Review: DIRTY RICH CINDERELLA STORY by Lisa Renee Jones

Seduced for a night. Taken forever.

With only nine months left at Stanford, and despite being top of her law school class, Lori Havens takes leave to care for her sick mother. That means she juggles three jobs, the best of which is researcher for novelist, and syndicated columnist of "Cat Does Crime," Cat Summer.

One evening after finishing up her work at Cat's apartment building, Lori has an encounter with a sexy stranger, and does something out of character. She goes home with him. The night is perfect, he's perfect, wealthy, powerful and from out of town. Morning comes, and despite their connection, Lori leaves before he finds out she's far from the equal he believes her to be. She's not a charity case and she's not after his money. She will make her own. In other words, she leaves before her prince charming finds out she's no princess.

Flash forward a few months, Lori’s mother is healing, and Cat's husband, Reese, has merged his firm with another and Lori lands an internship there, with school credit and scholarship money.. Everything is falling into place. That is until fate reveals a wicked twist of events and Lori walks into a conference room to find her new boss, Cole Brooks, one of the partners, is her one-night prince charming. One sizzling shared look across a boardroom, and it’s clear: this man is not done with her. It’s not long before Lori is informed that she’ll be working high profile cases with her one night prince charming which will require long nights and travel, starting immediately.

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MY REVIEW

★★★☆☆

I want to make sure you understand that I'm a huge fan of LRJ. HUGE!! She's written and created some of my most favorite of all book boyfriends. They're alpha and sophisticated and charming and intelligent and sexy and despite many of them not being immediately open to love, the way they fall is always a thing of beauty. Cole Brooks, the male protagonist in Dirty Rich Cinderella Story was absolutely no exception. I loved how he felt an immediate connection to Lori and didn't really fight it. I loved how protective he was of her and how much he wanted to take care of her. So. Freaking. Sweet.

But Cole is where my love affair with this story ends.

I didn't like Lori. Actually, my unfiltered opinion of her was worse than not liking her. I don't hate anyone, but I came pretty close when it came to her. She was an entitled broke chick, with a condescending and judgmental attitude, and didn't know when to count her blessings.

✦ she freaked because the man wanted more
✦ she freaked because the man wanted to wipe out her debt
✦ she freaked because he was worried about her safety and wanted to provide her with a safe environment
✦ she freaked because he wanted to spoil her
✦ she freaked because he paid her mother's exorbitant medical bills
✦ she freaked because the man saw her struggling and wanted to ease her load
✦ she freaked because the man was so freaking awesome
✦ she freaked because she didn't deserve all of these gifts!!

Lori had me skimming pages. Lori had me losing interest. Lori made this my least favorite LRJ book of all time. This breaks my heart :(

The writing was superb. The plot was more than engaging. And Cole was the epitome of what is a good man. I wish he didn't have to run after her so hard. I wish he didn't have to constantly defend his actions when they were so very kind. I wish his happiness wasn't so hard to get.

Release: 05.23.2018

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Dual POV - 1st person

Heat: 3.5

Standalone - Dirty Rich #2 with character crossover