Review by Sasha Walker -- Marrying a Playboy Billionaire

[Sasha Walker]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Marrying a Playboy Billionaire" by H M Irwing.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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Marrying a Playboy Billionaire by H.M. Irving is the story of Aria Longbottom, a self-conscious businesswoman whose life stagnated after her fiancé left her for her cousin. Five years after the break up, Aria’s life starts up again when she finds herself engaged to Justin Kay, a wealthy family friend. The book follows the story of how the couple falls in love after their peculiar engagement in the weeks leading up to their wedding.

The grammar and structure of this book makes it very difficult to read. To list a few of the grammatical errors, the author- does not punctuate after titles like Mr., changes verb tenses within a sentence, writes in fragments, and frequently has trouble using idioms. A sentence on the very first page demonstrates this, “Because that was what I was: a mute to all intents and purposes.” This sentence is an awkwardly-written fragment and should say “for all intents and purposes” instead of “to all intents and purposes.” The combination of all these grammatical errors makes each paragraph a task to read and comprehend. The story is also ripe with logical mistakes. Here is an example from Justin’s mother’s dialogue, “Do you know Justin doesn’t just take after my side of the family with his personality; he gets his humor from us too. Only he’s more like his late uncle, my brother, on that regard.” She basically says, Justin doesn’t just take after my side of the family, he gets his personality from my side of the family, he’s more like my brother. Confused?

While the grammatical mistakes makes individual sentences difficult to understand, the structural incoherence of events makes the plot difficult to understand. It seems as though the author kept changing her mind about the story as it was being written. In the description of the book, Justin Kay was said to be Aria’s ex’s best friend. In the actual story Justin is described as a friend of Aria’s family. Later on, a character named Meredith shows up and the only mention of her is this sentence on page 118, “It had been funny how Mama and Meredith had gushed over me after all the hoopla of congratulations subsided.” Who is Meredith?

Furthermore, the book had no driving conflict. Marry a man you barely know? Sure. Lose your job? No problem. Have a baby? Yay! The author does attempt to give the characters some issues to deal with, such as Aria’s dislike of her body and Justin’s episode with his cousin. However, these problems are solved too easily or not carried through to the rest of the book. If Aria is self-conscious about her weight, how does she feel about having a baby? In regard to Justin, the reader never notices that anything is wrong with him the whole book. Then on page 109, we learn that something happened with his cousin and that it makes him closed off to relationships. Don’t worry, the conflict only lasts four pages and is resolved on page 113.

I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars. The book is not edited or proofread. It is a disastrous hodgepodge of the common themes found in erotic romance novels. If you are interested in reading a book with a similar plot such as a hasty marriage to satisfy the conditions of a will, I suggest The Marriage Bargain by Jennifer Probst. If you are looking for a feisty, love/hate erotica, I recommend Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren. Both of these books are well-written and can provide entertainment whereas Marrying a Playboy Billionaire only provides frustration.

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Marrying a Playboy Billionaire
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[Kelyn]

I don't think I've ever seen a more comprehensive listing of a book's negative characteristics, along with examples from the text in my time on OBC. Well Done! Given that the book is riddled with errors along with being so confusing, I think I'll take a pass on this one. Thanks for the honest review!