Title: The Man who Has No Soul
Author:  Victoria Quinn
Publisher/Year:  Victoria Quinn 5/26/20
Length:  195 Pages
Series: Soulless #1

Overview

As the Director of Concierge of the Liberty Building in Tribeca, it’s my job to take care of the rich and famous, the billionaire suits, their trophy wives, all the VIPs.

It’s like running a hotel—but for billionaires.

When a penthouse opens up, it’s like the floor of the Stock Exchange. The highest bidder wins.

And this time, the winner is Deacon Hamilton.

He’s young and gorgeous…but a tool. He hardly says two words to me, won’t even look at me when he speaks and treats me like an imbecile.

But the longer I pick up his dry cleaning, deliver his groceries, take care of all the details of his life, the more I realize he’s not what he seems.

He’s just brilliant.

Extremely brilliant.

And now he’s my #1 Client.

A Nobel prize-winning doctor and researcher, Deacon Hamilton is one of the most gifted men on the planet.

But he doesn’t know how to talk to people, doesn’t know how to communicate, doesn’t know how to connect with anyone.

Except me.

My Thoughts

You get a sense of what this story is going to be fairly well from the summary above, but what we really get is a heart warming story of connection, struggle and a desire to be happy. Just like we read above, Cleo is our leading lady – a concierge of sorts at a luxury high-rise. Her job doesn’t honestly make much sense to me because she’s essentially being a personal assistant for everyone who lives in the building, yet that’s not possible for one person to do, AND….all those wealthy people theoretically would already have PAs. just my logical brain working here. Setting that all aside though, we know that she has her work cut out for her doing just about everything that a ‘client’ wants her to do, and we know that the wealthy always want a lot.

when Deacon enters her world, we see her patience tried, her composure stay rock solid and her desire to make someone else happy and comfortable come to the forefront.

Enter Deacon, a beyond intelligent doctor who’s trying to find ways to cure some of the world’s toughest diseases. He’s always been labeled a genius and as we often see, people with such high intelligence don’t always have the social graces that society expects. And that is his biggest challenge. These two get off on the wrong foot. because Deacon doesn’t communicate in the way that Cleo expects, yet she’s quick to understand the root of it all and make their relationship into one that works. She begins to anticipate his needs and find ways to make his life easier.

We learn that Deacon has moved to NY because of research that his company is doing east, and that in doing so, he’s left behind his 5-year old son who is now living with his ex-wife. This is a woman that Deacon believes got pregnant to trap him into giving her the kind of life that she felt she deserved and there’s no love lost from his side there. The issue is that she’s so vindictive now that she won’t give him access to his son. Cleo is hell bent on getting that changed and we watch how she has ideas formulating in her head on how to make it happen.

There’s another sub plot here – one with Tucker – Deacon’s brother and his interest in Cleo. As we all know, people don’t often realize when they have romantic feelings towards someone until there’s an obstacle, and even in this story – Deacon doesn’t realize it. Tucker makes his interest in Cleo known, asks to pursue her and does just that. So we watch the back half of this story transpire with Cleo and Tucker seeing where their friendship of sorts could develop. There are moments when you as the reader think that Deacon will stand up and raise issue, and then we watch that never happen. There’s an ease and happiness now for Cleo that we’ve missed and it’s certainly going to cause issue down the road.

So many questions arise in where this series can go. Will Tucker and Cleo work out and to what pain level will this cause Deacon. Will Deacon get to have his son with him in New York or will he have to move back to California? What hell will Valerie, Deacon’s ex raise when she realizes that there’s more going on in NY than she thought? All questions with no answers this early in the series – so now I have to find book 2 and see where things go. Enjoy!