Title:  Beauty and the Billionaire
Author: Jessica Clare
Publisher/Year:  Penguin Group  7/16/13
Length:  300+ pages
Series: Billionaire Boys Club #2

Overview

he Billionaire Boys Club is a secret society of six men who have vowed success—at any cost. Not all of them are old money, but all of them are incredibly wealthy. They’re just not always as successful when it comes to love…

Real-estate tycoon Hunter Buchanan has a dark past that’s left him scarred and living as a recluse on his family’s palatial estate. Hunter is ready to give up on love—until he spots an enigmatic red-haired beauty and comes up with an elaborate scheme to meet her.

Gretchen Petty is in need of a paycheck—and a change. So when a job opportunity in an upstate New York mansion pops up she accepts. And while she can overlook the oddities of her new job, she can’t ignore her new boss’s delectable body—or his barely leashed temper.

Hunter’s afraid his plan might be unraveling before it’s truly begun, but Gretchen is about to show him that life can be full of surprises…

My Thoughts

We definitely get the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ story here which is kind of sweet yet kind of cliiche.  while i enjoyed this second installment, i felt that it was really a bridge book and maybe just a place holder while the next books were in motion.  There was so much heat and anxiety in the first book between Bronte and Logan that i was kind of hoping that we would get something similar here.

In this story, we are reintroduced with Gretchen whom we met in the first book when Bronte ran away from Logan.  You get the sense in that story that there’s a good tale to be told with Gretchen, but when we get her on her own, there’s just not as much there as could be.  I actually kept wanting to hear more about her sister than her.  Anyhow, we learn more about Grethchen’s job as a ghostwriter and we see how she;s affected by what she does.  meaning that she’s bored with the stuff that she writes and doesn’t make enough money doing it.

We also get to know a bit more about Hunter and about what makes him the recluse that he is.  In book1, we learned that he was heavily scarred and we actually get that story begrudgingly from him in this book.  I think that the best thing about this story was seeing how scared he was and how fragile he was as a result of what happened when he was a child.

I came to appreciate how naive he is and it makes his story so much better than being just the guy who’s damaged yet very successful because of what his family had.  There’s also this gentle side that really relates to the Beast in Beauty and the Beast which is nice, and you really want him to be happy.

throughout the book, we get the story of Hunter figuring out a way to spend time with Gretchen, which in his own way meant that he set up a publishing house for her to write for, and bought letters that he said were from his house that he wanted her to put into a story form but could not take the letters from his home so she’d have to stay there.  pretty smart, but you knew that she would find out.

There were bits and pieces thrown into the story that made me think that it could go one way or another , but we never got there.  potential love triangle, getting kicked out of an apt, maybe finding a new profession since writing bad romance books wasn’t her thing…..

I really kept hoping that there would be ‘more’ to the story and there wasn’t.  there were a few decent scenes where you feel the heat and passion behind the couple, but they are short lived (probably intentional given Hunters back story), but it left me just wanting more.  so now i’m left with a few questions

1) who’s the focus goign to be on for book 3

2) can Audrey save Daphne or is it a lost cause?

3) which one of the sisters does Cade really like since i have a feeling that there’s more to the story

all in all, average, but not bad enough to keep me from reading the next installment when it comes out.