This novel was a good first effort, but it read more like fan fiction. The concept was good, but it wasn't really executed well. It was sort of like that author just pieced together a lot of plot points that she like from other authors. The story was also weirdly disjointed. It'd go from softly romantic to downright raunchy without transition. Also, even though it technically ends on a cliff-hanger, its really not because its obvious where the story is going next.

But I think with time and a good editor, this author could produce a better book.

With life scars both Kenzie and Nicholas, are a great match.
They are friends helping eachother heal.
With that friendship more feelings begin to evolve and lead to more.
This book had me turning pages and not wanting to put it down.
Only downfall it’s a cliffhanger and now we have to wait :P

So I normally find contemporary romances hard to get into but this one was great! I always find contract romances to be quite fun and this was a blast. Thanks for the review opportunity!

3.5/5

I had high hopes going into this book, but it took me a long time to finish and by the end I was just glad to be done with the story, honestly because it was just so super wordy and overly descriptive. I liked the main characters and their interactions, but not everything needs to be written in a detailed format.

Super wordy and super slow. I couldn't really get into this one and found the characters sort of bland.


Many thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I finished this - That is the positive part. How or why, I'm not really sure.

There is something I like about the characters, and maybe I kept hoping something was going to happen in this story. There are so many opportunities for a little conflict, a little drama - something...anything.

The story is wordy, and I honestly thought the wrong file has been uploaded to Net Galley the way this abruptly ends. Even for a cliffhanger it's a piss=poor ending spot.

The amount of development & grammatical editing needed is a bit astounding. I get an ARC might have some errors, This has a lot more than some and is so repetitive I'd skip pages at time just to get to new material. it could have been half as long and covered the same storyline.

Yet, something makes me want to read the next book, I'm curious enough about the characters that I'm tempted to read the next book.

Honestly this On His Terms took me forever to read. I just could not get into it no matter how hard I tried. I felt like the author had a very good base and to be honest It was bvery wordy. That being said, I adored both Kenzie and Nicholas's characters and their slow building relationship. It's not often you read stories like this anymore. You will be immediantely intrigued and starved to learn more about Kenzie and Nichola's past which was one of the reasons I had to continue reading. It did get better towards the end and I was glad for that. This book did end on a cliffhanger so we will have to wait and see how the story ends. Happy reading!

"Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review."

Loved this book very much. It had just enough sweet, sexy romance and the storyline was great! I highly recommend!

I really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, there were so many grammar and spelling issues, unnecessary or misplace commas or words, and story lines left in the dark. I am huge on continuity and can easily spot those, so Chapter 28 was displeasing. A newspaper headline states Seattle Playboy, but he is actually located in New York? And this error continues onto the next chapters. The hype over her ex and the possibility that he could be closer than she thinks was left to ruminate in the dark. The ending itself was severely lacking, but set you up for a sequel. However, the book itself left little to be desired, and since there isn't an immediate sequel, easily forgotten. Like I stated, I really wanted to like this book, however, the bad outweighed what was good. I believe the book has potential if more time is spent on it.

The problem I had with this story was that it somehow managed to be overly detailed in some areas and not detailed enough in others. Mostly I thought it was strange that an abused woman who FLED an abusive man would ever agree to: A. meet with a stranger no matter how much he was vetted, and B. would agree to be in the public eye with her ex presumably out there somewhere.
Overall I just didn't feel this story and add to that the cliffhanger ending--without warning I might add--and I could barely find myself interested enough to care what happens.

The rare romance novel with no sex. That's not why I gave it 3 stars though. The chemistry was pretty hot and fairly believable even though they don't do anything. There were a lot of similarities to other books in the same genre. It was oddly reminiscent to 50 Shades of Grey in some areas. I did like the idea of the "escort service" that is just companionship. It was an interesting premise. I don't like that the book just ended in the middle of the story. The writing was a little bit contrived with the excessive use of "him" and "her" for people we aren't supposed to like. I'm not sure I care enough to finish the story when the next book comes out.

Nicholas is a billionaire burnt once before and not ready to risk his heart again. Kenzie has been hurt herself and is not ready to risk herself or others because of her abuse. They meet and there is instant chemistry but also conflict and walls. Is it possible that something that starts out as an arrangement can become more or should become more. There are some parts in this book that can be seen as a trigger so be aware when you read this. Thank you for allowing me to read this .

Ugh. Wow. I’m either really, really grumpy today (or, maybe everyday, I guess), or this was really bad. I kind of want you all to go read it now to tell me if I’m right or not. (I think the milk’s bad, y’all. Take a big whiff of it and tell me what you think!).

So, my bullshit meter was tripped pretty much throughout this entire book. Here’s the basics:

1. I find it hard to believe that an abused woman who left her attacker has no problem agreeing to “fake date” with a millionaire who tells her upfront that photos of her will be posted online, and that paparazzi will follow her everywhere. I’m thinking someone like Kenzie would want to keep a low profile, given her circumstances. (But, in all honesty, maybe her ex is dead. I started skimming at some point around the 45% mark of the story, so it’s entirely possible that I missed something.)

2. Here we have yet another gorgeous 30-year-old millionaire hero. ‘Cause that happens all the time in real life, huh? And also, why are the paparazzi so interested in some business man? That seemed super odd to me.

3. While we’re on the topic of our hot millionaire, Nicholas: I’m not sure why the press started drawing conclusions about his personal life. Aren’t lots of millionaires seen with different women at different events? Why would they assume he can’t maintain a relationship and has something to hide just because he likes to date different women? Sounds like typical guy behavior to me. If I was Nicholas, I’d consider suing the tabloids for defamation.

4. If a guy drives by and his car splashes me, soaking my pants and forcing me to buy new pants before work, I would gladly take any money he offered to pay for my dry cleaning. I wouldn’t tell him it was no trouble and try, repeatedly, to shove the money back into his hand. He’s doing a decent thing, honey. Let him do it!

​There were other irksome moments, too:

The cover:
The cover of this books hints at playful romance, maybe even romantic comedy. Cutesy. There’s nothing funny or cutesy here. Nothing at all. And I don’t mean that it’s not funny because it’s emotional or dramatic or anything. It’s just boring.
​
Glacial pacing:
Holy God, does this book move slow! On a positive note, if the authoring biz doesn’t work out for this author, I think she can open and run a high-end escort service, because Jesus, she’s really thought all that through. I think every logistical question anyone could ever come up with is covered in the first few chapters of this book.

Descriptions:
And while the escort business was described in excruciating detail, I don’t really know what anyone in the story looks like. I didn’t find any descriptions of Kenzie or Nicholas.

Kenzie the Perfect:
Kenzie is a paragon of virtue. She’s super hard working, so sweet you’ll get cavities if you spend too much time with her, beautiful (or, at I assume so. It’s not like the author describes how she looks), and generous to a fault. I have no interest in reading about paragons of virtue. I want to read about realistic heroines, and real women have flaws and quirks. Kenzie’s pretty much a posable Barbie Doll.

No sex:
I have no problem with clean romance. I really don’t. Sometimes I even prefer it to spicy romance. But when a book is a clean romance, I think the author should disclose that loud-and-clear, because the clear trend in romance these days is explicit sex scenes. If you’re offering something out of the norm, you should tell your readers that so they aren’t disappointed.

Cliffhangers suck:
These days, readers expect a heads-up if your book includes a cliffhanger. Some of us think that cliffhangers are nothing short of emotional blackmail. Some of us don’t appreciate an author’s attempt to blackmail readers into buying their next book. Some of us (*cough*me*cough*) think this book should have come with a cliffhanger warning.
​
In the end, this book earns it’s one star because I enjoyed Kenzie’s boss, Bridget. She gave off a serious Miranda Priestly vibe that I quite enjoyed. Too bad the rest of the story didn’t match up to Bridget’s awesomeness.
​
Full disclosure: We received an ARC from NetGalley, free of charge.

And don't forget to follow the Romance Rehab blog for more rants, raves, and other fun romance-y stuff: http://www.romancerehab.com/

This book was really good! I didn’t know it ended in a cliffhanger so now I’m bummed I have to wait for the rest of the story but I love the way these two incredibly broken people are attempting to help heal eachother. Really good concept that is new but familiar.

I’m going to be brief about On His Terms, mainly because I’ve just shut the Kindle on a cliffhanger… I dislike cliffhangers so very much. You can take a thread and weave it through every single story in a series, for me that is how you grab my attention to continue, not hold the ending hostage. But… that’s my style of reading and not everyone else’s. That’s not said to be mean, simply a fact for me.

I gave On His Terms a 3.5 stars rating on my blog, for the outside spots where I post reviews I’ll round that up to a 4 star – for there are compelling, interesting parts to this romance I simply had to get to almost a quarter of the book before I found those parts through all of the words involved. I am not about to tell an author how to write for I certainly do not have this talent.. yet, there is such a overpowering amount of words to this story, especially the beginning that, for me, if they had been trimmed down a bit I might have gotten involved with this couple far earlier in their story.

Parts of this story are told through flashbacks and since this romance does deal with Kenzie’s past which involves physical abuse, there is one brief moment that might be a trigger. Overall, this is an interesting story, one of growth and dealing with the past. I frankly don’t know if I’ll continue the series.

*I received an e-ARC of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley. That does not change what I think of this story. It is my choice to leave a review giving my personal opinion about this book.*

I was so torn by this book. So, I'm going to break it down into three categories: Good, bad, and ugly.

The Good: The story line was what immediately drew me in. A girl who escapes an abusive relationship is rebuilding her life...slowly and painfully by working 2 jobs and living in a crappy apartment. Cue the billionaire playboy who comes in and makes everything right again...well, sort of. He offers a job pretending to be his girlfriend so he can save face with the tabloids (may I just pause and say this would make more sense if he was an actor turned businessman or something...you don't typically see businessmen in the tabloids...feels too much like the author was trying to channel Christian Grey here). Another good element: sometimes it seems difficult for authors to write two different points of view and give them distinctive voices. This author was able to do that exceptionally well.

The Bad: I was confused by the prologue. Including the word "Flashback" AND writing the flashback in italics seemed juvenile and as if the author thinks the readers wouldn't understand. I promise you, we do. Also, I didn't really feel the connection between Kenzie and Nicholas. The story had promise, but just fell flat.

The Ugly: Good lord, someone get this author an editor PLEASE. The run on sentences, incorrect grammar, and unnecessary use of particular cusswords...it was distracting and annoying. As much as I wanted to keep reading, I also wanted to stop reading just because of the writing.

For the bad and the ugly, I gave this book 2 stars.

On His Terms by Madison Quinn is book One in The Arrangement Series. This is the story of Nicholas and Kenzie.
Nicholas needs a pretend girlfriend that will build a image he is trying to make after it has taken a hit. Not really trusting anymore after being burned he thinks this business arrangement will work out great to set the tone he wants to display.
Kenzie has been working to jobs along with trying to keep herself going after escaping a very abusive relationship. When she gets this chance at a job offer that will pay than she makes now it is hard to say no to it. But they do go forward with trying to keep this all business but their growing attraction and feelings isn't giving them at chance to stay all business for long.
Since this is the first book in the series it does build somewhat of the ground work for some of the other books I felt. I think this is the first book by this author and she has done a great job starting out. Hope to read more of her books soon.

I am a sucker for a good fake romance and I really loved this story. Madison Quinn does an amazing job of really giving depth to her characters and I adored both Kenzie and Nicholas. If I were just reviewing the story then this would be be a 5 star review from me....BUT the ARC that I received is in desperate need of a proofreader and an editor.

It appears this is Ms. Quinn's debut novel and it is an amazing start to what I hope is a successful writing career but there were too many repetitive moments in this book. I did not necessarily need to read what a character is thinking if they are just going to say it a few lines later. There were also numerous typographical type errors where words are missing or the wrong word is used (ex-there instead of then) and it actually becomes distracting. I can usually overlook a few typos because I certainly make a ton of them myself. But when typos appear on every other page they become hard to overlook.

I am giving this 4 stars because I think the story and the characters make this a very worthy read and since this is release day I have purchased my own copy and I hope to find a much cleaner text than I received in the ARC.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

We’ve seen this storyline before: girl escapes abusive boyfriend and runs into the arms of a gazillionaire playboy who isn’t looking for love but finds it in the most unexpected way. The heroine, Kenzie, ends up working for a fancypants “rent-a-date” service, where she meets our hero, Nicholas, a super rich financial investor guy being hounded by the press for his dating habits. It takes the author a long time (almost half of the book) to get these two to finally meet and start interacting. Unfortunately, things progress really slowly until the last few chapters before ending with an abrupt cliffhanger.

I gave this book 2 stars because the last few chapters showed potential. I think with proper editing and proofreading, it could have been a lot better. The first half of the book could have been condensed to 2 or 3 chapters, and the author could have spent more time developing Nicholas and Kenzie’s supposed romance. There were also several typos and spelling/grammatical errors.

A copy was provided to me by the author for a fair and honest review

Overall rating: ⅖ It was… fine

Heroine (Kenzie): ⅘ I liked her, she was sincere and sweet like the pastries she makes at the bakery

Hero (Nicholas): ⅖ He’s a nice guy, but he’s defined himself by what his ex did and how much money he has

Triggers: Abuse - Discussions about and actions by an ex boyfriend of Kenzie’s and a relation of Nicholas’

Cliffhanger: Yes. Big yes on that front

Personal Review: It was… repetitive. The POV character would think about something for about a page and then just say the same thing aloud to the other characters in a way that didn’t move the scenes along. Either think and then do or say and then do, don’t bog down the flow of a scene with both. The book also either provides information repeatedly or forgoes setting up situations entirely. For example, the pair spend two chapters on a boat ride together from Nicholas’ POV and then in Kenzie’s next chapter it basically has a whole page dedicated to a ‘last time on…’ for the same trip despite us having spent the past two chapters on that boat with them. It’s not the only time this weird way of trying to show how both characters felt about a situation between switching POV’s but it was the most jarring.

The leads don’t truly meet until well over the 20% mark, before then we get a VERY detailed account of Kenzie’s work week and a quick look into Nicholas’. Most of which is irrelevant since Kenzie’s work week changes drastically once she enters into the arrangement with Nicholas.

All of their feelings are conveyed through inner monologues rather than in actions. It was odd, both were so scared of jeopardizing the contract that neither acted as more than a halfway decent friend to the other. Nicholas would think about Kenzie in a sexualized manner for almost a page and then just tell her she looks ‘nice’ for a date and Kenzie was much the same way. Moreover, besides a fascination with holding hands in the car and a kiss on the cheek at the end of the night, the pair shows almost no signs of being romantically interested in the other. It is a very chaste book, and I like my romance novels to have a little more action in them.

Almost right up to the end Nicholas just wants to bed Kenzie to get it out of his system but doesn’t want to break the contract. Now this sexual attraction needs to be there there, don’t get me wrong, but there is nothing even coming close to acting on it. Also, there is no real sexual tension between the two, just fear that the other will turn out like their ex. Fear is a hard emotion to build a romance novel around. In addition to the fear, everything is treated like a business transaction (because it is) with only a tiny bit of sexual desire sprinkled in on either side.

I tried to like this book, I like the arrangement turned romance type stories I’ve read or seen the past but this book just didn’t do it for me.