Baby Bump

The book wasn’t bad. I enjoyed it, but I think it could have been more. It was good in the beginning; setting up the drama between Nicholas and his family and even the relationship between Quinn and George. Afterwards the book started focus Quinn’ internal struggle on telling Nicholas about the baby, which was fine until it continue to drag on until the end.

If this book were to continue on, I would recommend a sequel AND a prequel. The prequel would focus on how both Nicholas and Quinn were before she started to work for him. For example, we could look into Nicholas’ life in France before moving to America and his playboy ways before Quinn. For Quinn, focus in depth on the relationship she had with George leading up to their break-up.

For the sequel, it would mostly focus on Nicholas and his family because after the party, they were mention once and never talked about or seen again at all. I would like to see how both Quinn and Nicholas work through it together. Although they weren’t the main antagonist, I felt that Nicholas’ family were considering how they treated Quinn and chastised Nicholas for bringing Quinn along.

Despite all that, I would recommend this book to people that loves happy endings and wouldn’t mind a little drama here and there, but doesn’t override/overcome the two main protagonist.

Better Next Time

Miley Maine’s first book in her ‘Billionaire Bosses’ series was not up to my anticipation. Don’t get me wrong Miley Maine is an excellent author but for me it could have been better. Nicholas and Quinn, the main characters, just didn’t have that steamy chemistry I’ve come to appreciate. I thought Quinn was quite a bit annoying at times. Nicholas really disappointed me. To be the hero and not stand up for himself was just oxymoronic. Not a bad book if you have nothing better to read.

It won’t take you long to get drawn into Quinn and Nicholas’s story. He’s her boss and a major flirt/playboy and she finds him hard to like at times. Three years of working for him and the next thing you know they’re fake engaged. Of course he’s a billionaire and his family thinks she’s not good enough for him. He’s always been attracted to her. This book moved too slow for me and seemed disjointed at times. Their chemistry even seemed off most of the time. I read a free advance copy via Booksprout and voluntarily chose to write a review.

Quinn and Nicholas have quite the complicated relationship. She works as his assistant and all is fine until he decides that he fancies her and starts his pursuit. Quinn is suspicious and declines his advances until he helps her out with her ex. Then he asks for a favour in return. As they grow closer, more drama ensues and then a small accident. Quinn and Nicholas will need to figure out everything if they want this relationship to work.

I thought this romance was quite entertaining and fun though I did want to shake Quinn sometimes as she drove me a bit nuts. However, I thought they were quite adorable together and thought Nicholas was so swoon-worthy!

I received a free advanced review copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving my fair and honest opinion.

Nicholas is a French billionaire and CEO of his American company. He is known as a player, never having trouble getting women to go out with him. Quin is Nicholas’ assistant. She is good at her job. She is confident and sassy. She does not let Nicholas’ constant flirting affect her. She knows his history and she doesn’t need any complications in her life or on the job. Nicholas is not use to women being unaffected by his charms. He is determined to affect Quinn. When the two become fake fiancés to deter Quinn’s creepy stalker ex-boyfriend and to keep Nicholas’ visiting family from harassing him about finding someone, things change. The two share one glorious night together after too much champagne. They are determined to not let this affect their work relationship. Quinn finds herself sick and having to miss quite a bit of work and with the awkwardness between them, she is hesitant to return to work fearing that their relationship can never get back to normal. Can these two find their way amongst the emotional and outside turmoil?

This is a good workplace romance story. It is well written with great characters that have some depth to them. I am a fan of this author for sure, however, this book was not may favorite of hers. Although I like Quinn’s character, I found her to be way to wishy washy and not in control of her behavior. For being an older woman in a high powered profession, I don’t think this fits. My feelings on this could just be that I’m older and don’t care for the angsty type of relationships. I really enjoyed Nicholas’ character. I liked seeing him change throughout the relationship and realize what he wants in his life and in a partner.

I received a review copy of this book from the author. I am voluntarily leaving a review.

Maybe it’s just me but I get so annoyed when there’s a pregnancy and it’s unrealistic as far as finding out or having symptoms. It kind of kills that aspect of the story for me. Also the title and blurb are misleading because it sounds like this is a long hidden pregnancy story. Spoiler alert: it’s not. I would’ve liked more story development, more growth in the characters

Feel good read

Good story, just a lot of typos which stop the flow of reading

The author has given us characters that we can care about. The story flows smoothly and keeps you reading to find out where these characters are going to end up. Quinn is secretary to billionaire boss, Nicholas. She has seen women come and go in his life, and when he decides he wants her, she does everything in her power to push him away. However, when her ex appears, she says she is engaged to Nicholas. He plays along but then their work relationship begins to go sideways.

I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Two-point-five stars.

Meh. I guess it wasn’t bad, but this book was just plain mediocre, and I wish I could say something more positive.

Maybe it’s because I’m so tired of the angst of “I need to tell him I’m pregnant!” that ate up at least half of the book. Even the well-overused gimmick of the psychotic ex-boyfriend couldn’t detract from this overall, plain boredom I had while reading this book. I almost decided to make it one of my rare DNF and not because it was very poorly written. It just was boring. The sex scenes were predictable. I just skimmed through them, looking for any dialogue other than saying how good the sex was.

The main characters — Nicolas and Quinn — ALMOST made me sympathetic, but not quite. I had been thinking on how I would write one of these novels involving the heroine discovering she was pregnant and had to decide how she would tell him. How would I make the story interesting and different without lapsing in the usual overused plot templates for this kind of story. I was thinking of making it a slice of life tale… without the angst, of course. I mean, Nicholas could drop her like a hot potato or absorb her into his life (and lifestyle) so that Quinn didn’t have to worry about funds, etc. I would have dropped the George the Ex-Boyfriend subplot because it’s been overused by too many unimaginative authors, and probably focused in on his family who thinks that Quinn is a gold digger and Nicholas is just slumming. But without falling for the usual templated subplots for that storyline. See how I was distracted? If it had been a more original story, I wouldn’t be spending my time seeing how far into this book I was or contemplating how I would have written it. I would have made Quinn and Nicholas far more compelling characters.

There was more than the usual editing issues including the wrong words, missing words, bad grammar… I think there had been an editor present, but so any errors were missed. And the usual wrong use of the word “past” and “it’s”. A good editor would have encouraged the writer to try something fresh and original… I would have hoped. I also would had hoped the writer would had been open to the idea of change. However, I get this feeling that the writer was not open to make sweeping changes for the sake of a better story rather than conclude just to publish the story and get it out into the public because it would be waste of her time going back and rewriting it as she should had. Bloody hell! That is not being a committed writer! No one can hammer out THE PERFECT novel, but at least know when a story is ready for publication and when it’s best to go back to the drawing board and start all over. This is why I can’t stand all these deadlines amateur indie writers set for themselves. Real writing isn’t like that. When you’re producing books like an assembly line, there is something wrong here. Usually inspiration is missing, and that will always be noticed by the readership.

There were some glaring researching errors. First of all, the in-office urine pregnancy tests are very sensitive AND accurate for pregnancies as early as 4-6 weeks, depending on the woman, of course. (Some have even delivered a baby without having a single positive pregnancy test any time throughout gestation.) You don’t need to wait a few days for even the blood test!

In terms of world-crafting, I had NO CLUE where this story took place other than the United States. It could be LA, it could be NYC, it could be Miami. I didn’t like how this writer avoided so much descriptive necessities. Even in the epilogue, other than being at the beach, I STILL had no clue where they were. What happened? By not doing so only lessens any attempt to enrich this story. I’m glad we had some idea of what kind of business Nicholas ran, but even that description was anemic in details.

So I have it two-point-five stars. Sorry, but I was too bored to devote much attention to this story. I’m glad I read it via KU rather than buying it. I would hope this author normally writes better than this. I can’t even recommend to others to take some time to read it. Now I need to find a book I really liked and wash my brain cells well because I need something better to endure COVID-19 quarantine.