Review: Ex Appeal

Ex Appeal by Cathy Yardley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Vinh Doan and Emily MacDonald were childhood sweethearts, she was from a wealthy middle-class close-knit family whereas his parents were permanently fighting and Vinh practically raised his kid sister. Even when his parents split up permanently things didn't get much better, his father got married over and over again, whilst also having multiple affairs, and his mother was focused on rebuilding her career rather than looking after her children. Things fell apart when they went to college, Emily's father died and Vinh broke up with her in the coldest way possible. Since then she's loathed him with a passion.

Fast forward a decade, VInh is bringing in the megabucks acting as a fixer for global conglomerates (eg bribing overseas officials making nasty environmental claims go away etc) and has just been promoted to Vice President, he's got a reputation for being cold as ice and having no emotions. Then one day an uber-secret crypto slush fund of $10 million, which only Vinh had access to, is emptied - the partners blame Vinh and if he can't clear his name and find the real culprit he'll be sacked and publicly vilified. Vinh needs to find a hacker who will help him find the thief, but not steal the money themselves.

Meanwhile, having dropped out of college to support her mother, Emily is earning minimum wage, and working two or three jobs to try to keep their McMansion which her father had mortgaged to the hilt to pay for their lavish lifestyle. Her mother is in denial and acting like a child, barely able to hold down a job and spending money she doesn't have. Her dreams of ethical hacking a distant memory, Emily works as telephone IT support, telling people to turn their computers off and on again with monotonous regularity. Every time she thinks they have their heads above water something else breaks (her car, the boiler, etc) and they are back to square one.

VInh bitterly regrets that he had to break up with Emily, but if he is to clear his name he needs to persuade her to help him, but she isn't going to make things easy for him.

I love a second-chance romance with a STEM female lead but sadly this didn't do it for me. There was too much angst about their past and not enough plot - previously Cathy Yardley has nailed the STEM heroine for me so this was disappointing, like the computer hacking was an afterthought that happened offstage. Also, more annoyingly, I guessed the real thief's identity extremely early on (and I mean extremely) so the element of surprise was totally absent. Overall, I would say it was all a bit simplistic with the crypto theft more of an afterthought than the main event.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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