Reviewed by Cheryl
TITLE: High Test
AUTHOR: Elizabeth Noble
PUBLISHER: JMS Books
LENGTH: 52.2k words
RE-RELEASE DATE: January 20, 2020
BLURB:
Hayden Owens is just a typical graduate student working his way through school as a barista for the Owens Coffee Company — no relation. But he keeps the “no relation” part to himself when he meets dashing, older Neal Kirchner, a successful architect from an old-money family. Hayden doesn’t exactly lie, but he figures it can’t hurt for Neal to believe he’s a rich kid. After all, Hayden doesn’t want Neal thinking he’s a gold digger.
Neal Kirchner is Asian Indian and British decent. His parents became Christians, shoving their heritage to the side. Neal has returned to the customs and religion his grandmother cherished. On top of being a very successful architect he’s heir to the Indian Rose Tea Company, a business that’s been in his family for generations.
Neal’s passion is high performance cars and he meets Hayden at a fundraiser for the automotive engineering department of Clemson University. They are immediately smitten with each other. The closer they become, the harder it gets for Hayden to come clean. Something always seems to get in the way. When a company bankruptcy and a jilted, vindictive woman threaten to expose his charade, Hayden thinks it’s all gone down the drain. Luckily Neal is ready with some innocent trickery of his own, but will their relationship survive?
REVIEW:
The billionaire/poor student is not an unusual trope, neither is May/December, neither is a combination of both. Here, poor student, Hayden is hiding his economic status from Neal, a billionaire. However, I particularly like this particular interpretation, mainly, I think, because it’s not treated as a huge deal. Very little page time is dedicated either to the age difference or the income difference. We get to see Hayden’s wonder at the luxury that occasionally surrounds him, and he does have some guilt about deceiving Neal, even though he doesn’t directly lie to him, but the way it resolves is pleasing and natural.
Hayden is a student, studying custom car design. This is not something I had hear of, or read about, before and it was fascinating reading about it. Not that we are ever overburdened with information, but it is clear the author has done her research and there are some lovely details that interested me.
By and large, the writing was good and flowed nicely, although there were some strange sentence constructions scattered through. I found that awkward to read, although that might well be because my editors have destroyed my ability to simply read.
The character development is smooth and I liked both main characters from the start. Hayden is by no means the kind of person who is overwhelmed by Neal’s lifestyle and Neal is not the kind of person who rubs it in his face. Hayden is not a vulnerable flower and Neal is not an overbearing daddy figure. They are equal in all ways apart from the money. It is nice that Hayden’s insecurities are the same as anyone else’s and they don’t take control of the narrative. Yes, there is angst, but it’s not angsty, if that makes sense.
On the whole, the book was a quick and satisfying read and just the kind of thing to lift your spirits during this difficult time.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS: