It’s another Romance Monday review, hurray! I read this book a while ago and just devoured it – I can’t wait to make time (because I just have so many books on my TBR, y’all) to finish the series. Because this was fun and different from what I normally read and I really liked the characters.
The King of Bourbon Street starts with Sol DuMont divorcing his wife, Maddy. They’re just better as friends, they decide, so Sol is officially a free man again (although he’d been “free” for a while before that). He owns an old hotel in New Orleans, a classic that isn’t part of any chain and that has the original architecture. It survived Hurricane Katrina – it can survive anything. At least, that’s what he thinks – until Rain Barrington and her older brother check into his hotel.
Arianna “Rain” Barrington had to leave her high society home in the northeast after a “scandal” that she created to annoy her mother. Rain was shoved at Charles Harwood – whom she dispises – in order to cement a deal between her family’s company and the Harwood Corp, and she doesn’t want to be part of a business deal. So she blows the gardener (lol), and her mother is so livid that she and her brother Vaughan leave home to spend some time at a nice hotel in New Orleans.
When Sol meets Rain, he immediately knows he has to have her. When Rain meets Sol, she can’t believe that an older man is so interested in her. When they realize the mutual attraction, feelings, fire can’t be helped, they’ll do anything to stay together. Even face Sol’s ex-wife – and Rain’s mother.
3 Things I Loved
- New Orleans. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that takes place in New Orleans, so that was a fun treat! I’ve never been there, but I could still picture everything, see everything, feel everything – and I loved it. More than anything, this book made me want to visit New Orleans.
- Vaughan. Rain’s older brother was probably my favorite character in the book. He was protective, but also left Rain to her own devices when he knew she was okay. He defended her to their mother and did his best to help Sol in that regard. And he was sweet to her, took her away from the toxic home environment she was in, and helped her through everything. I loved him.
- Cylan. Sol’s best friend was one of my other favorite characters. He was constantly supportive of Sol, always looking out for him, and that was nice to read. In addition, I feel like it’s not super often that a bisexual (or gay) character has a straight best friend, and I really liked that dynamic in this book.
Dislikes/Problematic Content
The book as a whole has a lot of great rep – Sol is bisexual and Rain exudes fat-positivity. However, the one thing that really bothered me was how fast the relationship progressed. Rain and Sol were talking about having babies on the 4th day they knew each other (?!?!), and after about a week, they couldn’t be apart. It was a little nutty, and not realistic to life, I don’t think. But the nature of their relationship – and the light BDSM that they engaged in – probably made them feel closer to each other than a normal relationship would. But who knows! In any case, I was uncomfortable reading the speed with which they moved.
Rating
A reminder of the rating scale:
- Red = DNF, I hated everything
- Orange = Ugh, no thank you
- Yellow = I mean, I’ve read worse, but there were problems
- Green = This was good!
- Blue = Oh my gosh, I loved this book!
- Purple = This is the unicorn of books and I will be rereading it until the binding falls apart and EVERYONE should be reading it!
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. I don’t tend to read a lot of romance that bleeds into erotica, but I liked this. There was enough character and relationship development to keep me engaged. So I’m going to give The King of Bourbon Street a GREEN rating. Lovers of erotic romance will probably fall head over heels for Rain and Sol. ❤
Has anyone else read this book? What did you think?
Happy reading!
-A.
Snark & Squee 