DNF because I found the first sex scene highly problematic - it's sexual assault in my understanding and just it's the heroine acting like that with the hero, doesn't make it OK. I am all for reversal of toxic tropes but it should call out the toxicity and destroy it, not perpetuating it.

I didn't like the whole tone of the story - the stereotyping of the heroine as a pretty bombshell, the hero as the diligent prince with the playboy father, it didn't work for me at all.

DNF at 20%,

This book had so much potential but ugh, I find it hard to like the characters. The heroine did things at the start that was an immediate hard limit for me, and I found that I didn't particularly care about the hero and his sob story either, so...

I was a bit disappointed that I didn't like this since it's so widely loved by the people I follow on Twitter.

The blurb of Lush Money was basically everything I’d want in a romance (gender swapped billionaire trope, diverse characters, royalty) but something about the execution fell a little flat for me. Don’t get me wrong — I enjoyed this book and thought it was well-written. I just found it difficult to get into it at times. It wasn’t one of those “stay up all night reading” books which is what I’d hoped for. Still, it was an interesting premise with some hot chemistry between the leads. There is an early scene of questionable consent between the characters which didn’t make me feel great about their relationship at first, but the author did try to redeem their relationship in the end. Overall, it was enjoyable if not amazing. I will probably read this author’s next book.

This book made me uncomfortable at so many points. First of all, the blurb makes it sound like the hero chooses to enter this 'contract' willingly but the reality is that it's his father who forces him to do this. So sexual desire or not, the MCs interactions in the beginning were cringe-worthy in the extreme.
Coming to the story and writing style, it seemed like I was reading the script for a badly-written and unrealistic soap opera.
To sum up: Not my thing

I found this book to be fresh and entertaining. Latina woman Roxanna Medina is a self-made billionaire and a graduate from an Ivy League school. She is wanting to have a child and has worked out a deal with a King from a small country who is in desperate need of money for his son the Prince to be of service. She, of course, has had all of the proper tests done and all of this has been done without his knowledge. Prince Mateo Santos is working on a new type of grape for his region at the University of Davis and does not have time to be bothered by this request about a contract and meeting Roxanna. After meeting her and agreeing with the terms he changes them on the second meeting. She agrees for she wants a chance to be a mother. This story though really does not take off until you get further into the book when she goes to his country and starts to meet different people and then because of an accident to a person close to her she must go to Kansas where she is from, a small town. It is there that the story melds into a very nice love story with two people. That is until you find out that the people behind the scenes that want to destroy each of them are the people that raised them. When she professes her love for him he still is upset and she walks out. He then must find a way to fix their relationship if possible. Well maybe not, maybe she will try to fix their relationship who knows? Read this very good story to find out. It has very good characters and will keep you entertained.

Oh man. I don't quite know what to say about Lush Money. I was very into the idea of a female billionaire and everyone and their mother knows that I'm a sucker for the marriage-of-convenience trope. Then, there were some pretty high praise floating around Twitter, so I was genuinely pumped for this book. You can imagine my utter disappointment when I found myself not caring for it and ultimately DNFing it. I'll start off by saying this was likely a case of the book's style not working for me. Given that so many others enjoyed it, if you are interested in the book, I say go for it. For me, it was just a bit too old-school. There's nothing wrong with old-school books, but it's simply not the type of romance I enjoy reading. I had a truly tough time with both of these main characters. I love a good ice-cold, no-nonsense heroine, but Roxanne was also almost robotic in her persona. It was very tough to get a handle on her emotions and her motivations, so I wound up being very frustrated. Mateo was a bit more expressive than Roxanne was, but there were other aspects of his personality that I did not care for, including some of his cruel thoughts. Rooting for these two as a couple was even more complicated for me because I actually found their relationship toxic, especially with the way Roxanne manipulated and used Mateo. I just didn't find it very romantic. I felt like all they did was get angry at each other and have sex. This could have changed beyond the point that I DNFed, but there is really only so much I could personally take. I'll probably give this author another chance when she releases another book, but I'm still very sad that Lush Money failed to impress me.

Lush Money by Angelina M. Lopez is an incredible ride of a romance novel!

Billionaire Roxanne Medina offers Príncipe Mateo Ferdinand Juan Carlos de Esperanza y Santos a marriage of convenience to save his floundering kingdom. All Mateo has to do is marry Roxanne and spend three nights month with Roxanne trying to conceive an heir. If Mateo fulfills his end of the bargain for one year, Roxanne will give him a huge settlement and they can both move on with their lives.

I loved how Angelina M. Lopez turned the billionaire trope on it's head by writing an tough, hold no prisoners female billionaire. It was beautiful watching Roxanne slowly start to open up to Mateo, who was so wonderful, and slowly fall in love with him.

Lush Money is an impressive debut and I can't wait to read more from Angelina M. Lopez and her fabulous Filthy Money series.

Thank you NetGalley, Carina Press and Angelina M. Lopez for the advance reader copy!

Female billionaire - you had me at that! I have read sooo many alpha billionaire books that this was a totally refreshing change. I also liked the fact that there is no insta-love here. Insta-lust for sure though. Roxanne is in total control - until feelings happen - even if she doesn't realize it. I also appreciated that Mateo called her out on her apologies. Women, even the toughest ones, tend to offer meaningless apologies when confronted by someone who doesn't like our actions. The problem is twofold - first in a lot of cases we owe no one an apology for taking charge or running the show and second - when we do need to make a sincere apology people tend not to take it seriously (I'm looking at you Roxanne Medina).

I also really liked Mateo - and I felt badly for him. His family life did a number on him. He really took a serious hit in the self-esteem department. He also is more of an avoider than a take care of things head on. He didn't put his head in the sand - but he also singlemindedly focused on only one thing, and ignore a lot of the issues that needed handling.

Some readers may have issues with the initial ambiguous consent related to sex - but it is an important part of the plot and of the character development.

I loved Roxanne and Mateo together - and I really want to see where Angelina Lopez is going with his siblings stories.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley, but these opinions are my own!

Roxanne Medina has worked her way up from nothing to be a billionaire before she's thirty. What she wants now is nothing except a child. But she wants her child to know its father. And that's why she enters into a a business arrangement. Or, tries to. She researches all of the principalities and found one that needs money. It doesn't hurt that the heir apparent is also known as the Golden God.
Príncipe Mateo Ferdinand Juan Carlos de Esperanza y Santos is trying to save his kingdom from the degradations and excesses of his parents. Is a marriage with Roxanne the way to do it? Maybe not but it's certainly one way. It's too bad she's so infuriating, treating him as if he were one of her employees at best and more than a little dim at worst. But Shes's hot and he wants her but her personality leaves a lot to be desired. And he doesn't want just a cold relationship with his child's mother so he bargains that one of their three nights a month will be spent dating. And it's in those dates that he begins to find a woman with whom he could fall in love.
The Big Misunderstanding went on a little long at the end but the ending made the characters learn to talk to each other..

Four stars
This book came out October 14th
ARC kindly provided by Carina Press and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

. If you're looking for a book adventure with a strong heroine billionaire, a wild Prince, a setting that's magical, and lots of family secrets to keep our characters on their toes - this a refreshing and welcome change! Let's not forget a handful of seriously steamy scenes that will smoke your e-reader.

Check out my full review on the blog for more info on this must read romance!

Heat Factor: It’s hot. 🔥 Whew.
Character Chemistry: At first it’s like, “you’re really hot, we’re having sex,” but then eventually the emotional chemistry starts to sizzle.
Plot: Babies solve life problems (?) by creating more life problems (!!!)
Overall: I’m interested to see what this author does next.

Boundaries! They’re so important! Does the heroine have any? I had read the blurb before requesting an advance copy of this book, so I knew that we were getting into a marriage of convenience, but I was so disgusted by the heroine’s behavior in the first couple of chapters that I wasn’t sure she (or, by extension, the book) could be redeemed. Of course, the whole point (presumably) of the first couple chapters was to set us up so that we have some room to grow. I also caught myself after the first chapter and said, “If the hero were behaving like this, would I still be having these feelings?” I came to the conclusion of “yes,” but I also found it interesting that this book made me ask the question at all.

What happened? The heroine, Roxanne Medina, has decided that she wants a child. (As an aside, she always refers to this child as a girl, because apparently she’s not considered the possibility that she might have a son. If you’ve never had this experience, I assure you it has nothing to do with preference, per se, and it does happen.) Roxanne Medina has a ton of baggage, so she only wants a legitimate child with impeccable antecedents, and she wants this all to happen on her own terms. Did I mention that Roxanne is a billionaire who pulled herself up from a terrible childhood by her bootstraps? Of course she’s tightly wound.

Roxanne does her homework and finds someone with a lineage that would make anybody envious and who is also desperate enough to take her money in exchange for what is a pretty repellent agreement: 3 nights per month (peak ovulation, obvi) for one year in exchange for a divorce and a ton of money. And a child, hopefully. Of course, she wants the father to have a role in her child’s life. She’s not a monster. As a parent, I have to wonder what the hell she was thinking, considering that parenting is a frigging marathon that requires pretty much constant teamwork. But I guess she’s just not there yet. It is hard to imagine just how impactful this situation is until you’re already in the middle of it.

So Dr. Prince (or is it Prince Dr.? I’m going with the same order used for titled officers…) Mateo-with-a-lot-of-other-names is strong armed by his father, whose selfish excess has bankrupted his kingdom, into marrying Roxanne. But Mateo, he has principles. He is just a vintner with a PhD who is trying to do good things for his people. He works in the dirt and avoids his parents like the plague. When Mateo realizes what his father has done, he feels like he’s been whored out on the kingdom’s behalf. And he’s not wrong! He’s totally right! But we haven’t gotten to the parts that really repulsed me early on. I digress.

Roxanne’s approach to this relationship is clinical because of course she has to maintain control. We have very few glimpses into her perspective early on, allowing for very little empathy with her manipulative and domineering behavior. On the second night, when she and Mateo are married (he is unaware this is happening until it happens!!!), we get a little peek from her loyal attorney into why people might like her, but then she has sex with Mateo and walks out of the hotel room like the worst sort of John a handful of pages later.

AND THEN when Mateo is like, “Yeah, I’m not a prostitute. We need to talk this through,” and she’s like, “Your belief that you have power here is adorable.” it’s like...gross.

How on earth do you recover from that? As I intimated above, I stuck it through because I wanted to see just where Lopez was going with this, especially because I felt like we were doing a gender role reversal thing with the powerful, wealthy, billionaire being the heroine rather than the hero. And sticking it through was worth it. Why? You may well ask. First, because we’re talking a total of possibly 5 chapters, which is really very little of the book. But also because the two-dimensional flatness of people that you see at first glance is not the whole person. Because there is nuance in life, and sometimes it takes a minute for people to get one the same page. Because sometimes people who really need to be in control also need to find a safe space to let go of that control. And Lopez explores all of these things with Mateo and Roxanne. Because Roxanne is not the only one with baggage. And of course just for fun because he’s a prince and she’s a billionaire, these two are also susceptible to living out their lives in public, so safe spaces are somewhat hard to come by.

Short story, on Roxanne’s side we’re dealing with the whole I-can’t-get-emotionally-involved-in-this-because-emotions-are-messy-and-I’m-going-to-get-hurt nonsense, while on Mateo’s side we’re dealing with the whole I-can’t-live-with-the-failure-that-I-had-nothing-to-do-with-except-that-I-ran-away-instead-of-dealing-with-things-head-on inferiority complex nonsense. These guys are all about the nonsense, but so are a lot of people, and in this book I found them likable. Can’t say I’ve ever had either of their problems, but I did sympathize with where they were. Meanwhile, they’re falling for each other, so we also get all the we-have-an-arrangement-but-I-want-more-but-is-that-going-to-be-okay angst. The gender role reversal is executed all the way through with Mateo trying to figure out what being a man looks like to him in this relationship where he's next in line to be king and his partner really does have all the money and all the power. There’s a lot going on, and I’d argue that Lopez fleshes things out well, and her prose is engaging and well constructed. I wanted to stay on this roller coaster with Roxanne and Mateo. I was rooting for them to get out of their own way and find their HEA.

Oh, also, there is enough Spanish in this book (both protagonists being Spanish speakers, the hero a native speaker) that I periodically asked my husband for translations to make sure I was reading it correctly. Lopez does a solid job of clarifying the Spanish before or after the actual statements, so even if you have no Spanish at all, as long as you’re attuned to the situation, you’ll grasp what is meant, even without a direct translation.

I absolutely adored this book. I will admit that when it started, I was concerned. I mean, Roxanne starts off unlikeable to the extreme and there were some very questionable decisions made. In her defense, Roxanne assumed that the King had talked to Matteo about the contract she'd negotiated with the king, but, of course, he had not. This winds up resulting in some pretty dehumanizing situations for Matteo and Roxanne apologizes, but seems incapable of making different decisions. However, as the book progresses and as the walls start to crumble, the relationship that builds between Matteo and Roxanne turns into a sexy, sweet, and fun partnership. I loved seeing Matteo and Roxanne support one another.

I think the side characters are definitely some of the best parts of this novel though, too. I'm so excited for Sofia's book!

After seeing a couple of reviews for this book, I immediately decided to request (and received!) an ARC. I don't even read a ton of contemporary anymore but the idea of a gender swap tropey story (female billionaire! Marriage of convenience!) and I couldn't resist. This book, which had the potential for a lot of icky based on the premise, managed to develop the characters so fully with vulnerabilities and motives that worked so well. The writing was easy to get lost into (I wanted more time in glorious Spain and at vineyards, they felt so real). The chemistry was sizzling, and the ending was perfect. There was a ton of good side characters, and I was ecstatic to see Sofia's getting a book.

A very solid debut by Angelina Lopez. I can't wait for more!

This was a fun marriage of convenience where the heroine held the cards. I loved the hate to lovers dynamic and how they came together as friends. I love the intrigue of the blackmail, the brother, the royal family. I really enjoyed this book and I can't wait to read the next in the series.

I haven't stopped gushing about this book. It's old skool romance for the twenty-first century. Roxanne and Mateo slay me--I. Cried three times. The chapter titling is clever and helps set the pacing for a story spread out over almost a year. The sexy times in this book are class A. I can't wait for the next book;

Lush Money is a debut novel by Angelina M Lopez. It's a classic marriage-of-convenience romance, between a head-strong, brilliant, self-made billionaire heroine and an honorable, intelligent, impoverished prince hero.

Roxanne had worked hard her entire life to build up her own multinational empire, to overcome her sad and neglected childhood. She always knew what she wanted and would make it happen. And what she wanted right now was to have a blue blood baby, a fairy-tale princess, without any complicated mess from having a husband. She thought Prince Mateo would be her perfect candidate, considering his financial struggles...

Prince Mateo was a world renowned viticulturist 🍇, running his own research group at UC Davis to improve the quality of a special grape vine from his home country. He had put in his sweat and blood to rescue their dying traditional winemaking business that was on the verge of bankruptcy due to his parents' negligent and extravagant lifestyle. The contract Roxanne had offered and the money to go with it seemed like a temporary solution to buy him some more time until he could finish his vine development.

Their relationship started off on the wrong foot: she was stubborn, self-centered, and presumptuous, he was unyielding and upright. But they had one thing in common: their flaming desires and mutual attraction to each other. Slowly Mateo has discovered the real brave, kind, and compassionate Roxanne. They had stood and fought side-by-side, gone through many obstacles to finally be true to themselves, to one another.

I really enjoy the story, the character development and their chemistry throughout the book, I've also learned more about viticulture and winemaking process. Although the writing sometimes seemed slightly hard to follow with very long sentences and some parts were a bit dragging, that did not take away my satisfaction! And I'm really looking forward to Princess Sofia's story next! It's a 4-and-1/2 ⭐️, steamy hot 🔥, off-the-chart sexy 📖, will leave you blush and fan yourself!

*ARC received from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.* ✨Release date October 14, 2019!

I received an ARC of this book to read through NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. Lush Money by Angelina M. Lopez is the first book in her Filthy Rich series. The story is a seriously hot modern day fairy tale based on the marriage of convenience trope. Billionaire Roxanne Medina can buy anything she wants and what she wants is a daughter. Principe Mateo Ferdinand Juan Carlos de Esperanza y Santos will inherit a kingdom someday but right now that kingdom is in serious trouble because of his greedy father who’s just offered him up for stud service. Explosive chemistry aside these two will soon come to the realization that what they are feeling for each other can’t be contracted and that they will have to work together to deal with parental machinations from both sides to save the kingdom. I enjoyed this book very much and can’t wait to read the next one. Quite Steamy. Publishing Date October 14, 2019.
#NetGalley #LushMoney #CarinaPress #AngelinaMLopez #Bookstagram

I so enjoyed this book and it came during a very difficult time. Unplugging for a few hours and reading...yea, that helped. Anyway...Roxanne wanted a fairy tale and she was going to get it even if she had to buy it and that is what she was determined to do when she set her sights on Mateo, the Golden Prince, of an impoverished Spanish country. All she wanted was marriage and 3 nights a month in order to conceive a child and she would pay enough to save his country and then give him a divorce. Sounds simple, that is until temper tantrums and changes and, oh yea, those pesky hearts get involved. Will they be able to survive it all when it turns out they actually like each other and then fall in love. Definitely recommend this one!

**Received this ARC for review from the publisher via NetGalley**

I have mixed feeling about this book. I think it’s a strong but inconsistent debut. In many ways, it resembles a reversed-gender harlequin presents novel. High-handed billionaire, impoverished love interest forced into marriage to save their country, tragic backstories, etc. I didn’t love the coercion and dehumanizing of Mateo in the first few chapters but I did like how Mateo stands up for himself. I liked a lot, but not everything about this story.

♡ AN E-ARC OF THIS BOOK WAS KINDLY SENT TO ME BY THE PUBLISHER THROUGH NETGALLEY. THIS DOES NOT AFFECT MY REVIEW IN ANY WAY. ♡

DNF. now that i've gathered my thoughts, i think it's time for a review.

to be quite honest, i don't know if the problem is me or the book. i really was excited for this one, had high expectation despite it having little to no hype in the book community. and yet i was disappointed.

the synopsis looked like everything i could ask for in a book. a latinx romance? a female self-made billionaire? girl power? yes? i just couldn't get into the book. i was constantly asking myself what the f*ck was going on. because quite frankly, i found the plot to be messy. i have had my fair share of messy books, but this one was...yeah. and it's sad because it had so much potential. i get that this book is supposed to have a LOT of sexy times, and i won't lie and say that wasn't one of the reasons i picked it up, but i found the sex scenes to be sometimes just...thrown. like the sex scene doesn't have any place during that moment, why would you add it, i just-. i get that it's the point, but still, i don't know...

but the part that annoyed me the most was the characters. i hated that roxanne made some decisions without even the slightest concern for mateo. like, it concerns him too? stop thinking only about yourself? i mean, she does apologize, but it just wasn't convincing to me. i couldn't connect with her.

so yeah, i don't know if i'll give this another try, butif i do it will certainly not be in the near future. it's just not for me right now. BUT. i do hope i get to read the author other books (when they come out), since i enjoyed the writing style because it's simple yet not flat.

i would recommend LUSH MONEY if you:
♡ like romance-centred books (obviously)
♡ enjoy and/or are comfortable with sexy times in books