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Verdict: A sharp, grown-up fake-relationship romance between an icy senator and the lawyer she hires as her date, with some of the best-rated banter of the year, held back only by a small reader footprint and a mid-book turn that changes what kind of story it is.
Best for: Readers who want an ice queen thawed by an equal, politics that actually matters to the plot, and a medium-heat romance between two very capable women.
Heat level: ★★★☆☆ (3/5 — medium heat)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.3/5 — a 4.55 Goodreads average across 380 ratings, with almost no recurring complaints but a still-small sample)
Tropes: Fake relationship, ice queen, enemies to lovers, politician, lawyer, secret identity, opposites attract, Australian setting, workplace power, second act reunion.
Escorting the Senator by Maggie Brown is the third book in her self-published Corporate Queens series, a contemporary sapphic romance set in Australian politics, where Senator Emery Moreton hires a companion from an escort agency to keep unwanted suitors away during a two-week international summit in Canberra — and gets Maxine Carleton, a corporate lawyer doing her sister a favor, who refuses to be anybody’s prop.
It holds a 4.55 average across roughly 380 Goodreads ratings and 4.6 across nearly 600 on Amazon, with a positive review from The Lesbian Review. Those are the kind of numbers that usually come with a catch, and here the catch is simply scale: the book is two months old and its readership is still small. Both of those facts are worth weighing before you start.
What Is Escorting the Senator About?
This is a rivals-to-lovers fake-relationship romance with a political setting that does more than decorate. The summit is a pressure cooker — delegates, spouses, staffers, photographers — and a senator’s private life is a public asset or a public liability depending on how it is managed. That makes the fake relationship genuinely risky rather than cute: if the truth about Maxine comes out, it ends careers.
Emery is private, brilliant and cold, a woman who has spent years batting away men and has no room for distraction. Maxine is her match in every way the senator did not order: quick, charming, just as used to power, and hiding a professional life that makes her far more than a hired date. The Lesbian Review files one of them as over forty and the other between 25 and 39, though neither age is stated; the real gap between them is in how they wield power.
What Makes This Ice Queen Romance Work
- The banter: Five or more Goodreads reviewers name it, and The Lesbian Review describes two women who are titans of insult and fury.
- Two equals: Six-plus readers praise the smart, grown-up leads, and the fact that Maxine can stand up to Emery is what makes the thaw satisfying.
- The politics: The Lesbian Review expected the endless summit meetings to bore it and says they never did — the setting is solid and serves the romance.
- The pace: Six readers say they could not put it down.
- The humor: Five reviewers find it funny, and two single out a side character, Flavia, as comic relief.
Book Synopsis
Senator Emery Moreton is tired of men. Tired of the approaches at dinners, the assumptions at receptions, the delegates who treat a single woman in power as an opening. With a two-week international summit in Canberra ahead of her, she makes a practical decision: she will bring a partner, and she will hire one. The agency she chooses is discreet and expensive, and her terms are exacting. No sex. No flirting. No mistakes.
Maxine Carleton is not an escort. She is a corporate lawyer between jobs who agrees, as a one-off favor to her sister, to take the assignment. It should be the easiest two weeks of her life — smile for photographs, charm the delegates, play the devoted girlfriend. Instead she walks into a senator who wanted a puppet and gets a woman who has opinions, a sharp tongue and a talent for working a room that Emery did not budget for.
By the end of the first week Maxine is the most popular person at the summit, Emery is furious about it, and neither of them is entirely pretending anymore. But Maxine’s cover story is only a cover story, and the professional world she comes from overlaps with Emery’s in ways neither of them has considered. The question is what happens when the arrangement ends and the truth doesn’t.
My Review
The dynamic is the book, and it is a very good one. Brown sets up a senator who despises her hired date on sight and then gives the date every tool to fight back, and the result is a courtship conducted almost entirely through argument. It is funny, it is tense, and it never lets either woman become the weaker one. The Lesbian Review calls the thawing of the ice queen especially satisfying, and it is.
The second strength is that the politics are real. A lot of political romances treat the job as wallpaper. This one uses the summit — the meetings, the seminars, the delegates and their spouses — as a stage on which the fake relationship has to perform, and Maxine’s hidden professional life turns a cute setup into something with consequences. Around the halfway point the book changes gear, with the story moving from the summit into a second act where the two meet again in very different circumstances and the truth about Maxine’s work comes out. Readers who mention the courtroom stretch enjoy it.
Where it struggles is hard to pin down, and that is the finding. The reviews I read produced no complaint that more than one reader shared. One reviewer found the chemistry weak, another that the book tells rather than shows the relationship, another that there is too much bickering; one Australian reader caught geography slips about Canberra. That near-silence is partly a sign of a well-liked book and partly a sign of a small one: 380 Goodreads ratings is a young, enthusiastic sample, and StoryGraph’s handful of ratings is too small to weigh at all.
One expectation to reset: this is a medium-heat book. The Lesbian Review files it as average spice, and readers describe the love scenes as passionate rather than explicit set pieces. If you came to the ice-queen shelf for scorching heat, calibrate; if you came for the thaw, it delivers.
My honest note: A smart, funny, grown-up fake-relationship romance that does exactly what its readers want, backed by a readership that is still small. If you need a big sample before you trust a rating, wait a few months. If you like two powerful women fighting their way into love, start now.
| Element | In Escorting the Senator |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Senator Emery Moreton & Maxine Carleton — ice-queen politician and the corporate lawyer posing as her paid date |
| Core tropes | Fake relationship, ice queen, enemies to lovers, secret identity, opposites attract, politician and lawyer |
| Setting | A two-week international summit in Canberra, Australia, then the legal world beyond it |
| Heat level | 3/5 — medium heat |
| Series | Corporate Queens book 3 — readers report a happy ending; no cliffhanger reported |
| Content notes | A persistent, handsy man at the summit; deception about Maxine’s identity; sex work framing around the escort agency; on-page intimacy |
How Spicy Is Escorting the Senator?
A 3/5. The Lesbian Review files it as average spice and medium heat, and I could not reach a romance.io band for it. Goodreads readers describe passion and chemistry and, in one case, sex scenes they found pleasant rather than central. The slow build is the point here, and the heat arrives as a payoff rather than a running feature.
The only thing worth flagging in advance is a man at the summit who will not keep his hands to himself — The Lesbian Review calls him the worst of it. No reviewer I found flags anything beyond that. If this is your heat level, Something to Talk About runs a fake relationship at the same band, and The Brutal Truth thaws an ice queen at a similar pace.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you read for the ice-queen thaw, you want two leads who are genuinely evenly matched, a political setting with real stakes appeals to you, and you enjoy banter that doubles as foreplay.
You may want to skip it if: you want explicit heat, you need a large reader sample before trusting a rating, bickering leads wear you out, or you know Canberra well enough to be bothered by the details.
In short: a sharp, funny, grown-up fake-relationship romance that its early readers adore.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (September 2026)
There is no viral moment, no Reddit thread I could find and no trade coverage — normal for an indie Australian author. What there is instead is a series building steady momentum. Corporate Queens began with Paying Her Price, now at 4.42 across more than 760 Goodreads ratings, followed by Dressed for the Game at 4.60, and this third book arrived to 4.55 on Goodreads and 4.6 across nearly 600 Amazon ratings in two months. The Lesbian Review gave it a warm review. I found no audiobook for this title.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The pace, first — six-plus readers say they could not put it down. Then the leads: “smart” and “grown-up” come up again and again, with readers delighted that neither woman is a pushover. The banter and humor each draw five or more mentions, with Flavia singled out twice as comic relief. Three readers enjoy the courtroom stretch, three the Australian setting, and three the emotional depth.
What readers argue about and complain about: Very little, and nothing more than once. One reader found the chemistry weak. Another said the book tells rather than shows the relationship. A third, who loved the book, still found the bickering a lot. One reviewer caught Canberra geography errors, and another line calls the writing “autopilot.” None of these recur, and I found no one-star ratings on Goodreads at all. The honest caveat is the sample: with around 380 Goodreads ratings, the minority report may simply not have arrived yet.
The standalone question worth asking first: It is book three of Corporate Queens, but no reviewer says you need the earlier books, and readers report a happy ending with no cliffhanger. If you want more Brown, Paying Her Price is her most-read book at 4.42 across more than 760 Goodreads ratings, and Dressed for the Game is her highest-rated at 4.60. We haven’t reviewed either yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you need to read the other Corporate Queens books first?
No reviewer says so. It is book three in the series, but the romance is self-contained and readers report a happy ending.
How spicy is Escorting the Senator?
A 3/5. The Lesbian Review files it as medium heat, and readers describe the love scenes as passionate rather than a main feature.
Is Maxine really an escort?
No. She is a corporate lawyer taking the job as a one-off favor for her sister’s agency, and her real profession becomes a major part of the story.
Is it an age gap romance?
Possibly, but it isn’t marketed as one. The Lesbian Review files one lead as over forty and the other as 25 to 39, and neither age is stated in the book’s description.
Is there an audiobook?
Not that I could find as of September 2026.
If You Loved Escorting the Senator, Read These Next
No reader I found names a comparable title, so these are my picks. For another fake relationship between two women with public images to manage, Something to Talk About moves the arrangement to Hollywood. For politics with real consequences, Those Who Wait is the closest thing on this site. And if the ice queen is the draw, Hotel Queens gives you Lee Winter’s version of two powerful women on a business trip — one reader of Brown’s earlier work compares her with Winter.
For more in this register, browse our guide to books like The Senator’s Wife, our enemies-to-lovers reading list, or the full Book Reviews collection.
The Bottom Line
Escorting the Senator takes a fake-relationship setup and gives it real stakes. Emery is a satisfying ice queen, Maxine is her equal in every scene, and the political setting earns its place rather than decorating it. It is also medium on heat, light on outside scrutiny, and backed by a readership still small enough that its near-perfect ratings deserve a little patience. Whether that matters depends on how much you trust early numbers — but if two sharp women sparring their way into love is your thing, this is one of the easiest recommendations of the year. Check Escorting the Senator on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Escorting the Senator ranks as a standout indie ice-queen romance — smart, funny and evenly matched, held back only by a young readership and moderate heat, and best approached for the sparring and the politics rather than for spice.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 4.3/5
- ✓ 4.55 average across 383 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ 4.6 across 590 Amazon ratings
- ✓ No complaint repeated in the reviews
- ✓ Young, small sample so far
Romance ★★★★☆ 4.3/5
- ✓ Courtship conducted through argument
- ✓ Fake relationship carries real risk
- ✓ Thaw rated a highlight by The Lesbian Review
- ✓ One reader found the chemistry weak
Characters ★★★★☆ 4.4/5
- ✓ Two genuinely equal leads
- ✓ Maxine’s hidden life adds depth
- ✓ Flavia praised as comic relief
- ✓ Bickering wears on one reader
Writing ★★★★☆ 4.1/5
- ✓ Politics detailed without dragging
- ✓ Six readers could not put it down
- ✓ Humor lands consistently
- ✓ Canberra slips caught by one reader
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 4.1/5
- ✓ Emery’s isolation felt
- ✓ Deception gives the reveal weight
- ✓ Second act raises the stakes
- ✓ Tell-not-show for one reader
Heat Level ★★★☆☆ 3/5
- ✓ Medium heat per The Lesbian Review
- ✓ Passion builds slowly
- ✓ Payoff rather than running feature
- ✓ No romance.io band reachable
Ending ★★★★☆ 4.2/5
- ✓ Happy ending reported by readers
- ✓ No cliffhanger in book three
- ✓ Second act resolves the deception
- ✓ Mid-book turn changes the shape
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ Banter rewards a second pass
- ✓ Series offers two more books
- ✓ Summit setting easy to revisit
- ✓ No audiobook yet
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