Southern Texas heats up when four roughneck billionaires set their sights on love in the new series from New York Times bestselling author Jessica Clare.

Boone Price and his brothers know oil; at least, the dirty, backbreaking side of working an oil rig. But when their scrubby, worthless hunting land turns out to be sitting on top of one of the biggest oil wells in North America, they go from the rig to the boardroom and end up billionaires practically overnight.

Now with enough money to do whatever he wants, Boone is developing a taste for fine things. And the finest thing he's ever seen is Ivy Smithfield, local realtor. Boone's determined to buy her affection and show the world that he's more than just a dirty fool with a bit of money. Ivy's classy and beautiful - she'll make the perfect trophy wife. The fact that she's sexy and funny is just a bonus.

There's one tiny problem - Ivy's as dirt poor as Boone is. Her carefully crafted veneer of luxury? All an act to promote her business. What's Boone going to do when he finds out the woman he's falling for is, well, in his league?

Boone Price is a Texas cowboy.  He’s not classy nor does he dress nice despite the fact that he is a multi-billionaire.  He likes working with the guys who work the rigs and likes finding new places to drill for oil.  He gets utterly pissed off when a “friend” that Boone is trying to help out sends his employee with contracts and the guy mistakes Boone for a hand. Boone gets pissed.  He hates the fact that people treat him like dirt just because he’s not dressed in a suit.  He wants respect because he’s worked hard to get where’s he’s at now.  He doesn’t want to be looked at like a roughneck.  His brothers tell him he needs to look the part – starting with a big house.  He’s given a pamphlet for Three Jacks Realty and he loves the look of the classy woman on the front.  He decides he wants her and only her to make him look classy.

Boone heads to the real estate office and starts his assault on/courting of Ivy Smithfield.  He tells her he wants a house but he also wants to have dinner with her.  Ivy has been at Three Jacks for just a year – given a job by one of the Jacks when she first got her real estate license.  She had previously worked at a burger place and an ice cream shop trying to make ends meet for her and her sister.  The problem is that every time Ivy gets a lead on a big sale one of the Jacks comes and takes it from her – as they do with all the employees.  When Ivy realizes that Boone is looking for a big house that would sell for millions she decides to keep the info to herself.  No one else will give him the time of day because he’s covered in dirt from the oil field so it works out well. She just isn’t prepared to fend off his amorous advances.

Boone falls in love with Ivy at first sight.  The more he’s with her the more he wants to be around her.  He loves that she’s with him but she seems to hold back on a regular basis and is constantly ignoring his calls and texts.  Ivy falls in love with Boone as well but she knows that once he finds out that she’s not the classy lady he thinks she is the romance will be over so she tries to stay away from him.

Dirty Money is a really good book to what I hope will be another great series by Jessica Clare.  I loved Boone and his down home attitude as well as the attitudes of his brothers.  I had a bit of a hard time reconciling Boone’s don’t-give-a shit-what-I wear-or-live-in attitude with the fact that he wanted to be respected.  It was a bit of a paradox that I didn’t quite get.  I know that’s what took him to Ivy’s side in the first place so I had to go with it but it just seemed…off. Now when Boone finds out that Ivy isn’t the “classy” woman he thought she was he was pissed at her and that pissed me off. He thought she’d lied but really Boone was more at fault than anything.  He was the one that assumed she was classy just by the way she was dressed and nothing else.  He was in love (at first) with the idea of Ivy – not actually Ivy herself.  He did fall in love with the real her but after the big reveal he had to get past his preconceived notions.  That was hard for him but I thought he handled it well and I was quite happy with the end of the story.

Ivy was a good person and one I admired for all that she was trying to do with her life and for her sister’s life.  She wanted to keep the stress off of her sister so that she could have a normal childhood and young adulthood.  Ivy bore the brunt of the stress of overdue bills, not enough food, not enough money for college tuition, etc.  She wanted so badly to make something of herself as a real estate agent but the three Jacks just treated her like shit.  I wanted to smack those men so hard!  Ugh!  Bastards.  Despite all she’d been through she was a strong woman and I thought she was perfect for Boone and his over-the-top personality.

All I have to say is that if the rest of the Roughneck Billionaires books are like Dirty Money then I know I’m going to love the whole series.  If you haven’t picked this one – and don’t mind your heroes a little dirty – you’ll love this one.

Rating: 4 out of 5