King of Wall Street by Louise BayMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Three and a half stars.
I recently read The British Knight and enjoyed it so much I thought I would read some of Louise Bay's other books in what appears to be a series.
Harper Jayne is the illegitimate daughter of Charles Jayne, the wealthy founder and senior partner of JD Stanley. She and her father have barely interacted over the years, he was absent more often than he was present and she has cut off all contact with him since she was at college. His form of love is to throw money at an issue, including his daughter. Harper is also angry that he offered employment to her three half brothers after they graduated college, but not her. Harper works for Max King, the so-called King of Wall Street, as a junior researcher. This was her dream job, one she worked really hard to get, but her boss' attitude makes her hate him.
Max King has become successful by keeping his personal and professional lives separate. During the week he is the King of Wall Street, living in a penthouse apartment in Manhattan, driven, professional and having hook-ups with random women. At the weekends he is devoted to his fourteen year old daughter Amanda and their home in Connecticut where his parents, his sisters and Amandas mother (and her husband) also live. His newest researcher, Harper Jayne threatens that neat distinction and he does everything in his power to avoid her as much as possible.
I felt that this book suffered from character drift (I Just made that up), you know, when a character starts off one way and then by the end of the book they have changed dramatically but not through personal growth and development but just because the plot requires them to react in certain ways? For example, when Amanda's mother and her husband move to Europe Max is portrayed as very much a weekend father who doesn't really have much involvement in the real bringing up of his daughter, baffled by her moods and unable to cope with her teenage demands. But by the end of the book Max is being portrayed as a Superdad, totally devoted to his daughter and fully engaged in everything to do with Amanda, heck it's one of the things Harper loves about him!
And here I go, boring old fart again, gawd there was too much sex. I'm not sure how Harper and Max fell in love between their antagonistic work relationship and the non-stop shag-fest they didn't really talk, or if they did it was all off-stage. All the reader sees is one sex scene after another.
Don't even get me started on Harper's BFF Grace, her 'insights' into Harper and her relationship with her father just felt wrong, as indeed did the showdown between Harper and her father.(view spoiler)
I will continue reading Louise Bay's books in this loose series to see which of these books is more representative of her writing, the plots are good, if somewhat predictable.
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