Terms and Conditions (Dreamland Billionaires, #2) by Lauren Asher Review

This is a spoiler-free review! You can read my review of The Fine Print on my blog, here.

I was apprehensive going into this second installment - The Fine Print was not my favorite read, but when I realized that Terms and Conditions was an actual marriage of convenience book, it spiked my interest. And with a marriage contract that accidentally gets printed on print paper because Mr. Billionaire heir does not know how to reload the printer? I could not have been happier.

Declan Kane is up to inherit billions and the CEO position of Dreamland, on one condition - marry and have a child. When his bride-to-be ditches him at the last minute, his younger assistant takes her place, and his sanity along with it. He sees the wife and child as collateral damage in the path to becoming CEO, and for some reason is set on low-key being an absentee father? I understand he is doing this in order to secure his inheritance, but man, it is a literal child, not a toy you put away after getting tired of playing with it after a few years.

Iris unironically needs to be an actress - she is so hilarious and is always fooling everyone around her, especially Declan. She makes up rumors at work so people get things done faster, and Declan is so shocked that she is able to do it without anyone catching on. The way she is able to get people to do what she wants without them realizing it made me really enjoy her character, and the friendship she has with Cal was so refreshing to see. It was an added plus that Declan was obviously jealous of the relationship she has with Cal, because he wanted her to be that open with him from the start.

The way that Iris and Declan clearly are interested in each other before anything even truly starts with their contract had me dying - the perspective changes gave a great view of what they each thought of each other. Declan's inner thoughts are high-key hilarious - at one point, he sees Iris apologizing to her plants because she had to move them, and immediately thinks she is insane. I knew he would be obsessed with her immediately after that. Their banter is pretty funny when they are actually agreeing with each other, and Iris jokingly saying "Are you sure you're a virgin?" to Declan had me audibly snorting, she is so unserious when her guard is down.

Declan is 36-years-old and needs to learn to act like an adult - there were a number of times that he consistently puts his needs and wants above everyone else's, and then acts shocked that Iris is upset with him. And Iris... she is 23-years-old... she should be at the club!! Not working twelve hour days and sacrificing her relationships to please Declan. 

I was a little off-put by the way Declan did not seem to help Iris with nearly anything in this book - she was always the one making plans, setting up dinners, fixing proposals, and so many other things. I did not love the way he was putting work above her, especially during important moments - it made him really feel like a villain, when he was the one who needed her, not the other way around. His groveling texts to Iris made him feel like a major boomer who does not know how to act like an adult and hold himself accountable for the way he acted and the things that he said to her in anger.

There is not a ton of spice in this book, and it really does not even start to pop up until over two-thirds of the way into the story. It is definitely tame, but I do wish it showed up a little more in this story - more often than not, it would be in dreams that Declan or Iris had of each other. 

I enjoyed this much more compared to The Fine Print - Declan was much more interesting than Rowan, and sure, he may have made some not so great choices throughout this book, but I still have him ranked above Rowan. Rowan and Zara's scattered appearances in this book only had me interested in Iris and Zara's potential friendship - considering Iris does not really have anyone outside of her mother, Nana, and Cal, I really wanted her to gain some female friends. Declan's father plays such a large role as an antagonist in Declan's life, and we see it overtake the plot when I wish it could have focused more on Iris and Declan's relationship.

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The Fine Print (Dreamland Billionaires, #1) by Lauren Asher Review

This is a spoiler-free review!

Well.... I do not even know what to say. For one, I honestly do not even know how I missed the fact that they work in an amusement park that is basically Disneyland, and I immediately got the ick. Listen, I knew there was a castle on the cover, but I thought it was more in the sense of a billionaire's castle mansion, not a Cinderella castle situation. It was giving major Disney adult vibes and I felt as though I was being held captive, I needed to be free of this torment. There are so many pop culture and popular restaurant references, it was incredibly distracting and read like a 13-year-old on Wattpad instead of a published work.

Zahra is pretty funny every now and again, and she was eating Rowan up at every chance she got, which I have to respect. Rowan on the other hand, is the definition of a handsome loner with no social skills that do not directly benefit him. He needed to be knocked down a few pegs, and Zahra was happy to take on that task. I kind of really could not stand him throughout the entire book, which is not a good look when this is supposed to be the heartthrob male lead that had half the internet drooling over him.

I really thought this was going to take a turn into a contract marriage trope, and since it is a fan favorite in my book, I was excited for the plot to move forward and bring in some substance, but unfortunately I was left underwhelmed and disappointed when this never came up. There was even a perfect opportunity for it, given the terms of being the director of Dreamland for Rowan, and yet it was fumbled. Rowan constantly compares himself to Mr. Darcy, which is absolute insanity given that Rowan has the charisma of a dried out leaf on the ground.

These employees do literally nothing all day long. Every chapter where they are at the office or working on a presentation, it is essentially bare minimum effort and constant mentions of late nights with no work to show for it. Someone truly needs to unionize this amusement park because their working conditions are insane and surely not up to code, not to mention the horrendous pay and abismal healthcare the employees receive. Rowan seems completely fine with this information and it just takes one employee - Zahra - to shed light on the situation and make Rowan realize that maybe he should treat his employees like human beings. He was giving off major capitalist pig vibes, because why in the world was he bragging about having the idea to lay off ten thousand employees when the park was losing money??

I was not invested in Zahra and Rowan's relationship at all - I thought that maybe once we hit the halfway mark in the story, that something would evolve and their relationship would actually form into something with substance, but it fell flat and left me wishing I did not commit this much time to their story. The smut was not smutting at all... everyone was raving over this book for years, and it was giving Wattpad-level descriptions. They trauma dumped on each other and then immediately jumped each other's bones, and it was the weirdest transition I have ever read, and honestly started the domino effect that made me not like either of them by the end of the book.

All I can say is thank god that this series is compiled of interconnected stand alones and does not continue following Rowan and Zahra, because if I had to read another two books about this pairing, I would start to believe that love does not exist. Rowan did not apologize nearly enough for the things that he did and the lies that he told, and I truly cannot believe this is the man everyone has been thirsting after for the past two years. I felt as though I was being punk'd the entire book, and I am just grateful I borrowed this from the library and did not spend my actual money on nearly five hundred pages of a lack-luster romance.

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Coming Home (Boston Billionaires, #1) by Samantha Sky Review

This is a spoiler-free review!

I am a sucker for interconnected standalone books, so when I saw the first two books in the Boston Billionaire series available for free on iBooks, I knew I had to download them. It has been awhile since I have dived into an interconnected standalone, but the premise of this first installment had me intrigued -- what is so mysterious about Scarlett's past? Why is Shaun so drawn to her?

Shaun and Scarlett's age gap is slightly larger than Christian and Ana's from Fifty Shades of Grey, but nonetheless is okay with me since Scarlett is twenty-three years old. Scarlett is put off by their age difference at first, but lasts about two chapters before throwing that train of thought out the window and throwing herself into his arms. Shaun is immediately infatuated with Scarlett when he notices her on a flight to Boston, and as fate has it, they continue to run into each other and Shaun becomes even more desperate to learn more about her.

The chapters move pretty quickly and with dual perspectives, the plot moves just as fast. Scarlett's chapters seems to focus mostly on her trying to overcome her traumatic past as she finds herself in a new country, and Shaun's chapters are full of him batting off women as he basically stalks Scarlett every chance that he gets.

I enjoyed the romantic thriller aspect to this book -- it reminded me a lot of the plot of Fifty Shades Darker in the sense that there was more to the story than Shaun and Scarlett's relationship and occasional spicy chapter. It definitely picks up plot-wise about two thirds of the way through the book, and I found that the story was more cohesive once the plot became more thrilling. As interesting as Scarlett and Shaun's relationship was becoming, I was starting to get a little bored after reaching the halfway mark.

The side characters made Shaun's character a touch more interesting, but after finishing the book, I still feel as though we did not get to learn about him or his past. He mentioned a few details to Scarlett here and there, but his character could have used some more development. Shaun's character felt a little one-dimensional, not to mention the fact that he basically was stalking Scarlett until he could actually have a conversation with her. I am all for a dark romance stalking plot line, but this was not the book or the genre for it. 

On the other hand, Scarlett had a decent amount of character development and was more intriguing to read about compared to her leading man. However, her thought process continues to slightly irritate me as the story moved on -- she did not sound like a twenty-three year old, but rather still sounded like a high schooler at many points during the book. Shaun is no better, as a man in his mid-thirties, he still thinks like a frat boy when it comes to women, and of course the second he sees Scarlett, he matures ten years.

This book definitely had potential to be really intriguing, and if Shaun had been more mysterious, I think it could have been a very exciting read. Coming Home falls short to make me fall in love with its leading characters, which is unfortunate because the book has a lot of promise, it could just use some touching up. The spicier scenes were short and felt as though they were thrown in there to make the story more romantic, but it just felt like a more PG-13 rated Hallmark movie. 

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