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Billionaire Secrets #3
A Billionaire for Christmas
She’s looking for a story about a billionaire. He’s the park ranger standing in her way.
Ten years ago, Marcus Dane left the tech world in his dust and joined the National Park Service. For the last decade, the world has ignored the park ranger-who-could-have-been-a-billionaire, but now an intrepid reporter has tracked him down. Worse, Poppy Lisowski has a theory about him which could blow his quiet life to smithereens. He needs to send her packing. But he’s already tumbled head-over-heels in insta-lust with her flippy ponytail and smart mouth…
This standalone romance is part of the Billionaire Secrets series and has been expanded from a short story originally published in the Rogue Desire anthology.
Ten years ago, Marcus Dane left the tech world in his dust and joined the National Park Service. For the last decade, the world has ignored the park ranger-who-could-have-been-a-billionaire, but now an intrepid reporter has tracked him down. Worse, Poppy Lisowski has a theory about him which could blow his quiet life to smithereens. He needs to send her packing. But he’s already tumbled head-over-heels in insta-lust with her flippy ponytail and smart mouth…
This standalone romance is part of the Billionaire Secrets series and has been expanded from a short story originally published in the Rogue Desire anthology.
Audiobook
First published November 21, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
December 16, 2020
A Billionaire for Christmas
Billionaire Secrets, Book 3
I Picked Up This Book Because: Saw the author's name on Scribd so I had to listen.
Media Type: Audiobook
Source: Scribd
Dates Read: 12/08/20 - 12/09/20
Stars: 2
The Characters:
Poppy Lisowski:
Marcus:
The Story:
I spent the first half of this book trying to figure out why it seemed so familiar. Turns out I had tried to read it before. The books in this series have been renamed and I was duped. The first time I read this I DNF’d the book because I didn’t really care for the characters. This time was much the same however I stuck it out because I was half way through before I realized I’d read it before. I still didn’t really care for the characters. They did nothing wrong. I just couldn’t eek out a connection. Also I never understood what Poppy even wanted from Marcus concerning her article.
The Random Thoughts:
Billionaire Secrets, Book 3
I Picked Up This Book Because: Saw the author's name on Scribd so I had to listen.
Media Type: Audiobook
Source: Scribd
Dates Read: 12/08/20 - 12/09/20
Stars: 2
The Characters:
Poppy Lisowski:
Marcus:
The Story:
I spent the first half of this book trying to figure out why it seemed so familiar. Turns out I had tried to read it before. The books in this series have been renamed and I was duped. The first time I read this I DNF’d the book because I didn’t really care for the characters. This time was much the same however I stuck it out because I was half way through before I realized I’d read it before. I still didn’t really care for the characters. They did nothing wrong. I just couldn’t eek out a connection. Also I never understood what Poppy even wanted from Marcus concerning her article.
The Random Thoughts:
September 20, 2020
2.5 stars. This is an expanded novella from a Rogue Anthology. It’s set in 2017 and the politics feel dated because *gestures at every damn thing*. I also could not get over the “I’m an eco-philanthropist with my own private jet” hypocrisy.
November 24, 2017
Marcus and Poppy's story gets a serious expansion. We get a lot more of both of the characters and far further into their relationship, although Ainsley still manages to leave me wanting more!!!
Marcus is a secret billionaire, which Poppy finally discovers in the extended version. We also get more insight into what he's been doing while he's also been being a National Park Service Ranger. He's watching out for people, not just Brianne but also now Poppy. He keeps an eye on pockets of trouble. We still don't quite know why though. Marcus is a brilliant set of insights and puzzles all the way through, for the reader and for Poppy too.
It's more of the wonderful writing that I've come to expect from Ainsley Booth. She really makes the characters human and alive. Wonderful.
Marcus is a secret billionaire, which Poppy finally discovers in the extended version. We also get more insight into what he's been doing while he's also been being a National Park Service Ranger. He's watching out for people, not just Brianne but also now Poppy. He keeps an eye on pockets of trouble. We still don't quite know why though. Marcus is a brilliant set of insights and puzzles all the way through, for the reader and for Poppy too.
It's more of the wonderful writing that I've come to expect from Ainsley Booth. She really makes the characters human and alive. Wonderful.
May 6, 2018
I enjoyed this for the most part but felt like I was missing a big chunk. Poppy is investigating a mysterious former software engineer. She hunts Marcus Dane down in Colorado and the reason for her investigation comes to light and I was so freakin' lost. I follow the news religiously, and consider myself up to date on current affairs, but had no idea what the heck was going on in this book.
Putting that aside, the story between Poppy and Marcus was tumultuous at first and then got interesting once they opened up to each other. A quick and fairly easy read.
Putting that aside, the story between Poppy and Marcus was tumultuous at first and then got interesting once they opened up to each other. A quick and fairly easy read.
December 26, 2025
This third installment didn't live up to the first book either, but it was okay. I thought there'd be a bomb storyline, but it was kind of going nowhere and ended like meh.
Ruby is a journalist and has a theory of Marcus - former tech guru, secret billionaire, and now a park ranger because, well, he can do whatever he wants, and that's what he chose - being behind a secret Twitter account. Well, he's not, but he's a part of it. Their connection is instant and strong, and soon she lets go of trying to expose anyone related to this. But now they have to face the difficulty of trying to keep up a new long-distance relationship.
Ruby is a journalist and has a theory of Marcus - former tech guru, secret billionaire, and now a park ranger because, well, he can do whatever he wants, and that's what he chose - being behind a secret Twitter account. Well, he's not, but he's a part of it. Their connection is instant and strong, and soon she lets go of trying to expose anyone related to this. But now they have to face the difficulty of trying to keep up a new long-distance relationship.
March 16, 2018
good book...although expanded from short story to novella i would have loved to see more of these characters.
dnf
June 1, 2018I just can not connect with the characters
*DNF so no rating
*DNF so no rating
December 14, 2023
Nice quick read to try to complete my reading challenge for the year!
Wasn’t really about Christmas though…
Wasn’t really about Christmas though…
November 23, 2017
A great fast read!
I loved Marcus and Poppy's story. So much more to Marcus than I expected. My only complaint was that I didn't see a clear link between the title and the story.
I loved Marcus and Poppy's story. So much more to Marcus than I expected. My only complaint was that I didn't see a clear link between the title and the story.
November 22, 2017
I LOVE MARCUS....that's it... I LOVE HIM!!!
It's just so sad that this series are short stories...I could read about these man all the fricking time!!!
It's just so sad that this series are short stories...I could read about these man all the fricking time!!!
dnf
December 10, 2020Nope, just sick and tired of the political rancor these days. And the lecturing. Listened to the first 40 minutes before giving up.
Perky intrepid investigative freelance journalist goes to mountain federal park because she thinks she’s found the social media AltNatPark tweeter. Lumbersexual park ranger is also friends with wealthy billionaires, friendships formed at MIT but LSPR left behind the rat race 401(k) chase for his true calling in the woods. That’s about as far as I got. No thanks.
And I had high hopes for a short Christmas novella to add to my Goodreads challenge! Will just have to find another audiobook to listen to on dog walks.
Perky intrepid investigative freelance journalist goes to mountain federal park because she thinks she’s found the social media AltNatPark tweeter. Lumbersexual park ranger is also friends with wealthy billionaires, friendships formed at MIT but LSPR left behind the rat race 401(k) chase for his true calling in the woods. That’s about as far as I got. No thanks.
And I had high hopes for a short Christmas novella to add to my Goodreads challenge! Will just have to find another audiobook to listen to on dog walks.
November 24, 2021
This was ok but it was too short to really get the relationship fleshed out. But, I thought that the characters were interesting in the way that they both looked at their jobs.
December 19, 2021
My rating: 4 stars.
This is a sweet, yet still sexy, romance -- with a mostly likeable couple.
Poppy was hard for me to like at first. She was determined to expose Marcus as the author of some tweets critical of the government. She didn't seem to understand how many people would be hurt by that exposure -- Marcus had to explain it to her. I also thought it was odd that she had just decided he was the author of those tweets, even though she had no proof. She did get a lot better after she got involved with Marcus, though.
Marcus was a good guy, but still sexy. It did bother me that he tried to "scare" Poppy off by leering at her at first -- but that was to keep her from writing stuff that would hurt people. He was not the controlling jerk that you find in many billionaire romances. It was so nice to see the h fall for a nice guy, and not a jerk.
I did think that Marcus and Poppy fell in love a little too quickly to believe -- especially since they were adversaries in the beginning, and he didn't trust her.
One BIG plus for this book is there was no angst and no big misunderstanding to resolve. It drives me nuts when romances have a ton of unnecessary angst or some big misunderstanding, just to up the drama. I want to read about normal couples, who don't jump to conclusions before getting enough information.
This is a sweet romance, yet has plenty of steam. I liked that the steamy scenes were vanilla, but still very sexy. Ever since Fifty Shades was such a hit, many romance authors seem to automatically think they need to include a lot of BDSM scenes -- but many readers like me prefer vanilla scenes.
My rating system is below.
1 star -- Hated it, or did not finish. I usually only give this rating if some of the content is truly objectionable to me, like if one of the main characters does something really awful, and gets away with it.
2 stars -- Didn't like it. This rating usually means that I thought the writing wasn't very good, the editing was terrible, I didn't like the characters, or it had other major flaws.
3 stars -- I liked it, but had some minor issues with it. This rating means that there were minor editing issues, the story needed more character development, it was just too unrealistic, or had some other fairly minor issue. The majority of books I read get this rating – I do not consider it a bad rating.
4 stars -- I liked it a lot. This is a high rating for me, and I rarely give a higher one.
5 stars -- I loved it, and will probably read it again. Very few books are good enough to get this rating from me. The ones that do are usually classics.
This is a sweet, yet still sexy, romance -- with a mostly likeable couple.
Poppy was hard for me to like at first. She was determined to expose Marcus as the author of some tweets critical of the government. She didn't seem to understand how many people would be hurt by that exposure -- Marcus had to explain it to her. I also thought it was odd that she had just decided he was the author of those tweets, even though she had no proof. She did get a lot better after she got involved with Marcus, though.
Marcus was a good guy, but still sexy. It did bother me that he tried to "scare" Poppy off by leering at her at first -- but that was to keep her from writing stuff that would hurt people. He was not the controlling jerk that you find in many billionaire romances. It was so nice to see the h fall for a nice guy, and not a jerk.
I did think that Marcus and Poppy fell in love a little too quickly to believe -- especially since they were adversaries in the beginning, and he didn't trust her.
One BIG plus for this book is there was no angst and no big misunderstanding to resolve. It drives me nuts when romances have a ton of unnecessary angst or some big misunderstanding, just to up the drama. I want to read about normal couples, who don't jump to conclusions before getting enough information.
This is a sweet romance, yet has plenty of steam. I liked that the steamy scenes were vanilla, but still very sexy. Ever since Fifty Shades was such a hit, many romance authors seem to automatically think they need to include a lot of BDSM scenes -- but many readers like me prefer vanilla scenes.
My rating system is below.
1 star -- Hated it, or did not finish. I usually only give this rating if some of the content is truly objectionable to me, like if one of the main characters does something really awful, and gets away with it.
2 stars -- Didn't like it. This rating usually means that I thought the writing wasn't very good, the editing was terrible, I didn't like the characters, or it had other major flaws.
3 stars -- I liked it, but had some minor issues with it. This rating means that there were minor editing issues, the story needed more character development, it was just too unrealistic, or had some other fairly minor issue. The majority of books I read get this rating – I do not consider it a bad rating.
4 stars -- I liked it a lot. This is a high rating for me, and I rarely give a higher one.
5 stars -- I loved it, and will probably read it again. Very few books are good enough to get this rating from me. The ones that do are usually classics.
October 5, 2021
I'm just so confused by this book. First of all, this feels totally unrelated to the first two books in the series. It was like getting dropped into the middle of a completely different set of books, and I just couldn't understand what was going on.
This one starts with a reporter named Poppy trying to figure out the secret identity of someone running a rogue Twitter account. Seriously, is that even a thing?
Regardless of whether rogue Twitter accounts exist, this intrepid reporter is hunting a story about secrets regarding the national parks department. So either way, it's completely ridiculous. Seriously, the "big story" according to Marcus is that the national parks are no longer hiring seasonal workers, so people in the town are out of work, and the government is planning to raise prices to enter the parks.
I'm not sure on what planet that would be news. But considering how big of a deal it is to Marcus, why does he continue to keep his park ranger position if he's a freaking BILLIONAIRE?! He's worried about guys being out of work, and he hogs one of the few positions even though he doesn't need a job?
And then there's everything with him stalking alt-right forums and his buddy creating some bluetooth device so people can't track you and Poppy taking self-defense lessons because reporters are being attack, but it's honestly all so ridiculous and makes no sense that I'm not even sure how to explain what is happening.
I'm not sure what the author was going for with this one, but it didn't work for me. I really liked the first two books, but now I'm not really interested in reading any more. This was really just a random bunch of pseudo-suspense plot points with no reason for them. I just don't get it.
December 5, 2017
Personal Disaster is the third book in Ainsley Booth's Billionaire Secrets series and is about Marcus Dane and Poppy Lisowski.
Marcus left the tech world to work an everyday job in the National Park Service years ago, but reporter Poppy has tracked him down trying to find out why a billionaire just disappears out of the limelight and chooses to work a normal job.
Not wanting anyone to find him or ruin his now quiet life he hopes he can get Poppy back on a plane and out of his life only he has fallen hard with an instant attraction for her and to be honest doesn't want her to go any where that is away from him.
I'm looking forward to reading more books by Ainsley Booth.
Marcus left the tech world to work an everyday job in the National Park Service years ago, but reporter Poppy has tracked him down trying to find out why a billionaire just disappears out of the limelight and chooses to work a normal job.
Not wanting anyone to find him or ruin his now quiet life he hopes he can get Poppy back on a plane and out of his life only he has fallen hard with an instant attraction for her and to be honest doesn't want her to go any where that is away from him.
I'm looking forward to reading more books by Ainsley Booth.
July 2, 2018
I'm indifferent on this book. I feel like I missed some introductory material because I never really got the background on either character. The writing was totally fine, but neither the characters or the plot pulled me in. I thought the prior two books were really cute and fun, but this one was sort of meh for me. The title also doesn't make sense - neither main character was a disaster.
Goodreads says this book is 47 pages, which is wrong. Amazon says it is 152, which seems accurate.
Goodreads says this book is 47 pages, which is wrong. Amazon says it is 152, which seems accurate.
December 7, 2022
A little bit sweet, a little bit spicy. This was a super short read and to be honest, I would have rated it higher if it had been longer. I wanted the development of their relationship to be fleshed out more and I wanted to get to know Marcus and Poppy more as individuals. I would have adored this had it been a full length novel.The ending was super cute though!
March 27, 2024
I think this might probably be my favorite in the series, I just find it fun how he made her walk back to her car in the middle of the woods because he thought she was trying to flirt with him- or like be suggestive towards him so he'd open up and tell her all his secrets only to have her shove him because she's got more class than that 🙄💅
November 27, 2017
Perfectly sweet fun story
I love Marcus and Poppy. They both stayed so true to who they are a an individual person and melded their lives together into one. This was the perfect holiday weekend read!
I love Marcus and Poppy. They both stayed so true to who they are a an individual person and melded their lives together into one. This was the perfect holiday weekend read!
November 30, 2017
The reporter and the Ranger
Sparks fly right from the start. Poppy and Marcus distrust each other, but still want to be around each other. Will there be a happy ending for them or will outside force destroy their chance?
Sparks fly right from the start. Poppy and Marcus distrust each other, but still want to be around each other. Will there be a happy ending for them or will outside force destroy their chance?
December 1, 2017
Personal Disaster...
A delightful read. A great addition to the series. Secret billionaire is a park ranger and falls for a reporter. But the road to that love is filled with angst, drama and passionate twists and turns. A short story but still delightful.
A delightful read. A great addition to the series. Secret billionaire is a park ranger and falls for a reporter. But the road to that love is filled with angst, drama and passionate twists and turns. A short story but still delightful.
December 5, 2017
The characters are developed, and beautiful in their complexity. There's no 2d characters here. The book is beautiful in its love of the story and the story flows so beautifully. I can't wait for the next boy to fall. Coz when these billionaires fall they fall hard.
December 5, 2017
The characters are developed, and beautiful in their complexity. There's no 2d characters here. The book is beautiful in its love of the story and the story flows so beautifully. I can't wait for the next boy to fall. Coz when these billionaires fall they fall hard.
January 1, 2018
Fun & Sassy
Poppy is a spitfire reporter. Marcus is a private man she is after. He lets her into his world & she discovers he isn't who she was really after for her story. They clash & steam up the mountain side together. Their love story is fun and light.
Poppy is a spitfire reporter. Marcus is a private man she is after. He lets her into his world & she discovers he isn't who she was really after for her story. They clash & steam up the mountain side together. Their love story is fun and light.
June 22, 2018
What a great romance! 💞💙💞
This book is so good! There are plenty of twists and turns with lots of laughter and passion. It also shows that long distance with can work out if the emotions and time are out into them. 💕💖💕
This book is so good! There are plenty of twists and turns with lots of laughter and passion. It also shows that long distance with can work out if the emotions and time are out into them. 💕💖💕
July 29, 2018
This series is great
Loved the characters and their stories happy to see previous characters as well. Marcus and poppy are super great together. I look forward to bens happy ending now :)
Loved the characters and their stories happy to see previous characters as well. Marcus and poppy are super great together. I look forward to bens happy ending now :)
February 13, 2021
Read A Billionaire for Christmas, it seems it has been renamed. Super short like the others in the series, but not as good. The story ends abruptly. There was a lot promised, but it wasn’t delivered.
December 2, 2017
Well written tale wrapped around current political trends and culture. Strong, interesting characters that get into your soul. Love the series. Love this author, who I highly recommend reading.
December 16, 2017
It was a great easy read that was light and enjoyable.
December 16, 2017
Extremely disappointing. At least the other 2 books had some kind of decent story and it seemed like the language was a little vulgar in this one, almost like a totally different person wrote it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews