Cash Is King
by Shanna Handel
My review:
I wasn’t planning to read or review this book this week, but I’ll confess the cover drew me in, so here I am. “Cash is King” is a story in the Bachman World of interconnected books by author Shanna Handel. It’s a ‘Beauties & Billionaires’ story. If you’ve never read any books about the Bachman Brotherhood, don’t worry – you’ll understand everything perfectly.
Having enjoyed many books by this author, I expected certain things when I started this one. I knew the characters would be interesting. I knew Bachman men are extremely alpha. I knew there would be good dialogue, some domestic discipline, and plenty of steam. I expected some sincere emotion. I didn’t expect a story that would put me on a rewarding emotional rollercoaster and make me cry more than once!
Ella is at a New York City cemetery in the middle of the night, visiting the grave of her previous boyfriend. She’s still traumatized by the night of his death and is still a ‘person of interest’ to the police. Everything in her life is a mess. She feels out of control. Cash Bachman is also in the cemetery that night. He’s trying to mentally reconcile the past and the future, while struggling to make sense of things that don’t make sense. When he encounters Ella in the cemetery by herself at such a late hour, his dominant, protective personality takes over. Ella can’t understand why she responds to him, but she does, and she allows his driver to take her home.
Cash wastes no time using his connections to learn everything he can about Ella, including her legal and financial problems. When he finds out she’d hired Preston Bachman as her attorney, Cash immediately decides what he’s going to do. When she meets with Preston to terminate him as her lawyer because she lost her job, (which wasn’t even going to let her stay current with the legal costs), she’s not expecting him to present her with a job offer from Cash. She also doesn’t expect the accompanying personal contract from Cash promising to cover all of her legal expenses if she signs an agreement making him her Dominant for three weeks. You’ll have to read the book to enjoy all that happens next, but I will tell you that the fast-paced story is sometimes startling and always entertaining.
A few observations I’d like to make, some of which involve a few of the great secondary characters in the book: When he and Ella take a trip to Greece, Cash keeps making special plans that are repeatedly ruined and it’s just so funny. Christian’s note absolutely wrecked me. I wanted to reach into the book multiple times and hug little Janie. I’d like to bake with Betty and play Candy Land with Ace. I ended up with a couple of unanswered questions, but the overall story was so great I will let that go.
“Cash is King” has a delicious blend of suspense, love, hatred, loyalty, betrayal, D/s, setting and pushing boundaries, and the endless voyage of self-discovery. It also makes you think about the family we are given, the family we choose, and the family that chooses us. After an excellent conclusion the author leaves us with an epilogue that has me eagerly anticipating the next book, which sounds fantastic.