This is a genre-fluid book (borrowing, adopting and adapting the concept of
gender-fluid here since that’s the only
way to describe this book). It has romance, erotica, BDSM (but not intense
enough to make us cringe) – so it’s all of these, yet none of them.
Lindsey Blackwell, daughter of a US Senator, is a
globe-trotting wealth management consultant, partner in her own firm with
Cathryn Wexler. She returns from an overseas trip to be informed that there
were irregularities discovered in their third partner, Roger’s work and Cathryn
has fired him. So Lindsey inherits Roger’s clients. One of them is Rebekiah
Kearns, a boudoir photographer, who has come into a large inheritance
courtesy a friend. Rebekiah doesn’t want to keep the money and is itching to
give it away hence seeking the help of a wealth consultant. Lindsey doesn’t
think Rebekiah should be hasty about unloading her inheritance and also that
maybe better planning of the money can go a longer way to helping more people
than a one-time donation. Insta-attraction (mostly lust) sees Rebekiah agreeing
to Lindsey’s proposal of taking a little more time and deliberating some more
about what can be done. Working on Lindsey’s ideas moves on to Lindsey becoming
a model for Rebekiah and their relationship developing further.
We’re not quite certain about the two leads. Don’t get us
wrong – both are well fleshed out with solid backstories, but we just didn’t
get any feel about them. Rebekiah comes across as more or less a harmless
drifter and we don’t understand much of her motivations. Maybe if her
relationship with Emma was better fleshed out, we’d have got a better grasp of
the character, her emotions (and emotional depth) and motivations. But as
things are in this book, she seems a superficial drifter both emotionally and sexually.
(Confession: during daily drudgery we often fantasized about becoming an
artistic photographer, but now that we know something like boudoir photography
exists, that is our dream job :D ).
Lindsey was even more difficult to understand. She is a
successful wealth management consultant, which is at best a highly buttoned-up,
uptight industry. Plus her mother is a US Senator. Yet, she not only agrees to
being photographed by Rebekiah in extremely intimate acts, she also signs a
model-waiver, which means she agrees to have her photographs out for public consumption.
Had she just agreed to having said photographs takes privately, we’d have been
able to understand it as latent exhibitionism, but to be okay with them being
displayed publicly? We just couldn’t find an off switch to our mind screaming How is she allowing this? at eight
hundred decibels. This is just one thing.
Lindsey is also a recovering alcoholic, which doesn’t
exactly scream ‘responsible’.When Cathryn fires Roger without bringing Lindsey (remember, Linsey is a partner in the
firm) into the loop, Lindsey is perfectly okay about it. She doesn’t even ask
to see the irregularities. After being approached by the Department of Justice
(DOJ), Lindsey still doesn’t seem to be
particularly interested in what’s happening in her firm. When she learns that
there have been payments made by her firm to a Russian who could have links to
the Russian mafia – surprisingly, even that doesn’t seem to create a blip on her
inexplicable nonchalance.
Yet, despite all this, we liked Lindsey more than Rebekiah. (There
is a passing reference to Lindsey’s past infidelities in a long-term
relationship. Thankfully that is not detailed too much. Nothing – nothing – makes us dislike a person more
than them breaking someone’s heart either by cheating or being emotionally
unavailable and/or absent. We are hopeless romantics that way.)
So here’s the thing – while there is nothing wrong with the
book, there is nothing to do cartwheels about either. Though we feel very
teenage about doing this, for a recommendation we’d go with a non-committal
shrug.
⭐⭐⭐★
