Book Review: Marry Your Billionaire

Today's review is Marry Your Billionaire by CJ Anaya. It's a fun, behind-the-scenes look at a Bachelor-type reality show, starring billionaire Brody Prescott and director's daughter Midge Knightly.

When we are first introduced to Midge, (I really didn't like that name! LOL Her real name Madalyn was so much nicer) she is sitting at a restaurant trying to figure out her life. She's been estranged from her father for six years and cut off from her family money. Now, with only one semester left to go to earn her degree, she finds out her scholarship has no funding. While thinking about all this, she comes across a smug billionaire and his assistant and she gives him some snark which makes him interested in knowing more about her since no one snarks at him like that.  But she's had enough of him and heads to her appointment with her father. Of course her father offers her a solution---if she'll be a stand-in on his new reality show Marry Your Billionaire for one night, he'll give her trust fund back and she can finish up her degree.  Midge reluctantly agrees.

Unbeknownst to her, the billionaire she met at the restaurant is the one who will be on the show and he has no intention of letting her be a one-night stand-in. Then the reality show hijinks and the long and twisty journey to love begins.

This story offered a fantasy-based reality with the whole Bachelor-type backdrop. The author does a great job with date challenges, one on one dates, and catty little fights complete with all the feelings of the hero and heroine while it's all going on. Midge had a backbone when she was confronted, due to her difficult famous-parents-in-Hollywood upbringing, and I was glad that she didn't shrink from it at all. She did have a lot of trust issues and her stubbornness made you want to smack her at times since Brody had to try so hard and so many times to make her believe he cared about her. But, this is a romance and the journey to love on the Marry Your Billionaire set is never boring! 

Brody Prescott was a good hero, doing his best to find love when he has his own trust issues. He's got everything going for him--looks, money, does charity work and loves his mother, but he can't find a woman who loves him and not his money. He really tries hard to find his happily-ever-after with Midge, but his hero shine dimmed for me a bit when he manhandles her, forces his kisses on her, and even though he knows it doesn't go over well and tells himself to stop, he keeps doing it. About halfway through their love story, though, it really got its spark and kept me turning pages to see how it would turn out. (And we finally got sigh-worthy kisses and feelings!) Several times, the amount of editing mistakes took me out of the story, but the romance was compelling enough and it was a very nice ending. I do wish the villains had received something a bit more, but the happily-ever-after feels were all there. I thought the secondary cast was quirky enough to make me laugh and the main characters were ones you could root for. With it's length, (over 400 pages) it's definitely not an afternoon read, but it's a fun overall read all the same.

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Here's the back copy:

Six years ago, Midge Knightly walked away from her trust fund, her Hollywood producer father, and the expectation that she would join the family business. Avoiding handsome playboys with hidden agendas was just an added bonus. Now one semester shy of graduation, she is shocked to discover her scholarship has lost its funding.

Her estranged father is having problems of his own. A contestant on his latest reality TV series has cancelled two months before shooting.

His solution?

Midge gets her trust fund back if she stands in as a potential marriage candidate for the dating series Marry Your Billionaire. Twenty women competing for one arrogant guy. Not Midge's cup of tea. Agreeing to this proposition sucks her back into the world she happily broke ties from, but no trust fund equals no college degree.

Brody Prescott, CEO and owner of an online dating company, has recently been pegged as a heartless playboy-among other things-by a disgruntled female after a disappointing date.

His solution?

Become the first bachelor on Marry Your Billionaire and hope that one of the contestants holds some potential. So what is he supposed to do when the woman who intrigues him the most wants to be eliminated?

Marry Your Billionaire is a fun, romantic romp set against the backdrop of reality TV. Throw on your PJ's, grab some chocolate and popcorn, and settle in for an entertaining love story.