Reviewed by Valerie
TITLE: How to Bed a Millionaire
SERIES: The Light Hearts Trilogy#1
AUTHOR: Dieter Moitzi
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 234 pages
RELEASE DATE: July 7, 2021
BLURB:
Take a scrawny French student and a hunky housekeeper; put them in a swanky summer villa; add a pink car named Sean and a ruggedly handsome delivery man—and voilà a sunny-funny summer romance.
Twenty-year-old Trevor is overjoyed. An Australian millionaire offers him the summer job of his dreams: to catalog the library of his summer house in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat—one of the ritziest and most exclusive spots on the Côte d’Azur.
What unnerves him, however, is the presence of a young housekeeper who turns out to be as drop-dead gorgeous as he is stilted, obnoxious, and conspicuously straight. Of course, Trevor’s quirky sass and light-hearted banter soon create an atmosphere of crackling tension between the two men.
What if the housekeeper isn’t as straight as Trevor thinks? What if Trevor is just the kind of person that housekeeper has been looking for all his life? And what if things aren’t exactly what they seem?
REVIEW:
How to Bed a Millionaire is a very entertaining, opposites attract, mistaken identity novel. Trevor is a scrawny French student in Paris who accepts a summer job cataloging the personal library of an Australian millionaire. He thinks the job is in Paris and is delighted to discover he’ll be working at the guy’s summer villa on the French Riviera instead. When he arrives, he finds the only other person in residence is Chao, the housekeeper. Or so Trevor thinks. Given the title of the book, it’s not a spoiler to say Chao is actually the millionaire homeowner, not the housekeeper. He’s lonely and facing a crossroads in his life.
Other than sunbathing and swimming, Trevor and Chao have little in common, including their sexuality: Trevor is out and proud gay, while Chao is straight. Until he becomes Trevor-sexual. Trevor is confused by Chao’s mixed signals, but eventually they’re both experiencing “fuzzy-fizzy” feelings.
I love Dieter Moitzi’s writing style. It’s casual and naturally humorous. Trevor is sarcastic and ridiculous at times. He breaks the fourth wall: breaching the boundary between the narrative and the reader. In this case, Trevor, as the narrator, occasionally speaks directly to the reader. It’s a quaint plot device that creates a light, familiar tone, and is very effective in this novel.
This is a zero flames book, which on one hand is disappointing, but on the other is somehow appropriate for the fluffiness.
The book has a major plot hole that requires a good deal of suspended disbelief. Trevor has no problem believing Chao is a housekeeper even though he drives a Lamborghini, does no housework, buys Trevor a pair of board shorts that cost around $900, attends “meetings” every day, and more. Trevor never questions it, and while it’s the only way to forward the mistaken identity plotline, it’s frustrating.
There’s a line in the book that says, “happiness may be dull in a novel” so it’s ironic that once Trevor and Chao admit their feelings for each other and start dating, the pace of the book drops off and the humor that drives the story diminishes. It becomes less interesting. By the end I almost wished Trevor ended up with another character. There are some great side characters, including Trevor’s family and his friends, Dirk and Karim.
Overall, this is a sweet book, a solid summer read as long as you don’t get hung up on the mistaken identity issue and are okay with no steamy moments. The ending is abrupt; this is the first book in a series so perhaps the next book will pick up where this one ends. Recommended.
RATING: 
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