In The Heir - Book Review

By Ruth Cardello

Synopsis

Brett Westerly is his father’s golden child, but it’s come at a cost. As head of the family corporation, he throws himself into his work—hiding in his office is easier than confronting the reality of his broken family.

After a bitter divorce that split the family and divided loyalties, the wealthy Westerly matriarch offers an early inheritance to any grandchild who marries and invites the entire family to the wedding. Brett’s brother Spencer rashly gets engaged, and Brett knows it’s his duty to intervene. But he never imagined the unwelcome desire Spencer’s fiery fiancée would spark in him. Now the man who’s used to getting everything he could want has met the one woman he can’t have.

Ever since she was a girl, Alisha Coventry considered Spencer and his sister Rachelle the family she didn’t have. When Spencer asks for her help, Alisha has no problem becoming his fake fiancée—until she meets Spencer’s sexy older brother Brett. The chemistry between them is undeniable—forbidden—but as their relationship deepens, Brett is determined to have her.

Alisha only wanted to help the family make amends. Now she’s falling for the wrong Westerly.

Review

IN THE HEIR is the first book I’ve read from Ruth Cardello, and to be honest, I’m a little up in the air with how I feel about it, which is why I’ve given it three hearts. Despite being under 250 pages, it did take me a couple of days to finish because it didn’t hold my attention. There’s a lot of conflict within the story, but most of it surrounds Brett’s divided family and the twenty-year-old secrets that are now being revealed.

For every one thing I liked about Brett and Alisha, there was one thing I didn’t like about them. Alisha was strong and fierce enough to stand up to people and put them in their place, but then she let her best friends treat her with disrespect and tell her what she could and couldn’t do, at the expense of her own happiness. Brett was supposed to be a take-charge billionaire, but his stalkerish behaviour came across as less alpha and more creeper. He had jaded views about marriage (which is understandable) and he didn’t think too highly of women in the beginning, but that changed after just one or two interactions with Alisha. Despite his strained relationship with his family, he claimed they were the most important thing to him; yet when they were in the middle of a crisis, he went on vacation, leaving them to sort it out themselves. In short, they would say one thing or behave a certain way, and then they would say or do something that went against what they just said or did.

IN THE HEIR is told in dual POVs, with the prologue and epilogue being told in Delinda’s (the Westerly grandmother’s) POV, as she schemes to bring her broken family back together. Brett and Alisha’s inner thoughts were presented in a way that I’m not sure I liked. I don’t recall seeing it done like that before and it had an erratic and choppy feel to it. I really liked the small family tree displayed at the front of the book, which helped me out a lot. Overall, it’s a simple story about a divided family that just needs love (and honesty) to come back together.