Stone Broke Heiress

Title: Stone Broke Heiress 
Author: Danielle Owen-Jones 
Format: E-Book
Rating: 3 Stars 

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Six months ago, I was the heiress to a soup empire worth millions. Now, I’m standing in a giant dumpster.

Bella Whittington’s caviar-and-Cristal life comes crashing down when she walks in on her fiancé and best friend tangled up in page 34 of the Kama Sutra, limbs everywhere. But her plan to dull the pain with Daddy’s credit card is totalled by the news that they’ve lost the family business. Suddenly Bella’s both single and completely broke.

Shivering in her dingy new studio apartment after a traumatic incident with a homemade turmeric face mask (Hello Tangerina Jolie!), Bella realises she must pull up her Gucci socks and get a job, fast. But Dan, the gorgeous grumpy owner of the local soup kitchen, hates the Whittingtons, so a teensy lie about her surname gets Bella through the door, and set loose on the stove… Minestrone with a side of melted spatula, anyone?

When Bella’s ex returns with a golden ticket back to her glitzy old life, should she accept? Because that would mean no more box wine and frozen pizza nights with Dan. No more singalongs to the crackly kitchen radio. No more my-heart-is-as-melted-as-that-spatula moments when he finally cracks a reluctant smile… But if Dan finds out the truth about who she really is, will she even have the choice?

An absolutely hilarious, feel-good rom com that will have you snorting with laughter. The new must-read for fans of Sophie Kinsella, Lindsey Kelk and Schitt’s Creek!

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Stone Broke Heiress is as funny and wild as the description promises.  My thoughts while reading it were reminiscent of Schitt's Creek, and that added a lot of fun to the story. 

The characters were decently well developed and each had their own traits, qualities, and personalities that made them distinct from each other.  Most of them were likable - except for Jonathan.  He was clearly a miserable human who completely effed everything up for people he was supposed to care about. He filled the villainous role in this book perfectly.  

On the other side of the character spectrum, we have my favorite character: Dan' grandma Elsie.  She was absolutely hilarious, and was just the sweetest, kindest human ever.  

The two main characters, Dan and Bella were interesting to say the least.  Bella started out as a clearly spoiled princess type who was used to dropping thousands of dollars a month on designer clothes and handbags.  Dan is a bit brusque when we first meet him but learning about his history helps explain that. By the end of the book Bella definitely had the most change about her.  She slowly learned, while living in Toxteth (a neighborhood in Liverpool), that life as she knew it was very, very privileged.  She had her eyes opened to a lot of the injustice in her own city, and was at first shocked at how many unhoused people there were in her own city.  To say she was ignorant at the beginning of the book is an understatement. But she really does grow and change by the end of the book, and becomes a person who does a lot of good things for the people around her.

The good things about this book:
* The humor was on point.  It really was a very funny book, but also handled the tough things that happened with dignity.
* The chemistry between Dan and Bella was obvious and the author built up their relationship very well.
*  I learned some things about Liverpool that I never knew before - and that was nice
* There's some great plotting to take down a bad, bad man
* The characters all worked well together and had great parts to play throughout the book
* There was a great story to this book and a lot of great lessons learned by more than one character

Things I didn't really love:
* It was absolutely appalling the way Jonathan behaved during this book.  Are there supervisors who willfully sabotage their friends and employees like that?!??!?!?

There really wasn't a ton a didn't like about this book.  It was a fun rom-com book that I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys romance and comedy in one.  

This book is being released by Bookoutoure on March 21, 2022.

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Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through Netgalley.  All thoughts and opinions are mine.