But that didn’t mean that they had to lure her into their little club. Emma had tried the happily-ever-after route, and knew that for every woman who rode off into the sunset on a white stallion, another one got kicked in the face by that very same horse. She’d been there. Done that. Moved on. 

The Trouble With Love

As Stiletto magazine’s authority on all things breakup-and-heartache, Emma Sinclair writes from personal experience. Five years ago, Emma was Charlotte, North Carolina’s darling debutante and a blushing bride-to-be. Now she’s the ice queen of the Manhattan dating scene. Emma left her sultry Southern drawl behind, but not even her closest friends know that with it she left her heart. Now Emma’s latest article forces her to face her demons—namely, the devilishly sexy guy who ditched her at the altar.

After giving up everything for a pro-soccer career, Alex Cassidy watches his dreams crumble as a knee injury sidelines him for good. Now he’s hanging up his cleats and giving journalism a shot. It’s just a coincidence that he happens to pick a job in the same field, and the same city, as his former fiancée . . . right? But when Emma moves in next door, it’s no accident. It’s research. And Alex can’t help wondering what might have been. Unlike the innocent girl he remembers, this Emma is chic, sophisticated, and assertive—and she wants absolutely nothing to do with him. The trouble is, Alex has never wanted her more.

The Trouble With Love is the book I remember looking most forward to when I first read this series a few years ago. It follows Emma, the newest addition to the core Stiletto ladies group, and Alex, the Editor in Chief of Stiletto’s rival magazine, Oxford. Although Grace’s and Riley’s stories both had a fair amount of setup in the novels that preceded them, Emma’s story had the most out of the three sequels. Throughout Love the One You’re With, and Just One Night, we get snippets into her past engagement Alex that had me begging for more information.  

One of the things I loved about it the most was that Camille, the Editor in Chief of Stiletto, brings her matchmaking game from what usually hovered around a five or six all the way up to ten. For context, Camille played a not-so-small part in matchmaking the other Stiletto ladies up with their men by way of assigning them the stories that led to them finding their perfect match. But Emma is a tougher case, so Camille has to think outside of the box and ends up going on a sabbatical that leaves Alex in charge of Stiletto, temporarily making him Emma’s boss. Not only that, when Emma’s apartment floods, Camille lends her use of her apartment, which just so happens to be across the hall from Alex’s. It is not subtle at all, and I loved it.

The other reason I loved this one so much is that it doesn’t shy away from Emma and Alex’s tortured past together, and it doesn’t make light of it. The Trouble With Love takes a hard look at these two characters and how their past still affects them, even years later. They caused each other some pain—and continue to do so in certain ways, like the article about ex’s that Alex assigns Emma—but they also still care for each other. They never got closure on their relationship after it ended, and when they start to try to get that closure, it’s clear that the feelings are still there. 

I think out of all of the main pairings in this series, I love Emma and Alex the most. Emma is practical, a little closed off, but still cares deeply and gets better at showing that throughout the book. Alex is charming, a little cocky, and like Emma, a little closed-off, but he lets himself go around Emma, and we see how passionate he can really be. Initially, this series was only supposed to be a trilogy, but I’m so glad that Emma’s story ended up getting told. It’s the story that stayed with me the most out of the four after my first read-through, easily making it my favorite. It’s also the one that really sets up the spin-off series focusing on the men at Oxford, which I loved just as much as the Sex, Love & Stiletto series, and I look forward to re-reading next.