Book Review: The Runaway Millions by Parker Avrile


The Runaway Millions
The Runaway Model #2
M/M Contemporary/Suspense/Drama
5 Stars

They're the perfect couple until the money runs out...

Kyle, a rising model, is the toast of Manhattan. Bryce, a wildcatter who got rich in the Bakken gas fields, is an inch away from becoming America's newest billionaire.

But their world is turned upside-down when a competing oil company wrests away Bryce's business, his personal jet, and even his condo. Bryce has no choice but to scramble to save his career-- even though a famous rock star is sniffing around in hopes of claiming Kyle for his own.

When Kyle steps forward to defend another model accused of a terrible crime, he's deported. The tabloids follow him, happy to spread rumors about his alleged affairs with the beautiful and the famous of Europe.

Can love survive when one man is on his way up while the other is on his way down? When an ocean divides the lovers? When the gossip columns can't help stirring the pot? The Runaway Millions is Book 2 in The Runaway Model trilogy. This 78,000 word full-length novel complete with a HEA can be read as a stand-alone but if you prefer to read the series in order, please start with The Runaway Model.

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Review:

We first meet Kyle and Bryce in The Runaway Model and I think you will get more out of the story if you read that one first. This one can be read on its own, but the first book will fill you in more on the backstory between these characters.

This book starts almost at where The Runaway Model finishes, after the rescue of Kyle from his stalker. Bryce has lost his money, his business and most of his assets and he is worried that Kyle only ever wanted him for his money and as they spend more time physically apart, with Bryce trying to get his career going again in the States and in Arabia, and Kyle on model assignments all over the world, they become more distant emotionally too.

The go through an on-again off-again stage, with Bryce thinking that Kyle wants the famous and rich rockstar Stoney Rockland. There are always photos of Kyle with various models and famous people all over the papers and Bryce, despite wanting to believe otherwise, comes to believe in some of these rumours.

I have to admit I felt like shaking some sense into Bryce in parts of this book. First off, he was worried about a barely ten-year age gap between the two of them, that a nineteen year old wouldn't want to settle down with one man, that they wouldn't know their own mind. Kyle grew up fast, and he certainly knows his own mind and knew he loved Bryce. And as for that not being realistic, I met my husband when I was nineteen and he was almost ten years older and we will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary this year. So yes, a nineeteen year old can meet the love of their life at that age. Age is just a number anyway.

Kyle has grown up a lot in this book and at times it seemed he was the sensible one and Bryce needed to be looked after. They balanced each other out and the love between them was palpable on the pages.

There is less sex in this book than the first one and that makes sense, because there is so much drama and angst going on that too many love scenes would have stopped the flow mid-story. As it is, it's well-paced and suited to the story it's telling.

And Michel, Kyle's model friend who is accused of murder goes through so much that I felt my heart had been stomped on and then put back in my chest. I really ached for him and I can't say much more unless I spoil the story, so I won't.

I know nothing about the fashion scene, but what appears in the book seems plausible enough to me and it was interesting reading about a world that I know little about.

There is angst, there is drama, but there is hope and love too. The fact that they hard to work so hard towards their happily ever after made it so much sweeter.

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