REVIEW: The Bastard by Lisa Renee Jones

In The Bastard (Filthy Duet #1) by Lisa Renee Jones, From the moment Eric Mitchell found out that he was the bastard son of the head of the Kingston Motor empire, he was told he’d never be a true part of the family. Regardless of his DNA. But after the death of his mother at the end of his high school career, his hopes to become a part of the Kingston family while he grieved were dashed right away. Eric had his intelligence and his work ethic to fall back on, though, thanks to growing up on the wrong side of the tracks. So after showing up his half-brother Isaac at Harvard, he proved himself an important member of the SEAL team during his time in the Navy, before starting a career with his good friend Grayson Bennett where he started his own empire.

“You have me now, but you might regret it, because this *bastard* is going to own you before tonight is over, Harper.”

All it took to sidetrack Eric, though, was an encounter with Harper at a Kingston event. He normally wouldn’t make an appearance but he was more than glad he did that night. Even if it would haunt him for the next six years until he and Harper would meet again face to face. For even though they found out they were step-siblings that night, the chemistry between them was undeniable. After one steamy, intense encounter, Eric and Harper both go their own separate ways, only to have him drawn into the family drama six years later when she needs his help sorting things out. With something weird and seemingly underhanded going on at Kingston Motors, it will bring Harper and Eric under fire. And possibly as targets for the dirty dealings.

‘This man could hurt me, and that has nothing to do with the company or the family. It’s all about us and what I feel for him that I’m afraid to name.’

Holy Cliffhanger! With all the drama, angst, manipulating, and family issues of a soap opera, The Bastard will raise your eyebrows and your pulse as step-siblings Eric & Harper fight their combustible attraction.

“I’m angry at you for making me want you so fucking bad that I had to come here.”
Those words are raw and real, vibrating along my nerve endings. “Are you going to make me regret it?”
“There are many things I want to make you feel, Harper, but regret is not one of them.”

So a couple of things first. This is book one in a duet about Harper and Eric–titled the “Filthy Duet”–told from dual POVs and it is a spinoff of the Dirty Rich series. You can read these two books as a pair all on their own, but it will give some mild spoilers from the Dirty Rich novels. And, as you can see from above, this is a forbidden romance about step-siblings who become a couple, so this may not be everyone’s cup of tea. (They are *not* blood related, didn’t grow up together, and are grown adults.) Other than that, this was classic Lisa Renee Jones. The heat level was amped up by a thousand, there was a ton of emotional interactions, and the plot just kept twisting and turning right up until the final page.

Eric and Harper had me alternating between liking them and then getting frustrated with them. As individuals and as a couple, I did enjoy them overall. Harper was a smart woman who had held her own in a sea of people who were basically stabbing her in the back the past six years. She could be emotional but she also tried to think about things logically. Now Eric, he was all about numbers and mathematical logic. I’ll let you find out exactly what that means–it’s really cool!!–but suffice it to say, there was a reason he was a self-made billionaire. And it wasn’t just his job with Grayson Bennett.

The chemistry between Harper and Eric was truly incredible and leapt off the pages. They had some smoldering hot sexy time scenes (this *is* a Lisa Renee Jones book, after all!) that in my view more than made up for the level of angst and the rehashing of the whole “The Bastard and The Princess” thing. The one part that did bug me a bit is a pet peeve of mine: communication. Or the lack of it. It was rather extreme and ended up being the biggest issue at the end of the book, the cliffhanger directly stemming from Harper not coming clean about something from six years ago. But I’m sure it will make for an explosive beginning to book two, The Princess.

Oh, Lisa Renee Jones, the things you do to your fans! We now have to wait until January 2019 to get the sequel to The Bastard and find out how this couple will solve the issues at their family business and somehow end up with their HEA. But I have faith LRJ won’t let us down.
 

Book Info:

Publication: Published November 14th 2018 | Julie Patra Publishing | Filthy Duet #1

ERIC MITCHELL’S STORY
I’m the bastard child, son to the mistress, my father’s backup heir to the Mitchell empire. He sent me to Harvard. I left and became a Navy SEAL, but I’m back now, and I finished school on my own dime. I’m now the right hand man to Grayson Bennett, the billionaire who runs the Bennett Empire. I’m now a few months from being a billionaire myself. I don’t need my father’s company or his love. My “brother” can have it. I will never go back there. I will never be the mistake my father made, the way he was the mistake my mother made.

And then she walks in the door, the princess I’d once wanted more than I’d wanted my father’s love. She wants me to come back. She says my father needs to be saved. I don’t want to save my father but I do want her. Deeply. Passionately. More than I want anything else.

But she’s The Princess and I’m The Bastard. We don’t fit. We don’t belong together and yet she says he needs me, that she needs me. We’re like sugar and spice, we don’t mix, but I really crave a taste. Just one. What harm can just one taste do?

Don’t miss the full FILTHY DUET:
THE BASTARD
THE PRINCESS (coming soon)

***The Bastard was originally titled Dirty Rich Bastard, but when I decided Eric needed two books to tell his story, I wanted to make sure it was clear these two books could be read independently of the Dirty Rich series.