ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL
Series: Billionaire Builders #3
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: Jennifer Probst
Release Date: July 25, 2017
HGTV’s Property Brothers meets The Marriage Bargain in this third volume in the Billionaire Builders series, an all-new, heart-wrenching, and sexy contemporary romance from New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Probst.
Tristan Pierce left the family business to carve out a life of his own, but never forgot his passionate affair with the much younger, inexperienced Sydney Greene, or the hurtful breakup that tore him apart.
When he’s forced to return home and face his past, will he be able to carve out a future, or will lies ruin his second chance at love?
Sydney Greene loved Tristan her entire life but when he left, he took not only her heart, but her trust along with him.
Now that they’re together again, it’s time they both face the biggest secret of all…
They were playing a dangerous game. And eventually, someone was going to lose.
My favorite book in the series! And considering how this book contain tropes that I’m usually iffy on, that is saying a lot. Tristan and Sydney’s story has been teased since the first book in the series and I’ve been really excited to dive into their journey since then.
Like his younger brother Dalton, Tristan came back to Harrington to fulfill the conditions of his father’s will. His return to Harrington brought him face-to-face with the woman he left behind.
Sydney Green was like a sister to the Pierce brothers growing up. She was the quintessential girl-next-door who happens to be in love with Tristan since forever. Their coming together was inevitable but when his mother died, the whole family imploded and his relationship with Sydney was the first casualty of that.
Fast forward to years later, Sydney is an assertive single mother who’s got bigger dreams than just being an executive assistant within Pierce Construction. Her bid to become CFO put her in close Tristan. Soon enough they couldn’t stop themselves from surrendering to the attraction and the unresolved feelings between them. But Sydney is hiding something very important from Tristan that could end their second chance at love.
She loved Tristan Pierce with her heart and soul. Somehow she needed to believe he felt the same way. She had to fight to make sure they got their second chance, even if it meant pushing past uncomfortable boundaries and forcing him to take a risk.
There are so many things that really worked for me in this book that in theory shouldn’t have because I’ve read books with this trope before and hated most of them. It rarely works for me which is why I was really surprised at how emotionally invested I felt.
I’m going into spoiler territory with this one. While I don’t think knowing that in advance would ruin the book because the twist isn’t really the focal point in the book. The books is more about the consequences of decisions made by Tristan and Sydney years ago than this big reveal I’m going to talk about.
Nevertheless, if you don’t like spoilers, stop reading now. Go read the book first and then come back to this review, okay?
So be warned…
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Okay.
One of the tropes that don’t always work for me is the hidden baby trope. Now if you’ve read the previous books in the series, you’d probably have an inkling about Becca being Tristan’s daughter, which he doesn’t know about. That was confirmed 100% in this book.
I usually don’t like this trope because it seems cruel to me. But Jennifer Probst executed it so well that she made me understand why Sydney did it. She made me see the logic behind Sydney’s decision, which I felt was ultimately the best decision she could have done at that time.
Another thing the author did right was she didn’t make excuses for her characters. She made them suffer for that decision. I was able to sympathize with Sydney and Tristan even though I know they’re both at fault in some way. You can feel Tristan anger at Sydney’s betrayal but at the same time get angry at him for what he intended to do after he learned that Becca was his.
Both of them made terrible judgement calls and they both suffered the consequences. The author didn’t make excuses for their actions. And they both had to work it out in order to get their happily ever after.
All or Nothing at All is well written with flawed characters that you can root for and a story that you can get emotionally invested in.
Somehow, he needed to try to make things right. Make her see how badly he needed her. Trusted her. Loved her.
