Skip to main content

Review: The CEO and the Christian Girl - For Love and Money #1

The CEO and the Christian Girl book cover on blue background

In light of mentioning Canada, it made sense for me to review a local author's book! I was so pleasantly surprised to discover that this author was from the same province as me, a rarity unless you're Janette Oke 😉

I had seen this book recommended to me on Kindle Unlimited after reading books from other independent authors, and I'm so glad that Nicole Lam popped up. I've since read as many of her books as I can! The For Love and Money series has characters whose stories are interconnected, but each book is compelling in its own way. They also have catchy titles, such as the first one in the series: The CEO and the Christian Girl.

Book Synopsis

Alexander Steele is cold-hearted. Hard-headed. Absolutely jaded. And he doesn't believe in love—or expect that any of the above will change with the marriage contract he signs.

Katerina Devereaux is gentle. Selfless. Just as stubborn as her future husband. She doesn't know if she can change him—but she has faith that God will.

Source: Amazon

Book Thoughts

What impressed me most about The CEO and the Christian Girl is how unapologetically Christian it is, right down to the title. Faith permeates each scene and shows the transformation that Jesus can have on people's lives. Dual point-of-view narration allows readers to see how Alexander's heart changes over time while better understanding Katerina's motivation for her persistence, particularly in a situation where her circumstances are out of her control but her responses are not. Alexander's actions brought to mind the Parable of the Two Sons from Matthew 21:28-32, where one son says that he will not work in the vineyard but later does. While Alexander's words convey his unwillingness to let others in, his actions remain kind, gradually softening so that he is able to be congruent in what he says and does. Katerina, on the other hand, remains strong in her conviction that her "first duty is to God" and demonstrates this through a loving but unwavering manner.

Some of the fun things I appreciated in this book were the setting of Montreal, Quebec, the usage of French names and sentences, and the introduction of Alexander's family members (I love Abigail's story and hope to read Georgia's full story one day!). This contemporary story is fun, uplifting, and shows that modern tropes can be done well in a way that is glorifying to God. Nicole has the ability to hook readers in at the end of every chapter so that her books are quickly devoured in no time; it took me less than a week to read her whole trilogy! Based on this book, I am looking forward to her upcoming release with the Love Inspired line called Saving the Single Dad's Bookstore.

Book Summary

  • Format of book: 📱
  • Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
  • Recommendation: 👍

Book Quotes

"But—" I spluttered, feeling as though I'd been dunked in cold water. "Surely, the—it is insufficient? Surely, there are things to be done, rules to be followed—" "The grace of God, insufficient? Then He would hardly be God, would He?"
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reader Identity

The more I share my book thoughts and reviews, the more amazed I am at how many readers there are out there and just how many people enjoy talking about the books they're reading. Quite frankly, I'm blown away by the notion that there are people actively wanting to adopt the persona of being a reader, whereas I remember growing up, it was stigmatized as either boring or 'nerdy'. I used to cringe when I was in a position where I was asked to share about my hobbies as reading seemed to generate a sort of response where others would murmur about how they didn't know that people did that for fun. To be fair, this might have been some of the social circles or settings I've been a part of over the years, but I think reading has generally become more mainstream now. Thankfully, I can let people know that I spend almost all of my free time reading (amongst other things), and others don't seem to bat an eye anymore. While I have seen some content that discourages peo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Christian Book Review Programs

Over time, I've been on the hunt for Christian book review programs that readers can join. As a result, I've been able to compile the following list which may be of interest if you are seeking review copies of Christian books. This list mostly applies to print and ebooks, although some publishers offer audiobooks as well. If further information is available for any of the publishers below (or any missing publishers), please let me know as I am happy to update this list—thank you! Please note that you can also search for these publishers on NetGalley and other review sites in case there are no review programs available to you or you don't qualify for one 😊 List last updated: September 23, 2026 Christian Publishers 10ofThose Availability: U.S., Canadian, and U.K. residents Format: Only books published by 10ofThose qualify for review requests so as to avoid impeding with other Christian book review programs Genre: Christian non-fiction, children's books Email for availabi...
10 comments
Read more

The Rise and Fall

I've shared before that being on Threads has been an interesting experience. It's certainly helpful in better understanding book trends as a whole, but a lot of the controversies I read about about are—in a word—awful. Awful for readers and authors alike, which is somehow a unique shared experience. I suppose that with symbiosis, when one falters, it affects the other. I'm likely not alone in my observation that there appears to be a lot more authors who are caught in the crosshairs of being popular one day and then being cancelled the next day. It's an interesting phenomenon where, with shared accountability, there is an increased demand that authors get things right, which I can't fault or disagree with. However, the speed at which the tides turn amazes me where people will spend a lot of time and resources on a particular author, only to "dump" them as soon as there is a hint (or more, way more) of controversy. I'm not questioning whether it's l...
Post a Comment
Read more