Dirty Damsels (DOTCOMGIRLS Book 1)

Ella—Cynderella Jones—built a successful cleaning business, Dirty Damsels, from the ground up. It’s her baby. So, when one of her workers can’t clean a top client’s condo, and no other girl is available, Ella leaps into action. While cleaning the Condo’s fireplace, sooty face and all, Ella is interrupted by the most gorgeous stranger imaginable, Buddy Prince. When a chance second encounter leads to a one-night stand, Ella thinks she has met the man of her dreams. What she doesn’t realize until later is that Buddy has come to New York to aid a corporate raider who is out to snatch her business from her. Even the hottest sex of her life can’t make up for Buddy’s role in the scheme to take over Dirty Damsels. However, all may not be as it seems.

“Dirty Damsels” is a clever reimagining of the Cinderella folktale, complete with a too good to be true Prince Charming, an evil stepmother and a fairy godmother. This first-person tale, told exclusively from Ella’s point of view, departs from the fairytale in fun, unexpected ways, providing plot twists that make it an almost believable modern tale. The descriptions of Buddy in his massive-shouldered magnificence and Ella’s melting over him are consistently over the top, and Dirty Damsels doesn’t seem a very plausible target for a corporate raider. That said, however, Ella and Buddy are loveable characters, and the story is sprinkled with several characters mirroring their fairytale counterparts in ways to make readers grin as they’re recognized. By the end, readers will be rooting for big-hearted Ella to win her Prince and find the happily ever after she deserves.

Marc Joseph