"Kate Adams expected to return home from Paris with a ring on her finger. Instead, her French boyfriend, Alain, breaks up with her right before she leaves for Australia. Unwilling to show up at her high school reunion desperate and dateless, Kate asks her best friend's brother, handsome Josh Marchant, to pretend to be her fiancée. Josh has always had a soft spot for his sister's friend and happily takes on the role. And as they spend time together, the lines between fact and fiction blur and they're soon struggling to remember it's all just an act."
Kate is someone who is what I would call an "extreme planner." If she doesn't have it mapped out step by step.....well, let's just say "spontaneity" is not Kate's middle name. Kate works for the Sorbonne, she was planning on her hot Frenchie boyfriend proposing so she could plan a wedding and a life for herself. On the opposite side of the coin, Josh is definitely not stuck in one spot. His job allows him to travel around the world to different hotels every couple of years or so and up until he comes home for a visit and agrees to be Kate's date to her reunion, he wasn't exactly looking to stop moving around from place to place nor was he looking to settle down.
I copied the teaser above to point out a few things about it. First, Josh doesn't have just a "soft spot." People who read the book are going to figure out what Josh thinks of Kate early on in the book. Kate is Josh's sister's best friend and they've known each other for many years but Josh's feeling go a little deeper than that. If Kate were the homely best friend, I could see the "soft spot" description being a fair one but in this particular case, it's not.
The point that they're struggling to remember it's all an act refers to the reunion in the book. That's misleading as well. I get that it's a teaser to get people to read the book and it worked on me as well but it's also not exactly a fair description. These two don't struggle at all. At least not to me.
I liked this book. I liked the story and the ending as well. There wasn't anything I particularly disliked either. However, I thought the book spent too much time at the reunion and too little time with Kate and Josh getting to know each other again.
I also thought everyone was so nice. Too nice. Kate's Frenchie ex shows up at one point int his book and it's really not much of a spoiler. Kate gets some closure from it. But she's way too nice to him. Or, maybe Australian women are just more polite????
Overall, I recommend reading it if you like a good, solid straight romantic book. If you don't want retching agony and a nicely wrapped happily ever after, then definitely read it. It's something I'll definitely recommend.
(I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review in return)
No comments:
Post a Comment