Filthy Rich (The Scarsdale Fosters #5) by B. E. Baker

  

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Romance, Contemporary Romance
Content: Clean

Jake Priest learned at an early age to take anything he could get and never look back. With the help of his foster sister Bea, and the catchy song she wrote, he finally gets a stroke of luck and becomes the hottest new entertainer in the industry. He’s always felt a little guilty for using Bea’s song as his ticket to fame, but after years of hiding her talent, Bea’s finally crafting musical masterpieces again. Jake credits one woman with inspiring her to do it.

When that woman, Octavia Rothschild, shoved Beatrice Cipriani into the limelight, she really had no idea that Bea would try and drag her on stage too. Octavia's finding the attention uncomfortable. Ever since an accident that left prominent burns on one side of her face, Octavia has attracted too much attention, none of it good.

And now the studio’s insisting that Octavia perform one of Bea's songs with Jake Priest. The label’s wild for the kind of publicity a duet would create, even if Jake’s famously impossible to deal with. Only, the more time Jake spends with Octavia, the more he's drawn to her voice and her unique beauty.

But Jake’s shady past was only contained, not erased.

When Jake’s father finally walks out of prison, the first person he wants to see is his newly rich and famous son. And good old dad has some demands—and some secrets—that may just change everything. Can Jake and Octavia heal from past trauma in time to deal with everything the world’s about to throw at them?

 

I think the best thing about this book was the character Octavia. I liked Octavia a lot in the last book, and I was happy that she got her own book. I enjoyed reading her backstory and felt for her with all the horrible people she had to deal with in her life. I know people with disfigurements or deformities have to deal with some people making hurtful comments to or about them. I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around how anyone could be so mean to another person, especially for something they can't help. Octavia goes through quite a lot of that in this book. I appreciated that the author mentioned that Octavia's character was inspired by her cousin, who was also disfigured by a burn. I think it's great that she was able to get input from her cousin on what it was like, and what she dealt with. 

The character Jake grew on me. He wasn't a favorite from the previous book, but I liked that we got to understand where he was coming from. I liked his growth as a character. I'm not usually a fan of stories where the main character or the love interest is a famous person, be they actors or musicians, or whatever, so that part of the book was a harder sell for me. Because of that, this wasn't one of my favorites in the series but that's just a taste preference and it doesn't reflect on the story itself. This was a nice, sweet love story, and I was rooting for Octavia and Jake. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series. 

 

Thanks to the author for providing me with a copy of this book.