Last year, I finally picked up The Fine Print, the first book in the “Dreamland Billionaires” series by Lauren Asher. Despite this being a huge BookTok hype, I was pleasantly surprised. However, I left the rest of the series on the shelf for over a year. Until now, I finally put Terms and Conditions on my Spring TBR. As this series is about three brothers who have to fulfil their end of the bargain their granddad set for them in order to claim their heritage, you don’t have to read all the books. They are not a direct follow up, you can read them individually.  I saw some less positive reviews for this second book about Declan and Iris, this diminished my expectations. They were still quite high nevertheless. Were my expectations met or was I left disappointed?

About the book

Terms and Conditions by Lauren Asher
Series: Dreamland Billionaires #2
Published by Bloom Books on March 17, 2022
Pages: 477
ISBN: 9780349433455
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Fall in love with the next book in Lauren Asher’s hot and sexy Dreamland Billionaires series . . . 
Declan 
I’m destined to become the next CEO of my family’s media empire. 
The only problem? My grandfather’s inheritance clause. 
Fulfilling his dying wish of getting married and having an heir seemed impossible until my assistant volunteered for the job. 
Our marriage was supposed to be the perfect solution to my biggest problem. 
But the more we act in love for the public, the more unsure I feel about our contract. 
Caring about Iris was never part of the deal. 
Especially not when breaking her heart is inevitable. 
Iris
My plan to marry Declan was simple in theory.
Move in together. Throw a wedding. Have a baby.
We set rules to prevent any kind of issues.
Ones that were never meant to be broken, no matter how much Declan tempts me.
But what happens when our fake relationship bleeds into our real one?
Falling in love was never an option.
At least not for me.
Terms and Conditions is the second book in a series of spicy standalone novels featuring three billionaire brothers.

My review

As stated before, despite the more negative reviews from people whose reviews I trust, I still had modest expectations for this novel. I was highly surprised that I enjoyed the previous book so much, but I was fully in my romance era back then. This year however, I read less romance and that shows. My expectations were a little diminished because I’ve been reading so many books in this genre last year and due to the reviews I’ve read. I still expected the main characters to have some deeper layers and maybe some smut too.

I indeed got the expected deeper layers, but it took a while for them to show up. At first, the main characters Declan and Iris come off as quite shallow and blunt. Especially Declan. They gave me the impression that they didn’t have a story to tell at all. Asher tells their story through multiple pOVs, we switch between both Declan and Iris every chapter. This way, I found out that they actually have been elaborated more in depth. Iris has little self-esteem as she faced a lot of struggles at a young age. She does everything to prove herself to others, even if it’s at the expense of herself. Once the story progresses, she learns how to choose her own happiness above all the expectations she has to meet.

Declan is quite the opposite of Iris, at least at first glance. He is a true workaholic that doesn’t seem to care about anything or anyone at all. He hates taking time off work and everything has to go his way and no way else. However, while spending Time with Iris, he finds out that there are other possibilities and that it’s okay to care about others and take time off work. He hasn’t had it easy either, as we already learnt in Rowan’s story in The Fine Print. All brothers have to deal with the wrath of their father and this really shaped them. Declan is ambitious, maybe a little too much for his own good. Spending time with Iris makes him grow and we get to know another Declan that is hidden somewhere deep down under his façade.

Even though Iris and Declan grow both individually and together, which make them complement one another, the chemistry is lacking to me. It feels a bit forced in order to let this romance and novel succeed. Yes, the forced proximity trope is highly present here. Therefore, the plot is pretty basic with high predictability, This is nothing less than I expected, but deep down I hoped to get surprised. Of course I could have known that this wouldn’t happen as this is a huge BookTok hype, but predictability often intrigues me less. This was indeed the case here and although it didn’t take me really long to finish this book, it felt long for me. I zoned out a lot and truly didn’t care that much for the romance. If you’re not the biggest fan of smut, this book is suitable for you. There is some spice involved, but the character growth is more important. In my opinion, this is the best part of this character driven novel. The writing was fine, with short chapters. Sometimes maybe a bit too short, because the length really surprised me.

Unfortunately, Terms and Conditions by lauren Asher was less enjoyable than the first book in this series. This mainly has to do with the main characters, whose chemistry I didn’t connect with. It felt a lot liked forced proximity and that’s not my favourite trope. I therefore was less intrigued by this novel than I’d hoped to be. I’m still curious for the third brother nevertheless, so I will definitely be finishing this series.