The Deal

The Deal is the introductory book to the Arranged series authored by Stella Gray. Stella has emerged on the scene as a writer of contemporary romance. She has other books similar to this one that falls in that same genre. She has another series known as Convenience. Check out the first book of that series The Sham. Besides that, if you want to follow up on this book, then consider part 2 of Arranged – The Secret.

Elena Wolfe and Sebastian York are the narrators of this book. They both always do a great job with the material that they are provided. This time, however, they are held back by a lackluster novel. They tried to salvage it through their performance, but the plotline is too absurd.

The story is set in Chicago and features a Senator who grooms her daughter to be subservient to men. He doesn’t think college is important for women. Their main job is to please their husbands, thus, for such a task, higher education is not necessary. The girl, however, does want to go to college. As she turns eighteen, instead of letting her follow her passions, he marries her off to a wealthy family. The guy is the heir of an international modeling agency. He is practically royalty. But, he is also hiding some dark secrets. Our protagonist will soon find out what deal she has made with a devil of sorts.

While there are good things about this novel, the negative outweighs the positive. Firstly, the characters, specifically, the heroine lacks backbone. She is continuously pushed around by the men in her life. The characters just don’t have many redeeming qualities. To add insult to injury, the novel ends at a cliffhanger.