The title of the book Housebroke by Jaci Burton is emblematic of its problems. "Housebroke" could be such a great title for so many plots. An owner of a dog that is not housebroken falls in love with a housebreaker. An owner of a house that is a money pit falls in love with the banker putting it into foreclosure. Housebroke kinda sorta tiptoes up to some of these plots but never really reaches them, and the title makes no sense for the book. May I suggest Puppy Love? Or You Had Me at Woof?
Anyhoo, heroine Hazel's money was stolen by her cad of an ex-husband. She, and the five dogs she fosters, are staying at a house her friends have put up for sale. The friends neglect to tell her when they sell the house, or to tell the buyer, hero Linc, that Hazel is staying there. Linc is a secret multimillionaire investment banker masquerading as a hot house flipper. Sparks ensue, HEA.
There are things about the book that are good. I appreciated that when Linc appears Hazel calls her friends, who somehow know Linc and vouch for him, so I didn't have to worry that he was a secret bad guy. Okay, so there was one thing I liked about the book.
I had the impression that Burton has never had a job, because how she thinks the world works is just -- bizarre. Let's start with Hazel. Her "job" is fostering dogs. There's no indication that she gets paid for this, and if she does it would only be a stipend. (Maybe this made me particularly crazy because I was once in a relationship with someone who defined his copious volunteer work as his job -- which meant that all financial burdens fell on me.) When Linc appears at the house, they enter into an arrangement where he will pay her to cook for him. She is thrilled that she can start saving money to get an apartment. But what she cooks are not fancy meals that take hours a day. She could, you know, also get another job.
When Hazel does think about how she will support herself and her dogs in the future, she decides that she will work at a restaurant. Please, authors, for the love of god, being a good home cook does not qualify you to be a restaurant chef. But Hazel's long-term dream is to buy a giant house where she will foster dogs fulltime, or maybe she will have a dog fostering business, while also working at a restaurant fulltime, and maybe also having kids? Honey, these goals do not mesh.
In the meantime, Linc's back story is that he started an investment management business that made him so rich that he now travels the country pursuing his passion of buying houses, personally and single-handedly fixing them, and flipping them. Sure, his investment management company is still a going concern, but Linc has such good employees that he only needs to pop in once every few weeks. Uh. Linc, 1) your employees hate you and 2) your employees are stealing from you and 3) your business is going to crash and burn very soon. Also, uh, Linc, for the house flipping work you are doing you need a general contractor's license, a plumber's license, and an electrician's license, all of which require years as a journeyman and state specific credentials. You also need to get building permits, which takes longer than you buying the house day one, moving in day two, and beginning work day 3.
To the extent that Linc is not some fever dream of Hazel's he is obviously the solution to her problems. In fact, he offers to buy her a giant house with tons of land. She gets pissed off at him for inserting himself into her goals, but agrees to move in with him as long as they start with a small house within her means and then build their way up from there. Oh, sweetie, you don't have the means to buy a small house, or half of a small house, and at the rate you're going you probably never will. You barely have first, last, and security deposit for an apartment, and you don't have any plan to get a job that will allow you to build a nest egg. And didn't you say you wanted kids? Just accept the good thing Linc is offering you and live your destiny, which is to be a wealthy wife who does volunteer work. (No hate; I have nothing but respect and appreciation for the people who volunteer their time to their communities, or to cute puppy dogs). Take the win.
