One of the biggest BookTok hypes of either 2022 or last year is the “Dreamland Billionaires” series by Lauren Asher. This series is set around three brothers who are left a letter in their granddad’s will. The Fine Print, the first book, is about Rowan who has to be the director of the theme park Dreamland for at least six months. I’ve seen many mixed reviews about it, but I have been curious for a good while now. Is this book indeed worth the hype?

About the book

The Fine Print by Lauren Asher
Series: Dreamland Billionaires #1
Published by Independently published on December 1, 2022
Pages: 448
ISBN: 9781737507710
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Rowan
I’m in the business of creating fairy tales.
Theme parks. Production companies. Five-star hotels.
Everything could be all mine if I renovated Dreamland.
My initial idea of hiring Zahra was good in theory, but then I kissed her.
Things spiraled out of control once I texted her using an alias.
By the time I realized where I went wrong, it was too late.
People like me don’t get happy endings.
Not when we’re destined to ruin them.

Zahra
After submitting a drunk proposal criticizing Dreamland’s most expensive ride, I should have been fired.
Instead, Rowan Kane offered me a dream job.
The catch? I had to work for the most difficult boss I’d ever met.
Rowan was rude and completely off-limits, but my heart didn’t care.
At least not until I discovered his secret.
It was time to teach the billionaire that money couldn’t fix everything.
Especially not us.

The Fine Print is the first book in a series of interconnected standalones following three billionaire brothers.

My review

Because I saw so many mixed reviews, I didn’t really know what to expect. Many people were positive, but others were left disappointed. I wasn’t sure where I would be on the spectrum, so I decided to just dive into this book and see where it would take me. As It’s a romance, I was hoping for a multiple POV narration and secretly some smut too.

In this novel, we follow Rowan and Zahra. Rowan is one of the billionaire brothers whereas Zahra is one of the Dreamland employees. She works in a studio and after submitting an idea for a new ride when drunk, she unexpectedly gets promoted by Rowan to the role of Creator. From now on, Zahra and Rowan meet a lot and happen to spend a lot of time together. To be honest, I didn’t feel the chemistry between these characters for a good portion of the book. Zahra was outright rude. Trust me, if I would have talked to my manager like that, I would have been reprimanded or even fired immediately. However, Zahra seems to get away with it. On the other hand, Rowan keeps his guard up and doesn’t give Zahra any good reason to like him. As the story progresses, we learn more about their reasons for their behaviour and we witness that there’s more depth to both characters than you’d initially expect. This doesn’t mean that they’re my favorite romance couple, far from that actually. However, it’s easier to understand them better. Especially Rowan’s character shows a lot of growth because he dares to take a stand against his father and chooses his own path in life, even though that might cost him a lot. This wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t spend time with Zahra and her sister Ani, who has Down Syndrome.

As I already was hoping for, this book has a dual POV narration. I prefer this in romance novels and it has again been proven to work well. We get to know both Zahra and Rowan as best as possible. They have their differeneces and through these alternating POVs, we learn more about them. Furthermore, the writing is very easy to follow, it made me fly through the book in a breeze which is honestly great.

As stated before, the book is definitely character driven. Therefore, there’s not much of a plot. Actually, there is not a strong plot line, or at least it didn’t feel like that to me. That doesn’t mean that I really enjoyed this book nonetheless. There was an interesting character growth and that’s the most important thing to me in romance novels. This book therefore intrigued me from start to finish. The ups and downs Rowan and Zahra face in their relationship are very logic and natural as their worlds are the very opposite from one another. Rowan has loads of money to spend and lives a luxurous lifestyle. Zahra and her family on the other hand could hardly afford taking a day off or even go for a family getaway. Rowan at least tries to understand the differences between his and her world and tries to improve it since it applies to all the Dreamland employees. I have to disappoint you if you want smut though, because this book is not spicy at all.

The Fine Print by lauren Asher was a pleasant surprise to me. I never expected to like it as much as I did, because the book seems quite shallow on the surface. Once the story progresses, more depth to both characters is revealed. It took me a while to get used to them and their chemistry though, although I’m still not fully convinced. However, I’m really curious for the next two books in this series!