Book Review: The Billionaire Takes a Bride by Jessica Clare

Even in the most lighthearted series, you can get a story that manages to maintain the fun while still introducing a pretty dark and/or serious theme. This is one of those. Trigger warning for themes of rape.

One-Sentence Synopsis
A marriage of convenience seems like the perfect solution for two people who need an “other” to help them out, but it gets more difficult when they start to have real feelings for each other. For a full synopsis, see this book’s Goodreads page.

Crazy Families & Messed Up Pasts
It’s not often you find a modern day marriage of convenience story, but this one nails it and does it in a way that’s fairly realistic. Well, in the world of a billionaire anyway. Sebastian’s horrible mother is involved in a reality TV series about their family and being that the woman is completely insane, she wants Sebastian to get back with his ex as part of the season’s storyline. Chelsea is a bad ass roller derby girl, but when the skates come off, she has a hard time dealing with crowds, the dark, and men hitting on her due to PTSD from being raped a few years before.

Beneficial Nuptials
When they meet at Gretchen and Hunter’s engagement dinner, Chelsea finds Sebastian to be “safe,” and they decide to be party Safety Buddies. After all, if they pretend to be together, men won’t hit on her and people won’t bother Sebastian about this family’s TV show. But then Sebastian decides to take it a step further, because if he marries Chelsea, then his mother and his ex (in theory) can’t bother him about the show’s storyline of getting back together. And since Chelsea’s roommate moved out and it scares her to be alone in an empty apartment, she jumps on the opportunity.

Taking Care of Business
It’s all fun and games and convenience until someone starts getting lusty after the other one, though. And it doesn’t take long for Sebastian to realize that he’s probably not going to be able to avoid all those feelings he said he wanted to avoid in the first place. Yet he doesn’t push Chelsea into anything, especially when he finds out what happened to her. Instead, they become good friends and he just takes care of “things” on his own.

Split Persona
I loved the whole roller derby thing and the fact that Chelsea is of two personalities. In her roller gear, she’s fierce, tough, and confident. Outside of it, she feels broken and scared, which is understandable. Her sex feels are pretty much non-existent, but when she realizes that Sebastian is turned on by her, she starts to feel that she’s ruining his life by not being a wife who can give him what he wants. Because by that time, they’ve started to like each other and the whole convenience/temporary nature of the marriage seems to have been forgotten.

Roller Girl
Sebastian never pressures Chelsea into anything. Instead, he lets her take control. He also makes it a point to let her know that no matter how much she’d been drinking the night of her rape, it wasn’t her fault. Chelsea slowly comes out of her shell, but it’s not until Sebastian suggests she integrate her roller derby persona into the bedroom that she starts to find her sexuality again.

Working Through Issues
I think thus far, this one is my favorite in the series, not only because it has some of my fave tropes (friends to lovers, marriage of convenience) but because the characters felt real and I loved that Chelsea was able to regain her identity and empower herself, even after a traumatic event. Of course, the big conflict of the story reopens some of those wounds, but Sebastian is great as the supportive husband who just wants Chelsea to feel safe.

The Romance Factor
Besides the above mentioned tropes, I also get a little mushy over the whole damsel in distress thing, and when Sebastian comforts Chelsea after the lights go out in their hotel in New Orleans, I melted. He’s so sweet and caring and careful of her feelings that I couldn’t help but love him. 4/5

The Steam Factor
Because of the nature of Chelsea’s PTSD, there isn’t a super high volume of sex in this story, but what there is manages to sizzle while still maintaining the respect and caution towards Chelsea’s past and the things that made her scared of it in the first place. And honestly, not everything is resolved by the end, but you’re still left with the feeling that things are going to be okay, both in and out of the bedroom. 4/5

Final Thoughts
I mentioned in the last B&B review I did that the stories were going to parallel and sure enough, this one seems to be happening right alongside Edie and Magnus’ story. I believe it parallels Asher and Greer’s story as well, which comes out later this year (and has already been preordered by yours truly). I also enjoyed the random reference to one of the reality shows in Clare’s Games series. The whole story left me with warm fuzzies, and I can’t wait for book 4 to come out.

Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt

Not only do I like to read romance novels, but I like to write them as well. No, I’m not published. Maybe I could be, but I’ve procrastinated the editing and submission process on several novels. The writing part is the fun part for me. I bring this up because National Novel Writing Month is only a little over a month away, and I’m already getting stoked. Not only am I a co-Municipal Liaison for my region, but I have two story ideas waiting to get out. Last year I wrote three novels. Things are busier this year, so I’m aiming for one, but I can’t wait to immerse myself in this story that’s poking around inside my head.

Also, possible spoilers ahead and more Ghost of St. Giles shenanigans.

One-Sentence Synopsis
Though originally married for convenience, a lady decides to seduce her husband in order to have a baby, not realizing that he’s also the very man she’s promised to kill to avenge her first love. For a full synopsis, see this book’s Goodreads page.

The Good Stuff
The second Ghost is revealed, and it’s a character we only met briefly in the first book of the series. Godric St. John is a studious fellow who comes across as older than he is (at least to his wife), but obviously has the constitution to patrol St. Giles at night. Like Winter, Godric is fun, trading his daytime persona for a braver one as the Ghost.

Megs wants her revenge for the man she was supposed to marry, and so the Ghost sets out to find the murderer before she does and puts herself in danger. He’s also continuing his search for children being kidnapped and made to labor making stockings, a carry over from the previous, even though two years have passed between the two stories.

By the time Megs realizes Godric is the Ghost, their relationship has already started to evolve and blossom, which makes for a very different dynamic than was expected, considering all she could think about was killing the Ghost, who she blames for the murder of her first love.

Things That Made Me Go Hmmm
I realize it was part of the conflict, but it didn’t take me long to get annoyed with Megs and her constant “must think of Roger” attitude when Godric was all up in her business. I was sick of hearing about Roger.

There is a major continuation from the previous one, and though I would say most of these can be read as stand-alones, I feel something might be lost by not having read Thief of Shadows.

The Romance Factor
The romance in this one felt like a slower burn, and Megs constant thoughts about Roger kind of made it stutter a bit. But the moments that pulled at the feels were highly effective. 4/5

The Steam Factor
Once again, Roger was a problem when it came to the sexy times, at least at the beginning. But once Megs got over thinking of him, things got hot. I’ve probably said it before, but deserves repeating: Hoyt writes some killer sex scenes. 5/5

Final Thoughts
One more to go in the Ghost arc, and considering it’s a character I didn’t like in the past, it should be interesting to see what type of Ghost he makes.