This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.
My Review:Title: Most Eligible Billionaire
Author: Annika Martin
Series: Billionaires of Manhattan #1
Published by: Indie
Release Date: August 26, 2019
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Jason Clarke, Neva Nevarre
Length: 8 hours and 32 minutes
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Romantic Comedy
Potential Triggers: View Spoiler »
Source: Chirp
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2022 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2022 COYER Winter
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ IndieBound ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM
My rating:
Blurb:He’s a powerful billionaire CEO who built the family business into an empire. The money doesn’t matter to him, but the company is his life. And then his eccentric mother wills it all to her tiny dog.
I’m Vicky, the dog whisperer. (Not really, but that’s what my elderly neighbor always says.) When she dies, she surprises everybody by leaving a corporation worth billions to her dog, Smuckers. With me as his spokesperson.
Suddenly I go from running my Etsy store to sitting in an elegant Wall Street boardroom with Smuckers in my lap. And my neighbor’s son, Henry Locke, aka New York’s most eligible bachelor, glaring across the table at me.
Rumor has it Henry’s a business genius who’s as talented in the bedroom as he is in the boardroom. Sure, he’s gorgeous. Sex-in-a-seven-thousand dollar suit. But…
He’s arrogant and infuriating. He refuses to listen to me when I insist I didn’t con his mother. He thinks he can bully me, buy me off, control me, even seduce me.
Henry may have the women of Manhattan eating out of the palm of his hand, but I'm so over entitled rich guys who think they own the world.
No way will his wicked smile be charming ME out of my panties.
His wicked...devastating...impossible-to-resist smile.
Oh well, who needs panties anyway?
****************A sexy enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy standalone!
*Formerly entitled Most Eligible Bastard*
3.5 stars — This book started out pretty solidly, and I was actually laughing at bits here and there. Then I hit a snag, and I mostly set that snag aside, but I don’t know…I guess in the end it was harder to suspend my disbelief by the end.
I’ll start with the narrators. I’ve enjoyed Mr. Clarke before, and I enjoyed him just as well in this one. Solid pacing, emotions, great sexy times. This was my first listen to Ms. Nevarre, and initially I was enjoying her quite a bit. She did the sassy, irreverent, and at times deadpan voices of Vicky quite well. And then we got to the steamy scenes…and, well, it didn’t work for me personally. It took me out of the scenes a little bit. It wasn’t anything over the top and terrible, it was just that it still felt kind of deadpan-ish, and I was wanting more sexy. Especially since Henry liked dirty talking. I won’t write her off, but I might be more reticent to try her on another steamy book (though it depends on the steamy scenes).
I enjoyed Vicky’s sass, and how she navigated the world. I wasn’t expecting all of what was in her past to make her “nationally hated” — and it was given to the reader in pieces, but I didn’t mind that too much. I will admit I had to suspend my disbelief quite a bit over that whole situation, as well as the situation with her sister…and mostly I accomplished that, but I think with the way the end played out, I just kind of lost steam with it all. The situation with Smuckers could be pretty funny, and I enjoyed the way she tried to fight back against Henry initially. I’m not huge into enemies to lovers, but the initial bits were pretty fun.
Henry was harder for me to pin down. I appreciated the complicated relationship he had with his mother, and the bind he was in with the company. In general I appreciated how seriously he took his position, and how he always tried to do right by the thousands of people working for him. BUT. But. *sigh* So, before things turn from enemies, when they’re trying to figure out a way to expose Vicky as a scammer, there’s a moment where he and his cousin are talking and they decide Henry should seduce her. And, I’m not shitting you, *HENRY*, our hero whom we are supposed to love, says something to the effect of “she can’t mess things up if she has a cock in her mouth.” And that, my friends, is so not cool, I can’t even. If it was a villain saying it, totally get it. If it was an asshole friend and he just laughed along, well…still not great but fine. But HE said it. And, while he didn’t really say anything else the rest of the book that was in a similar toxic manner, I just couldn’t get it out of my head and it tainted him for me. It even made his manner in the steamy scenes with Vicky feel off to me…though that might also have been the narration as I mentioned. What makes me sad is that the author thought that was an okay thing for a *good* guy to think. *sad panda*
I enjoyed the times when Vicky and Henry were getting to know one another, and Vicky would tease him, or he would share his passions with her. The steamy scenes were…not what I was expecting. Steamier than I was expecting. Or rather…dirtier steamy? I don’t know. Not bad, I just personally wasn’t feeling it.
The dog was pretty adorable, her sister was pretty fun. I loved the makers space stuff. I don’t think Brett and Caleb were even remotely redeemed.
So yeah. Had the potential to be better, just jumped the shark in enough places to have me rounding down.
Oh, boy. I can understand why that sentence bugged you.