DIRTY BASTARD (ROUGHNECK BILLIONAIRES, BOOK #3) BY JESSICA CLARE: BOOK REVIEW

Dirty Bastard

Roughneck Billionaires, Book #3

By Jessica Clare

Author’s website:  jillmyles.com

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar                                         

SPOILERS!!!

Summary: 

Billionaire roughneck Knox Price finds himself twisted by desire for a yoga teacher in this new romance by the New York Times bestselling author of Dirty Scoundrel.

Knox Price has always fallen short in comparison to his brothers. Boone is the ambitious one. Clay is the nice one. Gage is the handsome one. And Knox? Well, he’s the cynical one. The odd man out in the ultra-wealthy but rather unique Price family. It’s not that Knox hates people–it’s that humanity always disappoints him. When you become an oil-rich, Texan billionaire overnight, people treat you a certain way. Just once he’d like to meet someone that isn’t dazzled by his wallet.

Then, he meets struggling yoga teacher Lexi Brandon. She’s weird. She’s unpredictable and tends to say strange things. She lurks in the bushes and dresses in all black. She loves when people cross the street to get away from her. Lexi’s definitely not his type, but she’s also the first one to ever truly see him and not just another rich, dirty Price.

And that’s…fascinating. But how do you catch the interest of a woman who goes out of her way to be odd? When an unexpected surprise throws them both for a loop, Knox decides it’s time to get down and dirty, abandon the rules, and be who he truly is–a bastard.

Review:

Dirty Bastard takes place halfway during the events of Dirty Scoundrel, when Clay invites Natalie to swim with his family, she took her best friend for support and a backup plan, but things end up going well for them and they end up together that night.  This is where Dirty Bastard starts. Knox, the middle Price bother, meets Lexi Brandon, the strange and odd yoga instructor best friend of Natalie. Knox is different than his brothers, his upbringing was not the best for the first part of his life, but he tries to look at the bright side of life and does this by teasing and messing with the world and his brothers. The two of them click and Knox becomes star struck by Lexi’s personality and odd behaviors, he helps her scare kids near the water and she helps him tease his brothers.

After Clay and Natalie retire for the night to Natalie’s hotel room (which she shares with Lexi), Lexi decides to give her friend some space. All day, sparks have been flying between Knox and Lexi, and now that Lexi needs a place to stay for the night, Knox takes the opportunity to invite her to his hotel room. They have a great night together, sex, give each other their phone numbers, and Knox decides to get to know Lexi better. But life has a different path for them, there is a problem in Lexi’s life that she has been keeping to herself and has not even told Natalie, stressing her daily life. The situation escalates and causes her to lose her purse with all her personal items and phone, making it impossible to contact Knox again. At the same time, the Price family suffers a great loss that hits the brothers so hard that Knox has to step up and help even more with the company and his brothers.

As they start to miss each other after that night almost a month ago, Lexi receives important news that would make her get in touch with Knox again.

I liked Dirty Bastard, it was a good story and I liked both Lexi and Knox. Together they make a fun and entertaining couple that as a reader it made the story better. Separately the characters are interesting and fun, each of them is going through some troubles in life, but still seeks the other person and are able to make something beautiful together.

Spoilers!!! I like the storyline that Lexi had. She has a stalker that has been making her life difficult for the past two years and follows her to her beach getaway with Natalie. I liked how the author wove the main problem (a stalker) into the story, and how she had the characters interact with the stalker. Not all romance novels have a character that is the villain of the story, in some cases it is a financial or legal problem, but from time to time it’s a character that is antagonizing one of the main characters. In the case of Dirty Bastard, we a have a character that is causing problems for Lexi and is making her scared of having a relationship with Knox.

All the books in this series start with “Dirty” and are followed with a word associated with the Price brother story. In this case, for Dirty Bastard, the word “Bastard” has a great significance for Knox and plays a huge role in his personality. Spoilers!!! I liked how the author, Jessica Clare, molded Knox (because of his upbringing and parentage) to not want to pass those same feelings of rejection and separation that he felt when he was young to his future children. I really liked that he wanted to be a good father and have a better family life.

Compared to the other books in the Roughneck Billionaires Knox doesn’t stop for anything when trying to win a girl over, not even money. It was fun to see him try different things to win Lexi over and that he doesn’t care about money but only seeing her smile and be happy. At the same time, I like that we see the Price brothers make other investments outside the Oiling company, even if it is just to destroy an enemy.

The only problem that I had was that I was expecting a more intense confrontation with Lexi’s stalker. I know this is a Romance genre book, but I felt that the story was moving to something more dangerous for Lexi or maybe Knox. It was a good scene and I liked how Knox handled it, but for some reason, I was expecting more.

It seems that the same way this story started, one of the other brother meets his love interest during the story of the other brother, would happen again. We only have Gabe left, but during this story, he has changed in character and it seems it would be because of his future love interest.

If you are a fan of Jessica Clare or any of her other works, then I recommend Dirty Bastard. In this book, the oddest people meet, they are able to find a happiness with each other that they didn’t know they were missing, even if it starts by scaring children at the beach.

 

*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*