The Family Secrets series takes a break from all the seriousness of the early books in this installment by Beverly Bird. The Billionaire Drifter is a great romantic comedy, but how much you enjoy it will depend on whether you find its heroine effervescent or just a dingbat. As much as I wanted to dislike her, yet another virgin desperate to get lucky, I couldn’t help it. She won me over.

Honey Evans arrives for her brother’s wedding on an isolated island off the coast of Portugal with a mission: to cast off her virginity in a steamy affair with a Portuguese hunk. The man she finds isn’t Portuguese, but he’ll do well enough. Honey isn’t about to tell him that she’s from a wealthy family or that she works at the White House. She wants to be appreciated for herself.

Max Strong is a billionaire with a mission of his own: to keep the rest of the world from knowing where he is. The island was supposed to be quiet and secluded, a perfect sanctuary from the outside world. Now it’s being flooded with wedding guests including one annoying pest he just can’t wrap his head around. He tells himself he wants nothing to do with her. Too bad for him – Honey isn’t one to take no for an answer.

Honey appeared in several earlier books as a wild and wise-cracking figure. In her own story she’s allowed to run amok, and boy does she ever. Honey doesn’t exactly make the most impressive entrance. We first see her picking up a guy in a D.C. nightclub, taking him back to her parents’ home, and then promptly passing out the moment things start getting hot and heavy. It seems Honey has a psychological block. She passes out in sexual situations, which is why she unhappily remains a virgin. This was where I put the book down and walked away for a while. I mean, come on now.

Eventually I picked it back up, and Honey started to grow on me. It would be easy to dismiss her as a stupid twit, especially when she’s often about as hyperactive as a two-year-old hopped up on Mountain Dew. To call her madcap or zany would be an understatement. But she’s not stupid, she has a lot of heart, and as the story unfolds and the author shows how other people act toward her and think of her, it’s easier to understand why she behaves as she does. She’s the prototypical poor little rich girl trying to break out of other people’s expectations and live her own life, which could be too clichéd if she weren’t also funny. She spends much of the book ruffling feathers and defying expectations, yet when someone puts her down, it’s easy to see the wounds beneath the surface.

For those who haven’t been following this series, it deals with the search for a group of genetically engineered siblings created in an experiment during the 1960s. Several of the siblings found to this point, including Honey’s brother Marcus, are in hiding on the island from villains who want to use them for nefarious purposes. Nearly everyone who arrives for the wedding is aware of this and they all take it very seriously. Honey was left out of the loop, and she’s determined to shove her way in. Watching her try to trip up all these very serious people cracked me up more than once. It was a nice change of pace to take a breather from everything else that’s been happening in this series and simply enjoy a story that’s purely fun.

Max gets the brunt of Honey’s attention. Despite being frequently exasperated and knocked off balance by the free-spirited Honey, Max is no pushover. This results in a great little romance between two characters who are both hiding their real selves yet manage to find freedom to be who they are with one another. The book is full of zippy dialogue and quick exchanges. It’s light and fun, and seamlessly introduces information from the rest of the series so that this book still stands on its own. There’s far more to the story than a virgin on the prowl, so that, in spite of everything, I didn’t even mind that part after a while.

If you have been following the series, this is one of the best books yet. If you haven’t, it’s merely one solidly entertaining, funny, and romantic read.