Review by Kayleigh
Even with an intriguing premise, this book fell flat for me.
Favourite Quote:
It’s been three hours since I called off my wedding with my now former fiancé, Bryan, after a fight that could have made me a viral sensation. Cue my dramatic exit from the diner, all tears and snot right after throwing my engagement ring on top of Bryan’s plat of chicken-fried steak.
Book Synopsis:
Josie Greene has always been a glass half-full kind of girl. But after a messy breakup, she’s broke, betrayed, and barely getting by. Even her trusted tarot cards point to chaos in her future. And they’re Axe MacKenzie needs her help.
As part of the tech CEO’s latest covert mission, Axe has been developing a simulator to create any user’s “Perfect Match,” and bubbly Josie is the ideal woman to test his product. When the gorgeous, reclusive billionaire makes her an offer—fake date him so he can launch his groundbreaking AI dating app—Josie’s in no position to refuse.
But Axe’s two worlds collide as the criminal underworld corrupts their experimental fling. What started as steamy role-play quickly spirals into a very real threat, leaving both Josie and Axe no choice but to uncover their well-buried pasts. With her life on the line, Josie will have to trust the man who has created the ultimate virtual illusion—and who might be hiding the most sinister truths of all…
Review:
I wanted to love this book written as a pseudonym by two best selling writers because the premise sounded perfectly bonkers, but alas, it just didn’t hit for me. Look, I’m all for unbelievable plot occurrences, and I understand that in a dark romance you have to set aside your credibility at times, but there was just so much craziness going on with these characters that it detracted from what plot there was.
Let’s start with the main characters: Axe is a tortured Scottish hulk of a man. He’s of course huge, gorgeous and tortured. He comes from a troubled past: his father was a wealthy man who owned a Scottish isle and trafficked women for other wealthy men’s pleasures ala Epstein. This father murdered and abused the women at his whim and taught Axe and his older brother to treat women this way as well. Axe, whose mother was murdered by his father after she bore him a son, is of course a soft and sensitive and bookly boy who escapes the confines of the island when he’s a young adult to rebuild his life away from the evil. He becomes a CIA agent, a tech whiz genius who becomes a multi millionaire CEO and also a contract killer who kills the bad guys that traffick women. Whew.
The love of his life is sweet Josie, who’s a naive small town girl who grew up with a slew of medical issues and was always sickly. Her mother became her champion, and Josie’s health challenges turned into a successful social media business that her mother runs while constantly smothering her. Josie is 26 and just broke off her engagement to a guy that seems like a total loser but that her mother and stepfather are obsessed with. They are also constantly short on money and remind Josie it’s because of her and her illnesses and they sacrificed everything. Josie has never been able to do much travel or have normal experiences because of her mysterious illnesses.
Josie and Axe, of course, on the surface don’t like each other. They put up with each other because Axe’s best friend, and fellow past CIA agent is married to Josie’s boss and seemingly also her only friend ever. At a Halloween party at the beginning of the book, the same night Josie breaks up with her fiancé (because he’s a loser basically) she runs into Axe and his friend murdering someone in the haunted house they’ve made for the party. It’s just a fake event, they assure Josie, who is seemingly unsure. She’s then strangely stalked by a mystery man for the rest of the party, and is rescued by Axe who sends her home like a naughty child. Things happen and then Josie needs to leave her home where she lives above her parents garage in a separate apartment because they need to rent the place out to make money, even though she makes it clear that she pays a lot of rent. So she agrees to be the prototype for Axe’s AI company that is building a virtual girlfriend for men who can’t get a real girlfriend. She’s ok with it because she’ll get health insurance.
Axe is trying to close a deal with a big investor who’s a suspected child trafficker, so he wants this AI woman to be right. It means he has to go on pretend dates with her so his company can track her facial and body metrics on dates so the algorithm can respond properly. Blah, blah blah. They are both so attracted to each other they can’t breathe. They don’t like each other, they tell themselves, and then fight attraction. All the bad people are very bad: Axe’s investor, Josie’s mom and stepdad, and no one is as good and pure as Josie and Axe. They are the best, trying to make humanity better. Axe barely knows Josie but absolutely worships her. She’s a classic “I’m not like other girls girl” and her weird mix of naivety but also being a “strong woman who doesn’t need a man” made my teeth hurt.
Once Josie is kidnapped, the plot becomes even more unbelievable. I won’t give away the plot, but all of the bad people that have little signs over their heads the entire book about being bad, are just as bad as you expect. And Josie and Axe bang, and are clearly soulmates.
Why is he named Axe? Why?
I love a good dark romance, but this one isn’t it.
Thank you to Berkeley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
