A divorced Englishwoman makes room for new romance when a strapping cowboy saunters into her life in this lighthearted romance. With her sister Polly getting married, Laura Williams gets roped into keeping the secret of a surprise wedding guest. Polly’s fiancé will be thrilled to see his long-lost American friend Hunter McQueen at the ceremony. But until then, the larger-than-life cowboy is … larger-than-life cowboy is Laura’s responsibility. Though she considers herself immune to men since getting burned by her ex-husband, the Southern charmer is surprisingly difficult to resist.
Hunter has mixed feelings about returning to England after his rocky past there as a teenager, but he can’t deny that meeting beautiful, no-nonsense Laura is an unexpected pleasure. Could the tall, handsome man with the Nashville drawl be just what reserved Laura needs to shake up her life?
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Favorite Quotes:
He was a perfect example of the theory that surgeons didn’t need a good bedside manner because their patients were generally asleep.
‘What time is your wedding overhaul session anyway?’ ‘Overhaul? You make Polly and I sound like a couple of old cars in need of a tune up.’
That’ll put a glow on your face and make the spa’s job much easier. You’ll need less make-up to fool people you’re not past your sell-by date yet.
Laura’s mouth gaped like a fish, although he wasn’t stupid enough to make that comparison out loud.
My Review:
I was initially quite concerned I’d made a mistake with this book as I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to warm up to the main character of Laura, she seemed like the perfect example of a dried-up priggish snob who needed to save up for that all-important surgery to have the stick removed, and hers seemed to be so deeply embedded it could have been fatal. Luckily her soon to be married sister placed a huge and oddly insightful wedding guest in her charge, and though he annoyed the uptight Laura to no end, he also intrigued her as well. His thoughtful and perceptive manner gradually thawed her iciness until the sparks could ignite.
This is my third time delving into Ms. Britnell’s wryly written work and I am quite taken with her amusing and vibrantly descriptive style as she manages to easily entertain my gray matter while smoothly slotting me into the sidelines of each scene. I was tucked in and part of the background yet could smell their perfume and charred attempts at meal preparation. Her storylines were engaging, easy to follow, and agilely managed to effortlessly yet thoughtfully tap on all the feels. I’m not sure how she does that but I’d like to have a ready supply of some of that on my shelf.
I was expecting a good chick-lit romance story, but ended up feeling a bit disappointed with the story as a whole. No kidding, the synopsis made the story sound so interesting.
The story is about a British woman named Laura who met an American man named Hunter. Their love story is kind of complicated and there are lots of things they had to go through in order to move forward.
What I liked the most about this book is the chemistry between Laura and Hunter. They are like a match made in heaven. They have a strong instant connection and they spend a lot of time together making their relationship very convincing and realistic. The build up to their romance was very well-written, and I liked seeing the development of their relationship.
Also, I liked the part which showed Hunter meeting his friends; Danny and Johnny. It made him want to improve himself as a human being. These three shared a terrible past, but to see them lifting each other’s up made me happy. It made me happy seeing them moving forward with their own respective lives, especially for Hunter since he was the one having a lot of issues. Meeting his friends and leaving the past to stay in the past made him want to reconcile a broken relationship he had with his father. It was so touching to see the moment when he had a heart-to-heart talk with his father. He deserved to put the past behind, he deserved all the happiness in the world, and he deserved to be given a chance to move forward.
Those are the only good things coming out of this book. What I disliked the most is the problems that both Laura and Hunter had to face, especially the thing with Laura’s ex-husband, Mike, and his new woman, Kiki. I feel like it wasn’t necessary for Mike and Kiki to be in the story at all since they don’t appeared a lot, only for like twice but then again, it wasn’t that important to the story. I don’t get what was the purpose of having those two in the story other than trying to complicate the things even more.
Add to that is also the argument that Laura’s sister, Polly, had with her soon-to-be-husband, Johnny. Seeing them argued over the things that happened in the past made the story very hard to enjoy. Is the argument even necessary? Does Polly’s overreaction matter? I’m tired of seeing Polly and Johnny argued when they only had a few days before they get married. It can get very unbearable.
Everyone has their own problems, but Laura seemed to be the only one who is calm despite her ex-husband tried to ruin whatever she had with Hunter. She doesn’t argued or get mad over the smallest or the biggest things. I really liked how she handled things in the book, she is like the only one mature enough to calm down any messy situations.
Overall, it wasn’t really bad, just some things needed to be cut out of the story completely. I was hoping it’ll be good or even better, I just didn’t expect it to be like this. There are some parts that I enjoyed reading and some are not, but it was still a good story. It also helps the readers see the importance of having to face your past and make peace with it, so that you can move forward with your life and doesn’t feel miserable or guilty anymore. The story is all about moving forward and left your past behind, learn how to forgive, and take another chance at love.