Series: Pierce Brothers, #3
Traits & Tropes: workplace romance; billionaire hero
Publication Date: 06.20.22
Genre/Setting: Contemporary; Sydney, Australia
Heat Level: 1
Rating: 2.5/5
Victoria Verity has set herself a strict deadline. If she doesn’t get a major promotion at work by her thirtieth birthday, in just a month’s time, she’s leaving her journalism job for something else. She believes the key to writing the best possible article for her situation is to interview the elusive, media-eluding Seth Pierce, one of Australia’s hottest tech billionaires. She just has to find a way to convince him to compromise his notorious penchant for privacy.
Seth Pierce just wants to be treated like a regular guy, not fawned over for his money. Still, he’s willing to acknowledge that he’s become a brand in his own right, beyond that of his company, and is willing to entertain the idea of hiring a media advisor. When he gets the perfect candidate in his office, even if she is there for terrible reasons, Seth knows he must convince her to take on the role.
Victoria is determined to have her story, but she won’t mix work with personal relationships. Unfortunately, she’s about to see that Seth is equally determined to get what, or in this case who, he wants.
I really enjoyed the first book in the series and found the second one cute. I’ve loved the concept of the four Pierce brothers and become invested in their stories. They’ve been great for light, refreshing reads for me. Unfortunately, this book didn’t really work for me and it’s definitely my least favorite of the series so far. Seth was adorable and clueless at times, but that was all part of his charm. I liked how down to earth he was and wasn’t that crazy about how Victoria came across as trying to change him sometimes. He was in a bad position much of the time, with a lot of the information he needed to impart to Victoria not being his to tell. There’s also a chance I was a little bit set against Victoria from the beginning when her entire relationship with Seth began with her lying to him and then being less than forthcoming about even basic information such as her name. Her previous relationship didn’t have a dramatic or particularly heartbreaking end, more just a growing apart of people who weren’t particularly compatible, so I was never quite sure why she was so hesitant about dating. Along those lines, it bothered me that Victoria was supposed to be this strong, independent woman and yet she let her best friend set up these dates that she didn’t even want to go on, and she just went along with it.
My main gripe here is that Victoria was so surprisingly immature. I definitely understood her attempts to keep things professional with Seth given that they did need to have a business relationship for much of the book, but she also seemed overly eager to play the martyr. She was annoyingly fatalistic, and it made her friend, Amy, who will be the heroine of the next book, come off as pushy and lacking in boundaries. Victoria and Seth did have stellar chemistry, but that was threatened somewhat by the painfully slow burn. I also felt like him choosing guys for her to date was a weird turn for the story and only served to make her seem even more immature, allowing others to make decisions for her, doing things she actively professes to not want to do. She keeps pushing Seth away even though she likes him and there’s no real reason they can’t be together. She tells him she doesn’t want him to touch her and that she’s not interested in a relationship with him, so he backs off and respects that. Seth is trying to be a gentleman and not push her too hard after being turned down and, rather than recognize this or actually listen to him, Victoria starts obsessing over whether or not he’s interested in her. She goes on about how suspicious she is that Seth is plotting something when he sets her up with a perfect guy, but I have no idea where this was coming from because Seth was totally up front about his reasoning. Seth tells Victoria exactly how he feels about her, and she still doubts him and thinks he is only viewing her in a working capacity. Seth’s dealing with heartache and Victoria has the gall to still go out with another guy even after telling Seth she didn’t even want to date anyone.
I just felt that Seth deserved better. He was such a good guy and Victoria spent a lot of time messing with his head. Because things were so discombobulated between them, I didn’t feel like we really got to see them fall in love. Instead, they sort of had epiphanies as to the true feelings they’d been harboring all along, which I am completely here for, I just would rather have seen them together more without so much miscommunication at play between them. I really wanted mature, adult communication and instead we got Victoria jumping to conclusions and running away without letting Seth explain anything. Her immediate judgments just made it seem like she didn’t know Seth at all. This relationship was definitely riding on Seth because she was playing games while he was being open. He literally told her exactly how he felt and what he wanted several times and she still just keeps going on about how she can’t fathom what he’d want with her outside of business. I generally am a sucker for it when the hero falls hard and first, but this time, with this heroine, it just fell flat.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4796236943
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/3686983478
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