A “purring billionaire” makes me think of all kinds of fun, and the idea of a shifter who is also an influential businessman got my attention. In most supernatural stories shifters are just powerful within their pack or pride and don’t interact much with human affairs, but that is not the case in this world. Here shifters are integrated into human society, and even though they used to suffer some discrimination, most humans (except the all-present bigots) have no issue with them. Based on the blurb, this story promised a rich lion shifter out for revenge, a down-on-his-luck human who sees no option other than prostitution if he wants to make his rent payment (never mind eat), and a combination of the “big misunderstanding in the past”, the “knight in shining armor”, and the Cinderfella tropes. And it delivers on all of these!

Will is trying to make an honest living, ever since a certain lion shifter took everything away from him, but he can’t seem to make ends meet. He lives in a one-room hovel of an apartment and flips burgers for a living, he has already had to let his dog go to a new owner, but he can’t make his rent (again), and hasn’t eaten a decent meal in weeks. Will doesn’t want to be homeless or go to a shelter, so he decides to have sex for money. The bill collectors are on his heels when his client turns up – and to Will’s shock the man is his old nemesis: Leon, the man he loved in high school, the guy who destroyed his company. Faced with a choice of being beaten up or going with Leon, Will bites the bullet and faces cruel treatment by a man out for revenge.

Leon is an alpha lion shifter and a very successful businessman, but he has had to work hard to get there. Taunted in high school for being a shifter, betrayed in the worst way by his boyfriend Will (or so he thinks), and still more in love with Will than he wants to admit, Leon is out for revenge. But as soon as he has Will under his control and uses his body to make him submit, Leon begins to give in to feelings he thought long forgotten. As much as he tries to be cruel (and from Will’s point of view it looks pretty bad), Leon can’t enjoy the revenge he has planned for so many years.

Neither Leon nor Will ever got over each other. It was pretty clear to me that they probably misunderstood something one (or both) of them did in the past, but neither of them wanted to give the other the benefit of the doubt and they never got around to discussing it, so their anger has festered for quite a few years. It takes a shocking development for Leon to begin admitting his feelings, and it will take a lot more for Will to open up. There is the beginning of a reconciliation at the end of this book, but the full development of Will and Leon’s relationship will (hopefully) happen in the second book of this series – according to the blurb.

If you like billionaires who think they can “buy” revenge for a perceived wrong of the past, if a down-on-his-luck man desperate enough to do anything is your thing, and if you’re looking for a read that is as heartbreaking and seemingly hopeless as it is entertaining and hot, then you will probably like this first half of a longer story.


NOTE: This book was provided by Siren Publishing for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews. ( )