Book Reviews

Book Blurb

One New Year’s masquerade. One anonymous hookup. One billionaire-sized mistake.

Once upon a time, someone looked at my scrawny, impetuous eight-year-old self and nicknamed me Mr. Important… and I believed them.

That was my first mistake.

Two decades, a dozen failed careers, and a thousand meaningless hookups later, I’ve made more mistakes than I can count. My parents have decided I’m purely decorative, my brother thinks I need pep talks, and the gorgeous billionaire who hired me as a favor to my dad? He’s forgotten I exist.

So I’m done with mistakes.

Call it my New Year’s resolution. From now on, I’m going after what I want… starting with the mysterious silver fox in the Roman warrior mask who approached me at the charity gala and offered me a scorching, anonymous one-night stand.

Unfortunately, when our masks come off I realize mistakes are not done with me.

Because the bossy guy who blew my mind? He’d thought I was someone else. Worse than that, he’s my father’s friend. A supposedly-straight workaholic. The person I’m stuck on a road trip with for the next two weeks. And, oh yeah, my actual boss.

The farther we get from New York, the closer we become, and the harder it is to pretend I’m not falling for him. But I can’t see how someone as brilliant, controlled, and successful as Thatcher Pennington would risk everything to be with someone like me… even if he makes me feel like I’m finally Mr. Important.

 

Book Review

“I’d learned over the years that life could be full of disappointment. The trick was to keep trying… and take your moments of happiness where you could find them.” ~ Reagan

 

What do you get when you mix a young man who’s made some questionable choices in his search for himself, and an older man who’s grumpy, doesn’t do interpersonal relationships of any kind, is a control freak, and might know too many of the same people? I’d say firecrackers, but that might be a cliché here. IYKYK. So instead, I’ll say… volcanic and leave it at that.

 

Reagan Wellbridge, youngest son of Maine State Senator, Trent Wellbridge, and his wife Patricia, plus brother to JT who was featured in book one of the series, is twenty-eight, a social media innovator—I mean, what else do you call 1.4 million Instagram followers—and he’s miserable. His parents aren’t bad people. He grew up wealthy, a little spoiled, and taught early that children are to be seen and not heard, and how to smile for the camera. According to his parents he’s a train wreck, has no ambition, couldn’t survive without their money, and is only good for attracting the younger population to his father’s campaign. Since dear old dad is running for Maine governor, the family expectations are high. However, when Reagan asked to run his dad’s social media political account, he was laughed at and told no way. So, he took a job in New York at a division of Pennington Industries, PennCo, the fiber arts arm of the global company owned and run by Thatcher Pennington, friend of his father and father to a former friend of Reagan’s.

 

Thatcher Pennington is forty-six, twice divorced, father to a very entitled twenty-eight-year-old son, grumpy, bisexual—who isn’t in the closet, but doesn’t believe it’s anyone’s business—and possibly a little too trusting of some people who’ve worked for him for a long time. New Year’s Eve finds him at a masquerade gala to hook up with a guy who he only knows is wearing a certain colored feathered mask. Imagine his (and the young man’s) surprise when in the heat of the moment both masks are tossed to the side only to reveal that the young man is none other than Reagan, his friend’s son, his employee, and the man Thatcher has been lusting after ever since last summer in Honeybridge.

 

I think the basic plot can be surmised from the blurb and what I’ve said above. There’s a secondary plot involving Layla, who would like to be Mrs. Pennington the third, who is the boss over PennCo, has a tendency to steal employee ideas and throw people under the bus. This plot, seen before many times, is done very, very well, in my opinion. It involves Thatcher and Reagan being trapped on a cross-country bus tour for textile marketing (yeah, who knew?) where Thatcher gets an eye-opening look at this young man whose parents think he’s a waste of space. Reagan’s ability, born from practically living on the campaign trail with his father, of glad-handing keeps Thatcher from the oh-so-hated milieu of small talk. I enjoyed every moment of this trip until the she-beast appeared. However, I’m not going into detail here because it needs to be read and enjoyed.

 

There are a couple of great secondary characters one of which, McGee, has some outstanding verbal sparring with Reagan that kept me laughing and giggling throughout. At the end of the book, the authors give you the option of signing up for their newsletters to get a bonus scene which turns out to be about McGee and his love interest, and it’s well worth it.

 

“I wanted their respect so badly, but how could they possibly respect me when I didn’t respect myself enough to stand up and say, 'This is who I am, this is how I’m choosing to spend my life, this is the line in the sand I will not allow you to cross, and no, I will not be taking comments or questions at this time?'"~ Reagan

 

I truly loved this book. Reagan is nothing like how he came across in ‘Firecracker’ which I was so happy to see. I love an age-gap romance and this one is done extremely well. The dialogue is witty, the pace moves right along, there are enough glimpses of characters from book one to make me happy, the sex is extremely hot, Reagan is snarky, smart, kind, and sweet, Thatcher is the epitome of silver fox while also being generous and loving to those few people he truly cares for. I’m very much looking forward to the next book in the series, but I see a re-read of this one coming soon.

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book was purchased by the reviewer.

 

Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Novel, 397 pages
Heat Level
Publication Date	14-March-2024
Price	$5.99 ebook, $13.99 paperback
Buy Link	https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Important-Honeybridge-Lucy-Lennox-ebook/dp/B0CSMZRHTD