Two Halves, One Brian

Book Stats:

• Book 2 of the Naughty or Nice series
• Format: ebook
• Length: 320 pages
• Chapters: 40
• Narrator POV: 1^st person; alternating between the 2 main characters, Sloane and Cole

Summary (No Spoilers)

If you’d like to read the full summary and review with *spoilers included*, check out this post instead!

Sloane is a jewelry designer, working for a store who doesn’t appreciate her designs, finding them too edgy. She wants to launch her own line but is worried about failing. She decides to give it a go anyway, quitting her job and relying on her savings to get things started.

Cole is a reclusive billionaire who has his eye on Sloane. He offers her a job opportunity too good to pass up, but with some interesting conditions. She will have all the financial backing and creative freedom she needs to complete her own line, but in return she must live in Cole’s penthouse and have the first round of products created within 1 month. She’s worried she won’t be able to meet the deadline, but he convinces her to accept anyway.

There’s a lot of tension between the two, but Sloane tries hard to maintain that professional boundary. That doesn’t last, however, as she finds herself drawn to him over and over again. There’s also professional tension, as Cole likes to stick to strict deadlines while Sloane tends to jump around from project to project, working on whatever inspires her at the time.

There are some situations that arise with Cole’s ex-business partner and current rival, Julian. Sloane gets thrown into the middle of this war and ends up in some dangerous situations.

Review:

Book Rating: ⭐⭐⭐/5

Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5

Let me start by saying that 3 stars is a good rating, in my opinion. It means the book was decent. The things I enjoyed balanced with the things I didn’t, so it’s not a favorite read of mine, but a perfectly good book. Just because I rated this 3 stars doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a read. It was still good. 😊

I was immediately roped into the story. I had previously read He Sees You When You’re Sleeping, book 1 of the series, and it was fun to have Chloe from that book be part of this one. I like interconnected stories. 

The tension between the two main characters was well done. I could feel it from the first moment they met, until the end of the book. I really enjoyed the characters and the interactions between Sloane and Cole in the first half of the book. I did feel like halfway through, the plot gave way to the smut, and Cole became a big softy rather than continuing with his alpha male, dominant persona. It feels like he did a complete 180 and that was a little jarring.

Some things were also repetitive. I feel like within the first few chapters, the sentence “according to your specifications” was used so many times, rather than providing details of said “specifications”. I realize this was used to keep from spoiling whatever Cole had planned for Sloane, but I feel like there were other ways to reword the same sentence to make it feel less repetitive.

In my opinion, the situation with Sloane at the end of the book felt extremely rushed. Without spoiling, I’ll just say that it seemed as if Sloane was suddenly thrown into a dangerous situation and then removed from that situation almost immediately. That was the big ending and it just felt like it should’ve lasted a bit longer to add some suspense and intensity.

I gave this story 3 chili peppers, as there were several kissing scenes, followed by more than 3 sex scenes, including some detailed descriptions.