The Billionaire's Sexy Rivalby Leslie North
Series: Jameson Brothers #3
Publisher: CreateSpace
Publication Date: November 14, 2017
Genres: Romance
Pages: 122
Source: NetGalley
I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
My rating:
He wants to beat out the competition. But he never imagined the competition would be so tempting...
William Jameson is a born leader. Strong, efficient, and with a special talent for knowing exactly what turns people on—it’s no surprise that he’s the CEO of the billion-dollar Jameson Ad Agency. He’s always had his choice of client—that is until a boutique agency called Wildflower sprouts up like a weed in his perfectly manicured world, stealing the last three jobs out from under him. It’s hard not to be attracted to the free-spirited owner. Her mind and body are exactly what his heart wants...it’s too bad his goal is to crush her as competition.
Poppy Hanniford, CEO of the Wildflower Agency, has always been unique and as colorful as her business’s name. A fan of communal collaboration and out of the box ideas, Poppy and William come together in the perfect storm when a rogue romance publisher decides that two is sometimes better than one: challenging Poppy and William to work together on a trial project. The person who performs best, wins their future business.
Forced by the client into teaming up, William and Poppy are about to find that while their leadership styles don’t mix, romance is one subject they agree on. A smoldering kiss for the cover of a book kicks off an affair that’s hotter than the bestsellers they want to advertise. When it’s made clear that only one of them can walk away with the contract, they’ll need to decide what’s more important: the job or their love.
This book is the third and last in the Jameson Brothers series, though I haven’t read the others, and I think it worked perfectly fine as a stand-alone. The series is based around three brothers who work at the family ad agency, with William, the eldest, as CEO.
In general, I liked Poppy. She’s brave, fearless and excellent at her job. However, I don’t feel like I got a good sense of Poppy herself or what motivates her. What I did get was that Poppy is very supportive of others. She excels at “plussing:” basically, taking a design and adding a certain something to make it better, like using violet eye shadow to add highlights to a printed presentation! William felt more well drawn out, though most of it involved his thoughts about Poppy. William is, basically, a control-freak skeptic who’s constantly trying to figure out everyone’s angle. He’s also 100% focused on his company – at once point he equates his family and the company as one and the same.
“There was no way he was going to let her call the shots. He was going to have his way, and he was going to prove that his methods were the right way to win.”
Now, of course, since this is a romance novel, William’s alpha-ness is eventually modulated by Poppy, and Poppy… well, I’m not quite sure what Poppy gets out of relationship. Poppy says it’s his perspective and experience, but I’m not sure that was reflected in the book, as the only time he helps Poppy out it doesn’t turn out well.
Since the project is for a romance publisher, there’s some particularly funny bantering about various romance novel couples that I loved. It also includes what I thought for certain would be an oxymoron – a romantic powerpoint presentation!
As for other cons, I thought the team building scene was odd and unnecessary. I’m not sure what the purpose was for the plot, and without getting into spoilers, I thought the added “excitement” didn’t fit in well with the rest of the book and really jarred me out of the story.
Overall, this is a fun and sexy novella. I do wish it was longer, as I think that’d taken care of some of my quibbles. I’ll be looking up the first two books in the series for sure!
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