Dirty Money by Jessica Clare Series: Roughneck Billionaires, #1
Published by Intermix on January 17th 2017
Pages: 146
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Boone Price and his brothers know oil; at least, the dirty, backbreaking side of working an oil rig. But when their scrubby, worthless hunting land turns out to be sitting on top of one of the biggest oil wells in North America, they go from the rig to the boardroom and end up billionaires practically overnight.
Now with enough money to do whatever he wants, Boone is developing a taste for fine things. And the finest thing he's ever seen is Ivy Smithfield, local realtor. Boone's determined to buy her affection and show the world that he's more than just a dirty fool with a bit of money. Ivy's classy and beautiful - she'll make the perfect trophy wife. The fact that she's sexy and funny is just a bonus.
There's one tiny problem - Ivy's as dirt poor as Boone is. Her carefully crafted veneer of luxury? All an act to promote her business. What's Boone going to do when he finds out the woman he's falling for is, well, in his league?
A newly-minted billionaire with a chip on his shoulder because he feels that he hasn’t been treated right sets off to find a classy woman to marry. He decides based almost on a whim, after seeing a woman on a real estate brochure that she is the one for him and somehow manages to fall in instant-love with her, even if she’s carrying off a certain kind of deception of her own.
I couldn’t quite decide if I was more disturbed by the idea (that sounded pretty much like a mail-order bride) or stunned by the audacity of Boone Price’s all-out, single-minded attitude that went straight for what he perceived Ivy to be. But roughneck or not, he grew on me for the realness and his refusal to be who he always was, which isn’t what I could say of Ivy, whose vehement denial of her socioeconomic status in life formed the bulk of the conflict. In fact, the more she pushed him away, the more annoying she became with her own refusal to say a word for fear of losing face.
Both characters played at what they weren’t for a while – this continued on Ivy’s side for most of the book – and I can’t honestly say that this pairing appealed mainly because of Ivy’s stupidity. Yet aside from several plain ridiculous moments, such as Boone torching every place that has snubbed him or Ivy, the concept of having these roughneck billionaires nevertheless a refreshing one (eat your tie, Christian Grey) and I’m cautiously optimistic to see where this series goes.
