March 24, 2015

RELEASE DAY REVIEW: Manwhore (Manwhore #1)


Manwhore (Manwhore #1), by Katy Evans
Publish Date: March 24, 2015
Publisher: Gallery Books
Format: e-ARC, obtained from the author
Genre: adult contemporary romance
To Buy: Amazon * Barnes & Noble
 

Rating: 4 STARS

(From Goodreads) Is it possible to expose Chicago’s hottest player—without getting played?

This is the story I've been waiting for all my life, and its name is Malcolm Kyle Preston Logan Saint. Don’t be fooled by that last name though. There’s nothing holy about the man except the hell his parties raise. The hottest entrepreneur Chicago has ever known, he’s a man’s man with too much money to spend and too many women vying for his attention.

Mysterious. Privileged. Legendary. His entire life he’s been surrounded by the press as they dig for tidbits to see if his fairytale life is for real or all mirrors and social media lies. Since he hit the scene, his secrets have been his and his alone to keep. And that’s where I come in.

Assigned to investigate Saint and reveal his elusive personality, I’m determined to make him the story that will change my career.

But I never imagined he would change my life. Bit by bit, I start to wonder if I'm the one discovering him...or if he's uncovering me.

What happens when the man they call Saint, makes you want to sin?

Oh this book... it kept me on edge and frustrated the living daylights out of me pretty much constantly. One of the worst feelings is when you are reading a book and an overwhelming sense of apathy is blatantly apparent. You don't really care one way or the other about the characters, the story or whether everything works out okay for anyone in the end. Apathy was definitely not a word I would use to describe my feelings as I was reading MANWHORE. So, that constant frustration I mentioned? It's a good thing. 

Rachel Livingston is a writer for a small magazine that is about to fold unless it can print an explosive expose. As such, Rachel is handpicked to woo Chicago's most eligible bachelor - the billionaire manwhore himself, Malcolm Saint. She's charged with getting into his pants and his mind and then writing about it all. But, the closer Rachel gets to Malcolm Saint, the more she realizes that Chicago has no idea who he really is. And, she may just want to keep that information to herself. 

If I'm going to be honest, Rachel was the source of most of my irritation as I was reading Manwhore. I get her situation. She loves her job and doesn't want to lose it. So, she takes this assignment thinking that Malcolm Saint is just a douchey player who throws his money around to get what he wants. She has no issues exposing him, especially if it means she gets to save not only her job but the jobs of all the others working on the magazine as well. Rachel has a very strong work ethic and a creative mind, and I admired that. 

I am in love with stories. How they shape our lives. How they mark people who don't even know us. How they can impact us even when an event didn't exactly occur in our own lives.

With every meeting with Saint, however, Rachel starts to figure out that there is a very specific reason why Chicago knows very little about this man. The people in the city only know and see what he wants them to know and see. It's very obvious that there is a lot to this man. There are so many layers, and he has ensured that 99% of the world only know the very top-most layer - the one he can control the most. 

"I'm not endearing to people, Miss Livingston. I'd say people respond to me on four levels and four levels only: They want to pray to me, be me, do me or kill me."

Rachel starts to see through this facade that Saint has built, and it starts messing with her head. It was at this point that I wished so much I could reach into the book and shake some freaking sense into this woman. She waffled so much between wanting to be with him just as a woman who wanted him and the reporter who was only with him for a story. She knew those two sides of her didn't mesh, and she didn't know which one to give more weight. One moment she decided that what she was doing was wrong, and that she was starting to feel real things for this man and didn't want to sell him out.

I want him so deep I'll end up broken. I want to forget there are a million reasons why this isn't a good idea - because it doesn't matter if it's good or even right, only that I give my body what it wants. And all I want right now is looking down at me as if he wants to give it to me too. 

The next moment, she decides they are too different, and she feels guilt weighing on her because of the people at her magazine that are dependent upon her and her story for keeping their jobs.

"We don't fit," I say. "I just want to find a spot warm not cold, with a nice view, everything I could want, and I want to stop moving and stay there - in that spot. And you will never stand still."

The question though the entire book is which path will Rachel take. And, what will Malcolm say if and when he finds out why she sought him out in the first place.

Did you see my interview with Katy Evans? Check it out and then enter the giveaway to win a copy of Manwhore (US only)!

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