Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Audiobook: 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

by Elsie Silver – Everything Elsie Silver writes is always an incredible amount of fun, and the first book in her new series is a fantastic combination of tropes that you will eat up – brother’s best friend, he falls first, rural, billionaire, touch her and die…etc.

After things implode for Rosie professionally, she is forced to return to her hometown of Rose Hill and bunk with her brother West. Little does she know that Ford, her high school frenemy and West’s best friend, has also returned. Ford was the shy kid who always had his head in a book during his summers in Rose Hill, but times have changed. Ford is now (begrudgingly) crowned the sexiest billionaire in America, has returned to Rose Hill to start his passion-project music label, and hires Rosie as his business manager. It is a job she is qualified for in both her temperament and MBA, but having her around tests his willpower because Rosie has always been perfect in Ford’s mind. There are many surprise family complications, fun small-town hijinks, and understanding the past through a new lens.

As a general rule, I genuinely hate billionaire romance stories, but I’m pleased to say that Ford is a predominately well-adjusted human, and this is the second billionaire romance that doesn’t make me cringe (the other being the 100% amazing A Long Time Coming by Meghan Quinn). This slow-burn romance contains witty emails, teenage journal pages, longing looks, and sweet gestures. A fun tie-in to Chestnut Springs also shows how the characters connect. Overall, it was a very entertaining story, and I’m excited to continue the series. As for the audiobook, it is a dual narration by 2 of my favorite narrators (Zachary Webber and Vanessa Edwin). Both make every book better through their performances – Webber has also voiced most of Abby Jimenez’s books.