CBRers are the Best People

Before I get to my review, I just need to get sappy here for a minute.  I have lurked on Pajiba forever, and have dropped in on CBR intermittently over the years, but I never thought to join in.  Because I was embarrassed that my reading is almost exclusively romance novels.  But, Beth Ellen convinced me that it was cool here, that there are others like me, and we are all accepted – and she was right.  You guys just ‘get’ me.  This book was exactly what I needed.  I have been completely underwhelmed with my reading selections lately.  Then, the romance ladies of CBR all tried to throw this book at me, and based on that alone I knew it would be good.  But THIS good?!  I was not prepared.  (There may be a well-written ‘billionaire Dom leader of a biker gang of weretigers’ book out there, but THAT is not what I want or need – THIS book is what I needed).

(Very) quick synopsis: Mia and her two best friends have just graduated from college and head to Vegas for the weekend to party.  They wake one morning to find themselves married to another set of three best friends.  Mia is married to Ansel, who is heading back to his home in Paris in a couple of days.  Rather than annul the marriage, he invites her to spend the summer with him in France before she heads off to business school.  And, since there would be no book otherwise, Mia takes Ansel up on his offer.

So.  SO.  I was really nervous when I started this and it was written in first person.  That seems to be the standard for New Adult, but I’m always wary of it.  And, the whole book is from the heroine’s point of view, which I typically don’t like.  None of this ended up being a problem though, and I quickly forgot about the style of writing because I was so caught up in the story.

This is another take on the marriage of convenience (my favorite trope!), which is not easy to do with a contemporary setting.  Or with 20-somethings as protagonists.  But they pulled it off.  There is not a lot of plot.  It’s mostly just Mia enjoying France and trying to figure out what she is going to do with her life.  There is a lot of sex.  A lot.  My mother once said to me, “I like romance novels, but I don’t need all that thrusting.”  If you feel the same way, this is NOT the book for you.  While I don’t ‘require’ the thrusting, I do consider it a bonus.  :)  With that said, the sex really is in furtherance of the relationship in this one.  Mia and Ansel married after knowing each other for less than 24 hours and Ansel had a time-consuming job, so they had very little time together.  During that limited time they used their sexual chemistry that originally brought them together to get to know each other.

Some of the issues seemed to resolve themselves pretty easily, but I was overall happy with it.  The authors set up the characters well, and their backgrounds made possible their decisions led to a happy ending.  It was not just serendipity.  And, while they are still married at the end, it ended in more of a Happy For Now, rather than Happily Ever After, which I like in an NA book.  I’m just not convinced a 23 year-old should be fully settled in life.

I am saving the next book in the series as a reward for finishing up a few things I’m in the middle of reading, because I am so excited to get to it and I need some incentive to get through the others (looking at you Bollywood Bride).