We’re told the rich are different. Katherine or Kitty Asare is not rich; she’s planning on gatecrashing a society event in Manhattan, and she brazenly dines in the lobby of the hotel and charges the meal to the penthouse. I couldn’t warm to her, however entitled she may feel. REDEEMED BY HIS NEW YORK CINDERELLA is a multicultural romance that also looks at multiple layers of wealth and entitlement.

Laurence Stone is a businessman attending the party in Manhattan, and he’s staying in the penthouse, so he pricks up his ears when he overhears the lady charging a meal to his room. (This hotel doesn’t seem to have any security.) His actual date has just dumped him – it was a relationship of convenience, and she’s just found a boyfriend. Laurence looks twice and realises Kitty Asare was a foster child of his parents, his father the controlling Senator, and his mother a Ghanian lady. They fostered a child from Ghana to look good to the voters. That didn’t last too long. Laurence and Kitty hadn’t met since.

Despite her stealing, Kitty runs a foundation for other foster kids to help them get jobs. She worked as a grant writer for a non-profit before starting her social effort. Laurence proposes the 'fake dating' trope we’ve seen so many times in books. Kitty practically snarls at him and then agrees in order to make connections for potential donors. But he’d better keep his hands off. That doesn’t last long, either.

Laurence may be bad at keeping his word, but Kitty, I consider two-faced. She resents Laurence offering to pay for decent web design and a swanky office, as her charity should spend money on the kids, not appearances. Yet she didn’t order a sandwich and soda at the penthouse’s expense - it was caviar, oysters, beef and champagne. She must have looked extremely odd sitting by herself, eating all this. As the story continued, there were too many shades of the film Pretty Woman for me.

I would have liked to see more of the Ghanaian background that both these people inherited, but they conveniently don’t have, or speak with, their parents. So that’s that. Anyway, if you would enjoy a contemporary romance featuring a resentful poor girl and a rich young man, REDEEMED BY HIS NEW YORK CINDERELLA by Jadesola James may appeal. Always nice to see how the other half lives.