61. The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren

listened on Libby

352 pgs.

2024
Adult RomCom
Finished 7/6/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.14
My rating: 3.75
Setting: Contemporary exotic island in the far reaches of the Pacific Ocean

My comments: Somewhat typical Christina Lauren, where there's a decent story, quite a bit of sex, and everything - including quite a bit into the future - is all wrapped up tidily. There are a couple of thigs that I did not like...the protagonist's pink hair didn't work for me.  The other is the insistence of Liam to not be completely honest with Anna about what had happened 11 years previously.  It seems so stupid because de seems a pretty honest person.  Watching the indulgences of the super, ultra rich vs. the poverty of people tat don't have enough money for medical assistance just truly drove me crazy.  But it sure was an entertaining story.

Goodreads synopsis:  Christina Lauren, returns with a delicious new romance between the buttoned-up heir of a grocery chain and his free-spirited artist ex as they fake their relationship in order to receive a massive inheritance.

Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam “West” Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she’d signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways.

Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.

Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents—his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife.

But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.