Bought by the Billionaire is one of those books that…
Well.
It made me remember why I hate blatant cash grabs.
If you’re going to call something “Books One to Six” it should be considerably longer than 116 pages. Just admit that each “book” is a chapter and you’re trying to con your readers out of money by leaving them with cliffhangers and making them buy the sequel. Sadly, this set is better than many of Simone Leigh’s other books…but it’s not even complete, you have to buy individual books for the last two.
Do I sound ranty? I’m ranty.
Ultimately, I could forgive that sin if I actually liked the book.
But I didn’t.
The plot started with coerced sex, went through Christian Grey levels of life control, and ended with a cliffhanger of doom.
And seriously, let’s talk about the characters.
Elizabeth was, quite frankly, too stupid to live. The book starts with her on her first day as a hotel maid and she decides to TAKE A SHOWER in a guest’s room when he’s gone. You just…do not do that. You don’t. Period. I mean, what?
Richard, on the other hand, was an asshole.
Okay, I mean, finding a naked girl in your shower must be confusing.
But that doesn’t mean you coerce that naked girl into sex. While Elizabeth enjoyed it, he didn’t give her the option to say no. And he kept not really giving her that option when he did things like making her quit her job, hiring her for his company (to do what?), and moving her into a fancy new apartment that there’s no way in hell she can afford.
Along with, you know, dominant/submissive sex without real options for her to leave. In true power exchange relationships, the submissive has all the control. In this one? Haha, no.
That isn’t sexy. It’s gross.
Seriously, I feel like I need to give a trigger warning for dubious consent.
And then he hires her for…what? To just wander around his business and do stuff? And of course she finds the dude who’s stealing money on her very first day.
I could see that plot coming a mile away, and even though I stopped after this book and didn’t buy the sequel, I didn’t felt like I needed to. Because it was a) creepy and b) predictable. Why bother.
The sex wasn’t that bad, but the rest of the book was terrible enough that I just cannot recommend it.
One Star
