AUTHOR: Chloe Peterson GENRE: Queer Romance PAGES: 406 pages RELEASED: 4 November 2023 SERIES: Billionaire #4 SYNOPSIS: Sizzling attraction wasn’t in the contract... 46-year-old Alex survived foster care and built a construction empire on structure and discipline. So, when a friend asks if a PHD student studying successful foster kids can shadow her for two months, Alex doesn’t hesitate to say yes. PHD students are the organized and quiet type. 29-year-old PHD student Devon has never met a schedule she can stick to. Brilliant, yet chaotic, her ineptitude with all things time related extends to her ability to talk to women. This makes shadowing the attractive but extremely regimented Alex a double-edged sword. Alex’s order and Devon’s free spirit clash, yet their chemistry grows into a firestorm. As they fall in love, can they find a way to fit together? Opposites attract when there’s forced proximity…
With three months to finish her PhD thesis on the successes of foster kids, Devon - is running out of time to find the IRL case study she needs to round-out her research. When her professor suggests she shadow one of her old college friends, Devon jumps at the opportunity. Successful engineer Alex Bell has spent her adult like scheduling and structuring her days to make the most of her time and to ensure she always has something to focus on. The last thing she needs is to have someone shadow her work, but when she learns about the topic of Devon’s thesis, she can’t say no. Instead, her friends force her to take things a step further - allow Devon to live with her for two months so she can study her more easily without eating too much into Alex’s tight schedule. Devon has never been able to stick to a schedule so living with Alex is a massive adjustment, while for Alex, having someone constantly in her personal space is new. But it turns out, Alex likes letting Devon into her space and life, and even her heart. But there’s still guilt and trauma from her time in foster care that she needs to deal with, and Devon doesn’t know if she can put her heart on the line for someone who still has to face their issues on their own. Give me ALL the forced proximity! There’s just something about two people being stuck in each other’s orbits and space that delivers ALL the sexual attraction and tension and cute moments. And Alex and Devon had all these moments in spades! I know I said Reid and Mia were my fave couple from this series, but I think Alex and Devon have just taken the lead (inevitably until Taylor gets her book and probably takes top spot)! Devon and Alex’s relationship was a bit of a slow burn, with neither really revealing any sort of attraction to one another until halfway through the book, and even up until that point they had only casually commented on the attractiveness of the other to friends. But it all felt like such a natural relationship development, especially considering the forced nature of them living together and Devon shadowing Alex. They had so much chemistry, and their relationship was filled with so many sweet moments, a nice sprinkling of spice, and SO much heart. It was really interesting for Chloe to explore the foster care system and the impacts that growing up in and out of the system can have on people. And while it initially seemed that Alex had been able to age out of the system, work hard and make a success of herself, it quickly becomes clear that she still has a lot of guilt and trauma that she’s yet to really tackle, instead using her need to control and schedule her time to the minute in order to avoid facing those issues. Devon provided such a nice balance for Alex and how she began to finally face the issues that she had chosen to ignore. Chloe is definitely going from strength to strength with this series, and the pacing and flow of the story has improved so much with each book in this series. Gone are the days of clunky storytelling from the first book. And I think it’s all to do with the fact that the book is 400 pages long - twice the length of the first book, and 100 pages more than the previous two books. The length helped tremendously because Chloe had the ability to really grow these characters and take us through their story without rushing from moment to moment with no build up. Again, for an age-gap romance, the age-gap really plays not issue for their relationship, and it’s actually easy to forget that there even is an age gap between these characters. With only one book left in the series, it’s probably too late for Chloe to actually make the age difference between the characters an issue, but it would be nice to end the series with the more stereotypical age-gap angst. For all my forced proximity and age-gap girlies who need more sapphic books in their life, this is one to add to the TBR! |
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