Jen Frederick - Losing Control

I’d do anything to keep my mother alive.
Anything, including ask Ian Kerr for help. I don’t know much about him, except that he has more money than some small countries. And he’s willing to spend it on me. Just one catch: there’s a string attached, and not just the one I feel pulling me into his arms and his bed. There’s also the plan for revenge he wants my help with.
Every time he says my name, it makes my body shiver and my heart stutter. I know he’s going to wreck me, know there won’t be anything left of me but lust and sensation by the time he’s done with me, but even though I can see the heartbreak coming towards me like a train, ready to crash into me, I can’t get out of the way. I want what he makes me feel. Want what he’s offering.
This may have started out as something to save my mother, but now…now it’s about what he makes me feel. I’m in danger of losing everything that’s important. Worse? Ian's whispered words and hot caresses are making me believe that's okay.

Comment: I had this book in the pile because I've read somewhere that it would feature a relationship where the protagonists have different finances. I'm always interested in this set up because while not simple to do well, it can be a good way to strengthen a couple's trust in each other. Well, in theory...

Sadly, however, I just could not find enough interest and I've DNF'd this story.

Victoria, or"Tiny", is a young woman who works as a bike courier and has a pretty much regular life except her mother is battling cancer again and the bills have been astronomical. Now she is even told they should move from their apartment into a place without stairs because her mother won't be able to climb them, but how can Tiny find a way to manage everything? She gives in and accepts to do jobs for her stepbrother Malcolm, who seems to be in some sort of shady business. One day she has to deliver a package to Ian, a very good looking guy who seems to be willing to help her as well, as soon as he finds out about her worries, but can she really trust him?

Well, I assume Tiny did, indeed, trust Ian because when I read the last pages, they seemed to be together and there was even a note saying there would be a second book from Ian's POV. Since this one was all from Tiny, I can see what the author's goal was here, but I admit I don't feel curious about it anymore. Perhaps it if had been third person narrator I might tried to read more...

This is my first DNF of the year because I got to page 66 (my edition had 240) and until then Tiny, this amazingly gorgeous young woman, wanted to help her mother and the way for her to do this was to do something she felt was not legal, but she needed the money. Desperation and good will can be a bad match but one has to do what one has do to, right? Well, I thought the story would go on a different path, more towards sweet and romantic, to be honest, and that wasn't so in those first 66 pages.

I struggled to be interested in their personalities - Tiny's "voice" was a bit annoying to me, despite the fact I felt she was this way as a sort of defense mechanism, and Ian seemed to be sarcastic and flirting all the time - but while I turned the pages, nothing about them, nor Tiny's choices seemed to captivate me. I decided to quit because I really think I would not end up enjoying this anyway.

It seems as if some plots just don't work out as others even if authors use cliches or trusted tropes, and here I didn't connect with the characters nor with what they were supposedly doing, and I was really not that interested. I would have kept going if the plot was centered on dealing with their issues, but since from a certain point on it was all seemingly about how quick would they give in to have sex... and now reading other reviews seeing that this did take over most of the story, the more convinced I am to have stopped

Ehh, one less book to think of, is my conclusion.

Grade: DNF