Dr. Renee Lawler is known for her academic brilliance and supported by her handpicked protégés, owns her English department. Everything in her life is exactly the way she made and likes it - down to the choice of her heels. While presenting at a conference, an encounter shook the very core of the understanding of herself.

Kat Jackson captured and held my interest in her portrayal and delivery of the complex and enigmatic Dr. Renee Lawler. For all the powers of control that Renee wields, she is caught off guard by the overwhelming emotions towards Hunter. At 47 and discovering her sexuality, Renee’s fumbling in her disorientation totally endeared her to me. Awfully off her game, the way Renee tried to seduce then walk from the object of her bewilderment had me asking how and smiling a good bit of the time. And should you ever question how an academic like Renee lets loose, the sex scene in her office? Scorching!
I just reviewed The Missing Piece by Kat Jackson. Thank you NetGalley and Bella Books for the ARC.

I wanted to like this book more and the issue is not really not liking it. The book held my interest and it was enjoyable enough to read. I just found the main character, Renee too out there to be believable or likable. She was pretentious, obtuse, and bristly. I get that she was supposed to be cerebral over emotional, but the reader was hit over the head with that again and again. I also found the fact that she had worked with some people at the university for twenty years, and they had no idea she had a child very hard to fathom.

I think this could have been a great book, but it felt like the main character just ruined it for me.

Renee is in her late forties and has no personal life to speak of. In fact, her closest colleagues are un-aware of the fact that Renee has a 25 year old daughter. Fully focused on her career, Renee does’t date and she’s taken by surprise when she is attracted to a woman. Surely, that can’t be right. The Missing piece is a slow burn romance that’s very well written. I like this author’s style and I enjoyed reading Renee’s self discovery story. Excellent secondary characters too, glad to ‘spend some time’ with Kate and Callie.
Free ARc via NetGalley.

A later-in-life self-discovery romance that resonates. The Missing Piece follows Dr. Renee Lawler as she learns that she isn't as unfeeling as she always thought or presented herself.

It all starts with a conference where Renee meets Hunter, a woman who throws Renee off balance entirely. When Hunter shows up to do work at the university Renee where Renee teaches, she can no longer deny the significant attraction to the other woman. That doesn't stop her from trying, though! Meanwhile, Renee is navigating her relationships with her friends and her adult child.

As someone who discovered part of my queerness later in life, I related with Renee's emotional journey. However, Renee constantly thinks of herself as a woman always prepared and in control yet one of the first scenes has her forgetting where she put a really important binder. And she's supposedly really cold with everyone but (other than to her secretary and to one student) she's actually really in her emotions.

I'd read another of this author's books, though.