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Harlequin novels are a trope-y subgenre, and this book hits a lot of them. While Black Tie Billionaire avoids a lot of the worst pitfalls of archetype, there are too many contrivances. Shay ‘Camille’ Neal, heiress, is doing a favor for her friend and moonlighting in disguise as catering staff at a Chicago fundraiser attended by billionaire Gideon Knight. Gideon is compellingly attracted to her, and when the power goes out, they share a hot hookup. Afterwards, Gideon approaches Shay, not realizing she’s also Camille, to blackmail her into fake-dating him so he can get revenge on her brother Trevor. What happens the fake becomes real?
The highlight of this book is clearly Shay. I loved it when, as Camille, she told Gideon that
“the waitstaff aren’t toys to alleviate your boredom. This is a livelihood for workers who depend on a paycheck and not getting fired for fraternizing with the guests.”
Shay wasn’t a willfully trusting ‘My brother could never!’ heroine, so that’s a good change, and I enjoyed her quest for active, engaging finance work.
Revenge courtships usually bother me because the reveal is a formulaic plot point. Here, Gideon subverts that by telling Shay directly that he’s dating her for revenge and that he hates her brother. I liked the fact that Trevor was complex enough that I didn’t know which way his character would fall by the end of the story. I was, however, unconvinced that Shay could have missed so much of what Trevor was up to while living in the same house. In addition to his business malfeasance, Shay apparently had no idea that Trevor’s fiancée was Gideon’s former girlfriend, which in small, wealthy circles should have been common knowledge.
Speaking of things people missed… Shay’s ‘Camille’ persona has a wig and contact lenses. That’s it. I had trouble suspending disbelief that nobody at the party would recognize Camille as Shay, and also that Gideon wouldn’t recognize Shay as Camille for so long after their hookup. I know that Harlequin does its string-things-together book series (this is Blackout Billionaires #2), but Black Tie Billionaire would have been stronger if the party scene hadn’t happened at all and that word count had been reallocated to other parts of the novel. Also, romance has its share of goofy endearments, but I can’t even read Gideon calling Shay “Moonbeam” with a straight face.
I like Naima Simone. She writes good heroines, hot love scenes, and compelling heroes. This book is unfortunately a shallower, more rushed version of what she does better in other books.
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Grade: B-
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 03/10/19
Publication Date: 09/2019
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
I'm a history geek and educator, and I've lived in five different countries in North America, Asia, and Europe. In addition to the usual subgenres, I'm partial to YA, Sci-fi/Fantasy, and graphic novels. I love to cook.
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The tie-in for the series is the party with the power blackout so the author wouldn’t have been able to remove that part as it’s the ‘what happened in the dark’ aspect that is the linking theme. The first book in the series is also a revenge theme where the couple interacts at the party during the blackout when they don’t know who the other is (until the lights go on). I assume if there is another story it will also contain the party/blackout ‘whoops we had sex and that’s going to complicate things’ scene.
That was my point – that I know the blackout thing is for the series tie in, but that’s how it feels, like a forced sequence and not organically part of the story trajectory. The story would have been better not part of the series, which would have allowed the author to cut that scene.
Moonbeam! Yep, that would’ve pulled me out of the book, too.