I may be a shy, lowly letter carrier, but when my beloved apartment building is threatened by a mysterious and reclusive billionaire, I’m willing to push the envelope. I’m going to march right up to Malcolm Blackberg’s fortress of fierceness and deliver a cease-and-desist notice he can’t refuse.
Except as soon as I get inside his gilded doors, things go sideways—I’m mistaken for Malcolm’s court-ordered emotional IQ coach, as if I’m acting out a wacky postal carrier cosplay.
They drag me in, a sacrificial lamb for the big bad. Make that big, smolderingly sexy bad.
So I make up a lesson involving a story about our building. He doesn’t seem happy. Can he tell that I have no idea what I’m doing?
Before I know it I’m flying around the country, up close and personality testing the most devilishly exasperating man I’ve ever met.
He’s scary for sure…but the way he sometimes looks at me turns my knees to jelly, and has me writing love letters to his gorgeous eyes, his mouthwatering smile, his impressive…package.
Our coaching sessions are getting hot-hot-hot, but I can’t let my guard down. If he ever finds out I’m a first-class fake, I’ll lose everything I’ve ever loved in this world!
| Title: | Return Billionaire to Sender |
| Author: | Annika Martin |
| Series: | Billionaires of Manhattan (Book 5) |
| Pages: | 346 |
| Genre(s): | Contemporary Romantic Comedy |
| Trope(s): | Billionaire Romance Grumpy Loves Sunshine Opposites Attract |
| Point of View: | |
| Location: | Manhattan, NYC, US |
| HEA: | ✔️ |
| Release Date: | 20th October, 2020 |
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Absolutely adored it
Oh. My. God. This book. Wow!
But let’s get the basics out the way before I start waxing lyrical about this amazing book! This is the 5th book in the Billionaires of Manhattan series. The books are connected as they all revolve around a group of friends from an apartment complex in NYC, but each book stands alone and has its own HEA.
Noelle is on a mission to save her building – due to be torn down by evil developer, Malcolm Blackberg. But Malcolm is ridiculously hard to get a meeting with – not that anyone would dare to meet the man face-to-face. So when a fortuitous set of circumstances grant Noelle an audience with Sir Grumps-a-lot, it seems like fate. Until Noelle realises Malcolm’s not who he pretends to be – all while she’s pretending she’s someone she’s not!
Noelle probably isn’t how you’d initially imagine a romance heroine – she’s shy, slightly dorky, rule-following mail carrier. But let me tell you she’s absolute perfection. It’s not just her loyalty, and determination to see the best in people, but the fact that she regularly pushes herself to do what needs to be done. Her internal pep-talks are all of us. But a lot of my love for her is in how Malcolm sees her. From the first, he sees something in Noelle that other people don’t – maybe even Noelle herself. It’s everything.
Malcolm himself is, well, the most gorgeous pain in the ass. He’s grumpy, he’s rude and he’s all business. Which makes it even more delicious that he’s so completely befuddled by Noelle and can’t understand what’s happening to him. There were times in the book where I was sure that Malcolm was FINALLY beginning to get some empathy only for him to prove me wrong. The change in him is so subtle as his relationship with Noelle progresses, that you barely even realise it’s happening. Ultimately, gruff, grumpy Malcolm just needs a big ol’ hug from the woman of his dreams.
“I found myself ugly crying, sniffling with delight and busting out a laugh…”
The physical relationship between Malcolm and Noelle doesn’t happen immediately but it’s teased almost from the get-go. It’s back to Malcolm’s instant fascination with Noelle – and her little butterfly bow tie thingies. He’s obsessed and it’s hilarious! And the tension only gets stronger the more time our couple spend together. And with each different butterfly tie Noelle wears. So when it’s time – happy sighs.
It’s really towards the end of the book when everything really started to impact me. Those feels. Goddammit those feels. We’re waiting for that inevitable shoe to drop, just when Malcolm and Noelle are realising that they are ridiculously perfect for each other and have a connection neither can deny. I wanted to keep reading almost as much as I didn’t want to – because I knew what was coming and I wanted Noelle and Malcolm to stay in their happy bubble.
In the end, everything works out wonderfully – I mean of course it does. But on the way there, I found myself ugly crying, sniffling with delight and busting out a laugh every now and then. I had so much fun on this book journey.
Simply, I adored this book. One of the best books of 2020 – it lifted my spirits and made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Annika Martin has just been added to my auto-buy list and I cannot recommend this book enough. If you love the ‘grumpy one falls for the sunshine one’ trope with hijinks, shenanigans, sexiness and laughter thrown in – you will love this book as much as I did. 5 huge stars.
Annika Martin loves fun, dirty stories, hot heroes, and wild, dramatic everything. She enjoys hanging out in Minneapolis coffee shops with her writer husband, and also likes birdwatching at her bird feeder alongside her two stunningly photogenic cats, especially when she should be writing. She’s heavy into running, music, saving the planet, taking long baths, and consuming chocolate suckers.
She’s worked a surprisingly large number of waitressing jobs, and has also worked in a plastics factory and the advertising trenches; her garden is total bee-friendly madness and her most unfavorite word is nosh or possibly fob. A NYT bestselling author, she has also written as RITA award-winning author Carolyn Crane.
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Billionaires of Manhattan Series:
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