA_Paperback
🎧Audio: https://geni.us/CMA_Audio

A virgin phone sex operator. A detective. And a murder. Love shows up at the oddest times in this funny, emotional, and suspenseful romantic comedy by New York Times bestselling author Max Monroe.

Down and almost out in Nashville, Hannah May takes a job at what she thinks is a telemarketing company. To her shock, it’s a phone sex hotline. Unfortunately, the only role-playing Hannah can do with conviction is as a cash-strapped twenty-five-year-old virgin caring for a mother with Alzheimer’s. If only her callers were into that fantasy. Instead, one of them is looking for a killer.

Detective Dominic Dunn is investigating the murder of another hotline operator when Hannah’s endearing awkwardness, quirky charm, and fierce devotion to her mother crack his professional facade. Despite the circumstances, their connection is instant and electric. For the first time in years, Hannah finds herself living instead of just surviving―even if that means playing amateur sleuth between awkward attempts at phone seduction.

But as their relationship deepens and the investigation intensifies, Dominic’s protective instincts go into overdrive. With every call Hannah takes, she gets closer to both love and danger.

Because somewhere in Nashville, on the other end of her line, a killer is waiting.

MY REVIEW

Hannah needs a better paying job and interviews for what she thinks is a call center job. She gets the job and soon after realizes it's not really a call center but actually a phone sex line job. Yeah. Then the cops come calling and want to listen in on her calls, hoping to catch whoever's responsible for the death of the person who used to have her job. It wouldn't be quite so bad, except Hannah's a virgin and her lines are less seductive and more cringey rhymes à la Dr. Seuss. But though the job is soul sucking, especially for someone with no experience, every day, Hannah is growing closer to one of the detectives, Dominic Dunn, one of the only bright spots of this awful job. But he does something her extreme independence and pride just cannot tolerate, and she overreacts. Now they're apart and she's on her own, the way she's always been, even though it's by her own choosing. But when she needs him most, will Dom come to her rescue?

Hannah's hilarious. Her awkward sex talk kept this from getting too sad, and she and Dom had strong chemistry. They were crossing lines fairly quickly, and Dom's partner was definitely right, but I like that Dom resolved it once he realized where where they were heading. The mystery is interesting, and the villain was definitely a surprise. One of my favorite, humorous parts of this was actually Hannah's mom's obsession with NCIS. Though her having early onset Alzheimer's was pretty grim, it brought out her NCIS love, which is a plus for me, considering how much I love that show. Call Me Anytime is an interesting combination of humor (Hannah's hilarious, awkward way with words and her mom mistaking everyone for characters on NCIS), murder mystery, and romance. Be forewarned - there are warnings for health (Hannah's mom's Alzheimer's), and violence (murders) triggers, but if you can deal with those, you'll probably enjoy this as much as I did.