ARC Book Review: The Arrangement by Robyn Harding

Release Date: July 30, 2019
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
Format: ebook
Pages: 352 pages
Genre:  Thriller
Buy: Kindle | Hardcover 

Synopsis:

Natalie, a young art student in New York City, is struggling to pay her bills when a friend makes a suggestion: Why not go online and find a sugar daddy—a wealthy, older man who will pay her for dates and even give her a monthly allowance? Lots of girls do it, Nat learns. All that’s required is to look pretty and hang on his every word. Sexual favors are optional.

Though more than thirty years her senior, Gabe, a handsome corporate finance attorney, seems like the perfect candidate, and within a month, they are madly in love. At least, Nat is…Gabe already has a family, whom he has no intention of leaving.

So when he abruptly ends things, Nat can’t let go. But Gabe’s not about to let his sugar baby destroy his perfect life. What was supposed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement devolves into a nightmare of deception, obsession, and, when a body is found near Gabe’s posh Upper East Side apartment, murder.

Review: 

So many reviews compare this book to Pretty Woman but for me it was more like Fatal Attraction.  Natalie is a struggling art student who lives with 2 roommates who really want her to move out.  She can barely make her rent or pay her other bills and she knows its only a matter of time until she is out on the street.  A friend of hers tells her about Sugar Daddies and how she gets paid to be an escort, it doesn't always involve sex but can if she feels a connection.  So Nat desperate for money decides to give it a try.  What she finds is Gabe a handsome attorney who says he is a single dad. Gabe is a rich man whose wife has turned away from him but he loves her and doesn't want to end their marriage so he has turned to the Sugar Daddy website to find "entertainment" for when he is in the city during the week.

Natalie is young and naive, she quickly falls for Gabe and thinks that there is more to their relationship, even Gabe seems torn but divorce can't happen so he tries to give up Natalie and thats when things turn crazy.

This is a fast paced, well researched thrill ride.  You know from the beginning of the book that Natalie is being charged with murder but the murder of who is the question that doesn't get answered until 3/4 in and even then its a mystery, did Natalie really do it? She can't remember.  I had never heard of the Sugar Bowl before but I can see why a lot of young women fall for it and harding did her research on it, throwing out terms like splenda and salty, and also showing the darker kinkier side of the sugar bowl.  Overall this is a quick good read.

Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

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