Better than Before by Kathyrn Shay
This story is about Spence along with his 3 half brothers, they run a company. One wants to start a dating site and Spence is off to proof to them why it won't work.
Problem is the profile he filled out online for the total opposite of himself has fallen in love with #6 client. The do meet and go further in their relationship, she has a lot of baggage and kids but they do hit it off.
Story also follows Annie who is ready to start dating but takes things real slow...
Lots of family interactions on both side and it works.
Lots of sex scenes but they break up towards the end and you wonder if they overstepped....
A note from the author, about the author and other works in the series along with an excerpt.

By far one of the most disappointing books I've read lately. Perhaps I have outgrown this author.

Bookbub freebie.

I stuck it out but it was hard. All the back and fourth, emotional roller coaster, yikes. It was short, too much drama for my taste but I did like the characters and no matter what happened, I was cheering for them to make it.

I got this book as part of a 10 book deal that was being sold for charity. The main characters were jerks. The male started the relationship with lies, making up an online profile to win a bet, and the female had a chip on her shoulder a mile wide. I actually wanted them to break up!

The only thing that made this bearable were the other characters. The guy's brothers, her kids. Even then, I ended up skimming most of the second half. I started to rate the book two stars, but really, that's a stretch.

And looking at the blurb at the end for her next book in the trilogy made me laugh, since it sounded like the exact same plot with the names changed. Only thing that's different is this time it's the woman lying in an online dating profile and the guy falling for it.

Wealthy Spence Wickham doesn't believe in happily ever after, especially since he has two filed marriages to prove it. When his brother asks him to invest in his high end dating website, he balks but comes up with a plan to prove it is a complete waste of time. He makes two personas one himself and one a run of the mill construction worked, he gets six responses to each and invitations to move the relationship forward past the email communication and he wins. However Spence never planned on the intriguing allure of Annie Hopkins. There is not a fake bone in her personality, she lays it out there and is looking for a normal guy. The problem is she is falling for Spence the construction worker and when she finds out he is the type of man she purposely stayed clear of he may lose her forever.

I was torn between a 3 or 4 star review, ended up in the middle. The beginning draws the reader in. I was eager to see where the relationship between Spence and Annie was heading, but then it dragged once she finds out the truth. Annie kind of transformed from this sweet woman to snarly, I thought the overall concept was wonderful but it just didn't click for me like I wanted it too.

What I liked about the story is that the characters were believable and consistent although I do believe that Spence and Annie were a bit extreme in their hang-ups, sometimes to the point where sabotaging (which was quickly annoying). Annie did seem to affect Spence and how he looks at life and business although she only heard about it instead of experiencing it for herself. Both of these characters are stubborn which makes for high drama and emotional reading. While I think the end of the book resolved itself satisfactorily I would have liked a few more chapters to full cement in their meeting in the middle instead of just baby steps towards compromise.

I also felt that the relationships and banter between the secondary characters, brothers, mother's, friends, ex's were believable and provided some depth to the characters. However I felt that the interaction between Annie's mother and Spence was glossed over and that could have been explored more, especially since there was so much interaction between Annie and Spence's family.

Some of the thought processes that the characters had were a little juvenile given their ages (over 40, as gleamed from the requirement for the dating website). While we learned about their jobs and how that makes up the people they are, it was interesting that Spence's showed just how much meeting Annie affected him, while Annie's showed her independent streak and her determination to succeed.

This story is enjoyable and certainly a quick, lazy day read.

It's a decent book for what it is. I got a free copy from BookRooster because I was looking for something easy to read to give me a break between my heavier books and coursework. It's not spectacular, but then I wasn't expecting spectacular. It's also not a mindless romance, which goes against what I was expecting. This book is full of angst, and it can be frustrating at times, as I kept wanting the happily-ever-after, but the characters kept fighting! In that respect, I guess it was quite realistic.

I had two issues with the writing. The first was the author's overuse of the word "recrimination" and its variants. I've rarely seen that word in other writing, but the author used it in this book many, many times. It became a bit of a nuisance, like a kink in your shoulders that pulls every now and then. My second issue was how everything needed to be written out in too much detail and explanation. It was so unrealistic, and it felt like the author was babying me, as if I couldn't think for myself. It made the writing wordy and a bit amateurish. The characters almost lacked real emotion in some parts, as they were clinically explaining their feelings and their reactions to each other. He didn't like this for that reason. She said ok, we'll try something else and see how that goes. They talked out issues almost too perfectly and logically in some places, like a script for a couple's therapy session. (However, in other places, you did get some infuriating and frustrating emotions revealed, which were very realistic, but again explained out too logically.)

While I did enjoy the book, I don't know if I'm inspired to read the rest in the series.