A review by raddreader
The Forbidden Billionaire by J.S. Scott

3.0

Jared & Mara. Standalone but part of a series with recurring characters. Told from dual POV’s. I liked Jared’s quiet cockiness in the previous book, but did not like him in the beginning of this book. The first encounter the reader has is Jared trying to offer support while Mara is upset. Awww, nice guy. A few pages later he’s mauling her at the farmers market, saying “mine” and talking dirty. Huh?? It was like he was 2 different people. Of course Mara ends up needing help and Jared is there to swoop in and save the day. I just couldn’t get a handle on Jared and that irritated me throughout the book. Sometimes he seemed like this sweet sensitive alpha male and other times he came off as immature with his blatant sexual comments at inappropriate times. Dial it back a bit dude. The whole “I killed them” guilt was a bit too much for me. They made the choice, so it felt like contrived pointless drama just to have an “I killed them” moment. I thought Mara was similar to Sarah from the previous book as both of them were extremely innocent. I loved Mara’s mama bear protectiveness of Jared when the ex girlfriend’s mom showed up. Jared grew on me around the 75% mark and I guess I ended up thinking he was ok. Jared’s big secret from Chapter 1 was not discussed again until the last chapter when his big secret was revealed. I forgot about it and it didn’t even end up being a big deal so not sure why it was really part of the story. Overall, this story just lacked something for me. I did enjoy the interactions with Evan and am looking forward to reading about the girl who can thaw him. This has a HEA and an epilogue.

Quotes:
“Okay......neither of them deserved to die because they were users, but she wished they were still alive so she could bitch slap both of them.”

“It takes a lot of strength to choose to change your life.”

“Home wasn’t a place or a building for her anymore; it was a state of mind.”