Trade Me

Cyclone, Book 1

By: Courtney Milan

Narrated by: Xe Sands, Sean Crisden

Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

Tina Chen just wants a degree and a job, so her parents never have to worry about making rent again. She has no time for Blake Reynolds, the sexy billionaire who stands to inherit Cyclone Systems. But when he makes an offhand comment about what it means to be poor, she loses her cool and tells him he couldn't last a month living her life.

To her shock, Blake offers her a trade. She'll get his income, his house, his car. In exchange, he'll work her hours and send money home to her family. No expectations; no future obligations.

But before long, they're trading not just lives, but secrets, kisses, and heated nights together. No expectations might break Tina's heart...but Blake's secrets could ruin her life.

©2015 Courtney Milan (P)2016 Courtney Milan

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inspiring story

loved the dynamic between Blake and his dad. never did I expect that twist! so much fun with this one!

Telenovela

** spoiler alert ** This went from cute trading places construct to telenovela style drama, it was kind of hilariously over-the-top crazy at the end. "LIVE, YOU BASTARD, LIVE!" and cocaine overdose and doing 130 in a Tesla in the hills. Ha. It was kind of too much. But hey it was on Audible Romance Package so no regrets. The audio version had extremely dramatic readers, also, especially the voice for Tina was always on-edge emotionally. As always, I love that Milan integrated a lot of non-white characters and a trans character who is the heroine of the next book. I'm not sure if I will read more of her contemporary novels.

Unexpected treasure.

This book was so good. I laughed all throughout the book. I love Courtney Milan and have read so many of her books. Sean Crisden does well for his narration but Xe Sands blew me away. She didn't just narrate, she lived this book. Fantastic!

Cute

Loved it overall, but I wanted a little more at the end. I loved that there is finally a leading Asian woman and shes not a submissive shy little girl like the stereotypes. Asian women are not submissive if you know them.

Loved this!

This is my intro into Milan’s work and I loved every minute of this book. The way she touched on issues in an authentic and responsible way was beautiful. And now I’m off to fall into her backlist.

The only class difference book I'll read

4.5 Stars.

Damn that’s how to do a rich boy, poor girl (fake) relationship right. There’s immigration, trans rep, and a hero with an eating disorder. Tina is a take no sh*t, hold her own kind of women. I love that it takes place at Berkeley. The characters really got under my skin and I love them and didn’t want to leave them when it ended. I really want more because I felt that Tina and Blake had so much more to work through and Courtney Milan writes that so masterfully.

Narration: I may be nitpicking because I generally like these narrators, but I felt like trying to do the various accents actually ended up disrespectful. 4/5

Fantastic story.

I love this story from beginning to the end. It grabbed me at 10 minutes held me at 4 hours in kept me going strong at 7 hours and 45 minutes. It captured my heart and made me feel from beginning to end this is the kind of story I like to listen to where you get a good sense of who the characters are how they come together what may or may not separate them while you can feel or at least try to feel what they are feeling it was awesome

Beautiful

Enjoyed the whole book. The struggle each character faced and how each person dealt with it. Similar to how we deal with personal struggles and how we try to rationalize them regardless being right or wrong. Love to read more books like these. A joy...thank you. 😊

Unique story line!

I did enjoy the unique story line, This was not a light romance by any stretch. It touched upon some heavier topics. But, it only lightly touched on them. I felt that this story could have head a bigger impact than what it actually delivered on. However, overall, I did enjoy it.

The narration was ok. However, the male narrator's female voice is not very good. It sounded like the kind of voice a man will make when comically imitating a woman's voice. So, those parts would always make me cringe.