I was looking for something specific while browsing through my local library
romance rack. I wanted something with a wedding about young star crossed
millionaires. I didn’t want the book to be about Christmas, and I didn’t want
it to be about cowboys. I wanted something about celebrity and glamour. This
book fit the bill.
The book is about a former sitcom actress and recent
divorcee Georgie York. She is tore up about how her handsome actor husband,
Lance, left her for a more glamorous actress. Bram Shepard costarred with
Georgie back in the good ‘ol days but has since been ruined professionally by
his own debaucherous nature. Georgie has lingering resentment about how his bad
behavior led to the canceling of their show. He also callously played with her
emotions in an unforgivable deflowering episode in their youth. One deus ex
machine later they find themselves married the morning after a possibly
drugging incident in Las Vegas. They decide to stay married because of
paparazzi hounding and bad press. They decided one year of marriage would not
look suspicious, and Georgie offered to pay Bram for his involvement. Hate and
repulsion turn into respect, respect turns into lust, lust leads to sex, and
after a second deus ex machine involving a SARS quarantine with ex-husband Lance
and new wife, sex, professional development, and standing up to ones ex husband
turned into love.
The description of Georgie matched a young Julia Roberts but
the incident with her ex husband sounded overly similar to the Jennifer
Aniston, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie love triangle. The description of Bram
matched Chase from Gossip Girl. The character descriptions relating to famous
people felt a bit thin actually.
I really enjoyed the
book. The character description was sufficiently glamorous, and I ate up every
word. It wasn’t as glamorous as Adored by Tilly Bagshawe, but the wealth and
celebrity were juicy.
The writing was very good. The book flowed with character
consistency and descriptive scenes. This wasn’t like the awkward scenes and
hand motions evidenced in The Princess Bride. Sure, I had a feeling that the
author might have watched the Great Gatsby before writing the quarantine scene,
but there is nothing wrong with having modern influences. It was sort of
topical, like these characters live in a world much similar to my own.
My only qualm about the writing is that it seemed like the
only thing that moved the plot forward were these little improbable setups. It
is much easier to make characters confront their problems when they are forced
to be in a room together for whatever reason. Sure, this story could not
present the conflicted feelings about falling in love with someone you are
already married to like Georgie and Bram finding themselves married after a
morning after. I forgave the first time.
The second plot device with the quarantine was paper thin.
The sex was descriptive, copious, and non-repetitive.
Repetition is a problem these romance novels seem to have. People can only draw
on their own experiences for things like this, so it makes sense that people
fixate on different part of the experience. Like, in the princess bride, it was
so breast centric that every instance of sex was almost the same. That was not
a problem here. Sure, there was a lot of opening-her-thighs, but on the most
part, it didn’t seem like a copy paste of the previous incident.
There were three weddings in this book. The first occurred
off stage ala Britney in Vegas. The second occurred for the press in a Great
Gatsby inspired 1920’s cathedral. The third in the final pages was the only
“real” marriage with just a friend and a few family members. The third was
probably the wedding ceremony implied by the cover. I am glad they included
that because after reading the part about the vegas wedding, I felt like I was
being deceived by the cover ala The Princess Bride.
Near the middle of the book when the characters start to
have sex and regularly share their marriage bed, I realized that they should
just stay married. But the characters really wanted to split up, and I had no
idea why they would do that. They were in a monogamous relationship where they
help eachother with their careers! It couldn’t really get better than that. I
suppose that is why people write fiction about these sorts of things, so you
can get personally invested in a strange situation. That is also probably a
credit to the author, to manipulate my feelings this way.
Overall, I recommend this book if you want to take a break
from serious literature and indulge in a delightful confection of a book.
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