TEST
The first book in Hudson Lin’s new Jade Harbour Capital series, Hard Sell, takes us into the world of Canadian venture capital. Danny Ip grew up poor but supported by the wealthy Lok family, whose older son Wei he sees as a brother and whose younger one, Tobin, is… emphatically not a brother. As adults, Danny and Tobin’s paths cross at work; Tobin has been hired to work as an outside accounting consultant for a firm Danny is attempting to purchase. But it’s family that’s the real obstacle, as Danny struggles with the fear of losing his friend and his surrogate family if he, as Danny puts it, is “fucking their little prince”. As Danny (now ultra-wealthy) flies back and forth across Canada to sneak around with Tobin and try to rescue the acquisition, Tobin tries to convince Danny that he is grown up enough now to make his own choices, including choosing Danny – if only Danny would take long enough of a break from work to be chosen. If you like stories with one very unlikeable hero, an age gap fixation, and a vague incest vibe, this is your book. For the rest of us, it’s a hard sell indeed.
Danny is an unlikeable individual. He’s a workaholic, and a disrespectful one, constantly checking in with work while on dates and even double-dipping meetings on what Tobin thinks is a weekend getaway for the two of them. The work, by the way, is private equity – more vividly known as vulture capitalism. As one of Tobin’s friends tells him,
“They buy companies on the cheap with lots of credit, load them up with even more debt while firing everyone. Then they sell bits and pieces of it to the highest bidder, rake in the cash, and leave everyone else devastated.”
Tobin thinks,
“Okay, yeah… private equity firms have a bad rap with the bleeding-heart liberal crows, but Danny didn’t do any of that, right?”
Well, let’s pop into one of Danny’s meetings, shall we?
Coworker one “Rio Dios met their KPIs this quarter.”
Coworker two: “Only after they fired third of their staff to cut costs.”
Coworker one: “They needed to cut costs anyway.”
Danny has no issues with any of this.
Danny and Tobin have several obstacles lying between them – the nature of Danny’s work, Danny’s workaholism, the fact that Danny is best friends with Tobin’s older brother – and unfortunately the author runs primarily with the least interesting one to provide the romantic conflict – the third. The thing about Danny’s work being immoral just sort of disappears. Similarly, there’s a weird moment mid-story where Danny, driving distracted, hits a cyclist with his car, that is barely returned to (Danny will write him a check. Danny will not stop using his phone at inappropriate times).
An age gap (Tobin is younger than Danny), can work, but the author dwells on it in a way that’s profoundly uncomfortable. I lost track of how many times the author has the characters call Tobin “all grown up”, or Tobin insist that he’s old enough to make his own choices, which has the effect of making me notice the age gap all the more. I did like that Tobin reads authentically as a young man in his twenties, insecure about his ability in business where he has yet to prove himself, excited to attend the Calgary Stampede in a barechested (except for glitter and a vest) yellow cowboy outfit that sounds like he borrowed it from Lil Nas X. But he and Danny felt less opposites attract than badly mismatched.
Oh, and Tobin and Danny grew up essentially as siblings, with Tobin’s older brother (the same age as Danny) being Danny’s best friend. When Danny admits to Tobin’s brother that he loves Tobin, the brother says,
“Toby’s my brother, and you’re pretty much my brother, so the two of you together was… hard to get my mind around. Not in a weird incest kind of way or anything.”
TOO LATE NO TAKEBACKS. And let’s answer this question: a character says,
“I’ve known you since the day you were born, and I’ve had the honor of watching you grow up from the annoying kid brother into the amazing man you are today.”
This character is:
- The older brother giving a best-man speech
- The boyfriend proposing marriage.
The answer is THE BAD OPTION.
This is the second time recently I’ve read a protagonist (here, Tobin) with access to piles of money who is proud of themselves for making it ‘on their own’ by taking scholarships. Honestly, I find that repugnant. Scholarships are for people with financial need, not for people whose ego dictates that they prove their independence from the billionaires waving checks at them. Oh, and the author has a weird fixation with telling us that the leads are peeing – they never discreetly go to the bathroom, they always “empty their bladders” or “relieve their bladders.” Why do I need that detail? (Spoiler: I don’t).
So what’s good here? Both Danny and Tobin are strongly characterised and effectively written; when I tell you Danny is unlikeable, that’s not the same thing as not credible. The Canadian setting is believable, with Danny’s jet-set lifestyle taking him from Toronto to Calgary to Vancouver, living in hotel suites and demanding custom items from room service. The details of life in a cutthroat finance office are authentic, probably because the author writes in her afterword that she had this career.
Hard Sell is perfectly competent, and people who are either fine with less likeable characters or who don’t find the same characteristics unlikeable may enjoy it. But for me, people I don’t like interacting in a way that reads as vaguely creepy isn’t my idea of a good read even if it’s competently executed.
Buy it at: Amazon or your local independent retailer
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Grade: C-
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Hot
Review Date: 28/05/21
Publication Date: 05/2021
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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I just read the sequel to this and weirdly I liked this book more than the second; the sequel gets bogged down in lots of tech talk about a deal that’s being brokered.
“If you like stories with one very unlikeable hero, an age gap fixation, and a vague incest vibe, this is your book.”
Allow me to second Carrie G.’s blech!
Also, as repugnant as this venture capital plot sounds, it’s about time a romance novel didn’t pretend its billionaire heroes are a sunshine and roses lot. There’s a dark, ugly side of corporatism, and it sounds like someone was finally ready to pull back the curtain on it somewhat. Now, does that make for great romance? Not really…
“Oh, and the author has a weird fixation with telling us that the leads are peeing – they never discreetly go to the bathroom, they always “empty their bladders” or “relieve their bladders.” Why do I need that detail?”
While I agree a romance definitely does not need that detail, it kind of falls into tipping more toward real life than romance to the detriment of the story. What I mean is, there’s nothing particularly unusual about two guys getting into a literal pissing contest (if that’s what’s going on here), but I fail to see the need for it in the romance genre.
In short, what a disappointment! This cover almost drew me in. Now, it’s a definite skip.
Yeah, the billionaire fantasy is a pretty difficult one if you look at it closely. Nobody really gets that much money with clean hands.
“Nobody really gets that much money with clean hands.”
For the most part, I think you’re right. There might be some rare flukes like an author who makes a billion from writing a smash hit or someone who invents a breakthrough technology. But I’m beginning to think real-life Regency dukes were more numerous. ;-)
On that subject, why aren’t there more millionaire romances these days? Honestly, imagine a hero with a net worth of $100 million. Is there really anything a hero with $100 billion can do that a hero with $100 million can’t? At some point, it just becomes extra zeroes.
My guess is that a contemporary romance with “millionaire” in the title is comparable to a historical where the hero is a mere “sir”. Nothing wrong with either on their own, but how will they compete with the rest of the market?
“Nothing wrong with either on their own, but how will they compete with the rest of the market?”
And therein lies another unfortunate reality of today’s mainstream romance market…
*nods* At the risk of opening a real can of worms… HR is currently being watered down because nobody wants to touch potentially uncomfortable subjects, things that were acceptable then but aren’t now; but CR billionaires – whose hands are probably just as dirty or bloody – are okay.
Agreed. And the strange thing is, the current climate is far more hostile toward morally ambiguous or just plain wrong historical realities than modern-day issues. Take HR aristocratic characters whose wealth would have largely come from slavery- whether directly or indirectly. Exploring those characters in a complex fashion is becoming verboten fast, even though we’re talking about a past world that was (thankfully!) very different from our own. And yet CR billionaire heroes whose wealth probably comes from underhanded business practices and dubious investments is considered less offensive, when these things are actually going on today in our 21st century? There’s something strange about that to me.
In a way, I get it. It’s fun to pretend we could call a private jet at will to galivant across the globe, or hobnob on a yacht, or whatever. But I would personally be more comfortable if we dialed back to millionaires, as it is possible (albeit extremely difficult!) to reach that level of wealth somewhat honestly- especially if the hero(ine) in question runs a successful business or has become a smash hit celebrity or something. And like I said, is there anything you can do with several billion dollars that you can’t do with several million?
It’s clear that the lens through which contemporary romance is judged is different than that of historical romance.
Exactly. I remember commenting elsewhere that nobody bats an eyelid at heroes covered in tribal tattoos in CR.
“Nobody really gets that much money with clean hands.” That reminds me of one of my favorite lines from Balzac: “Behind every great fortune is a great crime.” (That was used as the epigraph of The Godfather.)
Yes, this.
Blech!
*sigh* I hoped this was going to be so much better…
If Tobin is so young and naive that he thinks Danny “didn’t do that”, that being “They buy companies on the cheap with lots of credit, load them up with even more debt while firing everyone. Then they sell bits and pieces of it to the highest bidder, rake in the cash, and leave everyone else devastated.” then he is too young for Danny. My issue with vulture capitalism isn’t that they buy companies and make them more efficient – if they did that they’d be heroes – it’s that they then charge the newly purchased companies outrageous fees and starve them of money for improvements. It’s no surprise when those companies then fail (see Toys R Us for an example, which couldn’t compete with online vendors because they didn’t have the money to upgrade their website and services; it all went to the hedge fund investors).
Ditto Sears.
Or Google “Taylor Swift & hedge fund manager” to see what’s being done to her—and she’s rich! She’s having a hard time fighting back, so imagine someone without power or fortune trying to fight back! I think this is one of the reasons I like dark/mafia romances—at least the heroes in those books make no bones about how they acquired their fortunes!
This particular case is even more obnoxious than I made it sound (in the interests of not beating the dead horse). But if you want to know:
So by the end of the story, is this matter of the possibly underage girls ever resolved? And whether it is or not, the fact that this guy valued his deal over the safety of those girls… how could a major publisher be okay with this?
“And whether it is or not, the fact that this guy valued his deal over the safety of those girls… how could a major publisher be okay with this?”
Yuck!
This is why I get so disgusted with the state of publishing today. An author will get lambasted for having a white character wearing a qipao or some other nothing issue, and yet serious stuff like this slips through the cracks with no problem. I’m not saying this to start another row, and I’m happy to take this tangent on the Agora if necessary. I’m just saying that if the Twitter mob wants to be vigilant about something, it should be about characters with dismissive attitudes toward potential predators instead of far pettier complaints.
I think they tell the estranged wife, who is part owner of the company, as part of their leverage to get her to agree to sell the company, and she uses it against the husband? Nobody worries about the girls.
This book was so unpleasant in its content, but I really can’t ding it for being unrealistic.
“The answer is THE BAD OPTION” was hilarious.
:)