Title: The Virgin Billionaire
Author: Ryan Field
Publisher: Ravenous Romance
Pages: 177
Characters: Luis Fortune, Jace Nicholas
POV: 3rd
Setting: Manhattan
Sub-Genre: Contemporary Romance
Book Cover Rating: 4
Kisses: 5
Blurb:
Luis Fortune spends his nights escorting affluent older gentleman to parties, nightclubs and restaurants. And though he’s not officially a rent boy because there’s never any physical contact, he is paid well. He charms them with his looks and his carefree attitude. He makes them smile by laughing at their jokes and listening to their dull stories. But Luis is only doing this temporarily, until the right older man asks him to settle down. He’s looking for something he can depend on, and until he finds it he won’t even give the stray dog that followed him home a name.
While Luis is searching for money and security, he takes comfort in reading a blog written by a woman in France he’s never met, Elena’s Romantic Treasures and Tidbits. She adores gay men and romance, and she posts artistic photos, wonderful stories, and endearing posts about gay men that bring Luis a sense of comfort and security on his darkest, scariest days.
Jase Nicholas is a forty year old high-profile billionaire who can pass for thirty. He’s spent the first half of his life running from the fact that he’s gay. And now he wants to find out what he’s been missing all those years. So he tells his family and friends he’s going on a pilgrimage for a couple of months, and then he drops out of sight so he can come to terms with his sexuality and finally lose his gay virginity. But instead of going on a pilgrimage, he rents a small apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He changes his appearance and plunges into a world of young gay men. And when one of the young men he meets is Luis Fortune, his life is never the same again…
Review:
A year ago this book was released. It took me a whole year to get to it and for that I’m sad. But there’s one good thing about it…Ryan Field has released four more in this series and now I don’t have to wait to read them.
The break out book, The Virgin Billionaire is about 40 year old Jase Nicholas and Luis Fortune, a twenty something escort who “dates” older men for money. Jase is a man who has literally been stuck in his own world of creation and making more money than he’ll ever need from his inventions. When he turns the big 40 he finally realizes how life is passing him by and he hasn’t live it yet. So he arranges to live in the city, incognito by ridding his face of his long beard and cutting his hair, and telling no one who he is. No one but a close friend who brings him money on almost a daily basis that is.
Jase moves into an apartment building in Manhattan’s upper west side where he meets Jase and immediately finds himself attracted to the younger man.
Luis is a free spirited young man who knows what he wants from life, and he knows how to get it, he just needs to land the right older man who will take care of him in exchange for companionship. Age matters not to Luis. He often dates an older man who pays him $500.00 for his used socks and every Friday he receives this amount when he accompanies the man to real estate showings and thinks nothing of it.
Luis befriends Jase almost at once, often times treating him like a long time friend, often sharing things with him he had never done with anyone else, he even walks around damn near naked making life almost impossible for Jase to be around the younger man and not be in a constant state of hardness.
However, the two men each have secrets they hide from one another and those secrets can destroy even the most solid of friendships. Friends come and go to shake things up as well and there’s a dog that Luis has and calls just doggie because he is afraid to name the little one because he has this fear that nothing is a for sure stable thing, including that little dog who, by the way, will make his way into your heart while reading this story.
There are some funny parts in this story, for example Jase’s driving skills. I read those parts and laughed out loud. Then we have Jase and his almost happy go lucky no worries attitude to whatever is going on and I even had a giggle or two for the usage of the fire escape between these two.
The plot, the story telling, the characters, dialogue, and the setting are all done in Ryan’s classic pattern. He keeps things moving forward, the conversations between the characters real and easy to follow, the narrative not over done. All in all I really liked spending my time with them and can’t wait to get to the next one.
Reviewer: Michele
