Birthday Girl

By Penelope Douglas

ISBN# 9781976333088

Author’s Website:  http://www.penelopedouglasauthor.com/

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

Jordan Hadley comes from a poor family and works as a bartender to support herself and pay for college.  Her sister works as a stripper, where her boss has already offered Jordan a bartending job there.  However, Jordan knows it’s only to get her in the door before he pushes her to strip.  Jordan isn’t interested, and her sister is always pushing her to give it a try.  The money would be nice, but it’s a small town and she couldn’t imagine dancing naked in front of people she knows, people she went to school with.

When Jordan’s boyfriend, Cole, is late picking her up from work again, on her birthday no less, she heads over to the theater to catch a movie while she waits.  She makes a complete fool of herself and meets another guy in the process.  He’s nice and they feel instantly comfortable together.  She makes it clear she has a boyfriend and he doesn’t hit on her, but she really enjoyed her time with him.  After the movie, she discovers that he’s Cole’s dad!  Not only that, but Cole threw her a party, his friends got impatient, they  started drinking without her and now Cole is in jail and they got evicted all in one night!

Now the couple find themselves moving in with Cole’s dad until they can get on their feet.  The relationship between Cole and his father is strained thanks to his mom filling his head with lies.  Cole always finds ways to be away from the house, usually partying with friends.  That leaves a lot of time for Jordan and Pike to get to know each other better, which is a bit awkward since Jordan finds him attractive!

Eventually Cole removes himself from the equation and the house, leaving Pike and Jordan alone.  They fight the attraction they both have for one another as long as they can.  However, they inevitably give in.  They keep their affair secret, but what happens when the truth comes out?  Will Pike lose his son once and for all?

I didn’t know what to think about this book going into it.  It was an okay read and thankfully wasn’t the smutty sex just for the purpose of sex book that I thought it was going to be.  Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely some detailed sex scenes in the book, but there was also a plot to go along with it.

And, boy was Cole a jerk throughout this book?  I can’t blame Jordan for looking to a more stable and caring person because her boyfriend treated her like garbage!

I liked Pike, but you could definitely see his struggle between attraction for Jordan and loyalty to his son.

“I knew you were out there somewhere,” I tell her, quirking a sad smile. “The girlfriends, women I dated, Cole’s mother…. I never wanted to marry anyone, because they weren’t what I was looking for. I had started to think I had my sights set too high, and you didn’t exist.” I clasp the back of her neck and run my thumbs down her throat. “Turns out my dream girl belongs to the one person it would kill me to hurt.”

Cole does start to grow up a little by the end of this book and see what a great father he has.  And, there is a happily ever after that left me smiling like an idiot.  Overall it was an okay read, but was a bit dull at times.