A Marriage Mistake Romance
The tag line, “Accidentally wed to a screaming hot stranger”, had me excited to dig into what I thought would be a hot read in the marriage of convenience trope.
However, I felt the plot focused too heavily on family dynamics rather than romance. Bella Reed is “tricked” into marrying her grandfather’s employee, Drake Larkin, in order to protect her grandfather’s wealth from her money-grabbing parents.
The characters made this book difficult to enjoy. They are inconsistent, including Bella and Drake. All of them are swimming with so much guilt and lies, I found it impossible to work out who to root for.
Bella’s parents in particular are hard to believe. They are so horrible in the first half, then all of a sudden they become the victims of events in their past, so apparently all their horrid behaviour is justified and forgivable. To top it off, they then make a U-turn and transform into decent people who are suddenly trustworthy and only looking out for the best interests of their daughter.
By 75% I was just reading to see how nice and neat the author was going to wrap it up; prepping myself for a sickly sweet ending where all is well, everyone is forgiven for all their past horrid behaviour and lies, and they are now the best and closest family in the world.
If you love broken families, plus extreme guilt and angst in every character, then you will enjoy this book.
Unfortunately, this just did not hit all the buttons for me, and I could not stop questioning the characters’ contradictory behaviour to really enjoy it.
Plot: ⭐️⭐️
Feels: ⭐️⭐️
Heat: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Overall: ⭐️⭐️
