SOMEONE HAD TO DO IT
AMBER & DANIELLE BROWN
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Harlequin - Graydon House have very kindly asked me to participate in their blog tour for Someone Had to Do It by Amber and Danielle Brown which comes out A WEEK TODAY! I'll start by telling you all about the book and the authors and then share my review!
THE BOOK
SOMEONE HAD TO MAKE HIM PAY. SOMEONE HAD TO TAKE HER DOWN.
Brandi Maxwell is living the dream as an intern at prestigious New York fashion house Simon Van Doren. Except “living the dream” looks more like scrubbing puke from couture dresses worn by hard-partying models and putting up with microaggressions from her white colleagues. Still, she can’t help but fangirl over Simon’s it-girl daughter, Taylor. Until one night, at a glamorous Van Doren party, when Brandi overhears something she shouldn’t have, and her fate becomes dangerously intertwined Taylor’s.
Model and influencer Taylor Van Doren has everything…and is this close to losing it all. Her fashion mogul father will donate her inheritance to charity if she fails her next drug test, and he’s about to marry someone nearly as young as Taylor, further threatening her stake in the family fortune. But Taylor deserves the money that’s rightfully hers. And she’ll go to any lengths to get it, even if that means sacrificing her famous father in the process.
All she needs is the perfect person to take the fall…
THE AUTHORS
Amber and Danielle Brown both graduated from Rider University where they studied Communications/Journalism and sat on the editorial staff for the On Fire!! literary journal. They then pursued a career in fashion and spent five years in NYC working their way up, eventually managing their own popular fashion and lifestyle blog. Amber is also a screenwriter, so they live in LA, which works out perfectly so Danielle can spoil her plant babies with copious amount of sunshine.
Amber & Danielle's Website: https://www.amberanddanielle.com/
Twitter: @ambersharelle & dani_nicbrown
MY REVIEW
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When Brandi gets an internship at a prestigious fashion house, she thinks it’s a dream come true. However, when she crosses paths with daughter of the CEO Taylor Hanson, a nightmare starts to unfold.
Someone Had to Do It is written by two authors – Amber and Danielle Brown and I’d be really interested to hear about their writing process as a duo. As it stands the book isn’t particularly deep and I’m not really sure it needed two contributors, but I’d be interested to know if they alternated narrators – with one taking Taylor and one Brandi for example. The writing style is very engaging, with an almost chatty style of narration which kept me hooked and stopped the prose from dragging. It’s also very well edited and the perfect length – when I was getting a little bored of it, it finished!
I should point out a few trigger warnings – there’s a lot of swearing, sex and references to eating disorders, drugs and suicide in here. Some of which works to establish Taylor’s character but some of the sex scenes in particular felt superfluous. The plot is a real fable in being careful of who you let into your life.
The characters were interesting but a little cliched (or in Taylor’s case pantomime villain-esque) in places. Boyfriend Nathan felt very under-developed - he changed his mind so many times and was led astray so often that it felt very unrealistic – he just did whatever was needed for the plot. Him being very rich also felt a bit too convenient and quite a few problems were solved by just throwing money at them which was a shame. Still, although you knew where some aspects of the plot were going to go, the end twist did catch me out.
Overall, Someone Had to Do It is a fun, light read but don’t go in expecting anything too deep. Thank you to NetGalley & Harlequin – Graydon House for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
LINKS TO BUY