THE INTIMACY EXPERIMENT by ROSIE DANAN

“Love is something precious, right? Something coveted. Why shouldn’t people have to earn it?”
He wanted to tell her love was inherent. That it existed in many intangible forms. That she could build love by extending it. But something in the twist of her mouth and the guarded curve of her jaw made him swallow the promises. “But I think in the simplest terms, love makes surviving easier and everyone deserves that.”
Naomi flattened her mouth into a hard line. “Not everyone.”

We were thrilled to hear Naomi was getting a book after loving her character in The Roommate which we read last year. Naomi’s relationship with Clara and Josh from that book was rather complex and interesting making us eager to see who would win Naomi’s heart.

One thing Naomi didn’t count on was losing her heart to a man so opposite to her in so many ways. Naomi’s guarded; Ethan wears his heart on his sleeve. Naomi has her walls built a mile high, Ethan, in his role as Rabbi at the congregation Beth Elohim synagogue, gives so much of himself.

“What I’m trying to articulate is that you’re precious,” Ethan said, “not in spite of, but because of all the ways you believe you’re broken.”

Looking for a way to boost attendance and spark interest in his synagogue, Ethan Cohen enlists the help of Naomi Grant, a sex guru to run a series of modern intimacy seminars, and Ethan is more than a little smitten with her, but Naomi’s past is paved in pain and trust issues. She doesn’t even trust herself.

“I’ve spent my entire adult life in therapy learning to love myself because I believed that if I loved myself, I wouldn’t need anyone else’s love. But that’s not really how it works, is it?”
“No, I don’t’ think so,” he said softly.

But Ethan accepts her – he sees her vibrancy, her vulnerability and accepts her – her past, her present, her beauty, her flaws without judgment. Can the handsome, sweet, and very sexy Rabbi break down her walls? Can the old guard accept Naomi’s past and profession?

‘If he never saw another lovely thing in his life, he’d be okay. Naomi was filling up his quota. Infinitely beautiful.’

The Intimacy Experiment is a sweet slow burn romance that delves into love and acceptance and it’s full of heart, quirky characters, and some fabulous chemistry.