Review: Escorting the Actress by Leigh James

Title: Escorting the Actress

Author: Leigh James

Series: The Escort Collection

Genre: Contemporary Romance/ New Adult/ Humor

Publisher: CMG Publishing, LLC

Publication Date: October 14th, 2015

Edition: Kindle Edition, 251 pages

Source: NetGalley

Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble

Synopsis:

   Lowell: He was my bad-boy billionaire stepbrother... now he's my disinherited, sexy escort? FML! 

   Kyle: She was my geeky, brace-faced stepsister... now she's a hot Hollywood actress? Who's a client at the upscale escort agency where I work? Things might finally be looking up! 

   Lowell: I had a PR disaster on my hands. I needed a pretend boyfriend--so I called the escort service. But then stepbrother bad boy showed up. Now I'm all sorts of screwed. Or wishing I was. Wait--I take that back! I take it back! 

   Kyle: My powerful father will do anything to keep me away from Lowell, including dangling my fortune in front of me. But I just might be more interested in what my sexy ex-stepsister has to offer... that is, if I can convince her to give it to me.

*   *   *   *   *

   Before I start, he isn't her step-brother. He was at one point but when their romance starts, they hadn't been step-siblings for almost a decade. Just to clarify.

  This book was really funny, Kyle and Lo were really cute and their banter was really funny. I really enjoyed this book. Though I do have a couple really small gripes about it.

   One, I am not sure the author has a complete understanding of what an escort actually is. They aren't prostitutes. Sure some of them might have sex with their clients, but it is not required and completely up to the escort if they want to or not.

   The other is, Lowell is required to be nice to Paparazzi, who are possibly some of the worst invasive people in the media industry. They're not Press at an event, they are weird, rude people who get in their face and invade privacy. The other is the director telling her to "get in shape", which she translates as "get skinny" and expecting her to do it on her own. From every behind-the-scenes thing, I've seen the director set up training sessions for actors who need to get in shape for certain kinds of action roles. It's a little absurd how that part of the story was written in my opinion.

   Those tiny things aside, this book was so much fun. And the romance was actually nicely developed. The characters were great and the writing was really great and the "meat" of the plot, Lowell kind of coming out of her shell and standing up to people a little more, like her mother, and the press, and a little with her Director. And Kyle owning up to his mistakes and becoming more responsible. He had some good character development, as did Lowell.

   While I call my gripes with the story small ones, the plot lines they affected were a large part of the book. But that never stopped me from enjoying this. It was so much fun and funny, and I really loved the main characters. The side characters were very much side characters and barely had any part in the story, and even they were very well written.