Book Description
Take one American singer who doesn’t believe in falling in love…
Josh McInnes’ biological clock is ticking and he wants to get married—now. After 20 years singing soppy love songs, he knows that there is no such thing as romantic love. There’s only hormones and lust. At thirty-five, he’s tired of his playboy lifestyle. He wants a wife who isn’t interested in fame, money, or romance. A sensible wife, who values commitment. He wants a partnership, a friendship, and none of the craziness that goes with falling in love. As far as he can see, there’s only one way to get exactly what he wants—he needs an arranged marriage.
…add a Scottish librarian who has given up on ever falling in love…
Caroline Patterson terrifies men. With her no-nonsense attitude, and ice queen demeanor, she’s in control of everything—and everyone—around her. Her sensible shoes and grey skirt suits act like a force field, repelling male attention. At thirty-one, she can’t remember the last time she went on a date and is beginning to think she’ll never have a family of her own. When an American stranger buys the local castle then approaches Caroline with a marriage proposal that resembles a business contract, she quickly accepts. She doesn’t expect romance. But she does expect to control each and every detail of their lives together. Because as life has taught her—if you aren’t in control, bad things happen.
…and it’s romance Invertary style!
Author Profile
Janet grew up in Scotland but now lives in New Zealand. Among other things, she’s been an artist, a teacher, a security guard at a castle, a magazine editor, and a cleaner in a drop in center for drug addicts (NOT the best job!). When she isn’t living in her head and writing about the people she finds there, she raises two kids, one husband, and several random animals. She survives on chocolate and caffeine.
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Review
It started of really well and then….
As with most of the love stories I choose to read, it started off well. For the first 30% of the book, I was feeling ‘wow, I just found the book I needed to read’…
The Good Part
- It was funny.
- The chemistry between the leads was really well described. The casual man and the uptight lass made for a cute pair. They were growing fond of each other and then it drifted off.
- The parents’ story was funny, specially all the effort Andrew puts to win Helen over.
Some Issues
- I noticed a lot of small issues throughout the book.
In a lot of places, when the scene changed, there was no section break. It affected the continuity. - One of the subplot was to highlight the downside of being a celebrity and the paparazzi and what not. True, those were essential to the plot perhaps but I felt it was taken too far. I mean the Danny guy caused a havoc a million times… What on earth was the tough security guy, his team and the police had done? Each time, he would come back and cause more pain – less to the leads and more to the readers. I was almost putting down the book. I won’t tolerate this further.
- The threats that Caroline got repeatedly, was obviously from a certain character we meet earlier in the book. That was WAY TOO PREDICTABLE. Given that Caroline was so smart, I wondered why she hasn’t figured it out. She does, when the culprit announces it in front of the world. Duh.
- That brings me to the next problem. Caroline transitioned from a control-freak to a meek-lady almost so quickly, it was unbelievable.
- Repetitive. Not just in terms of content, but vocabulary too. I stopped counting but a few phrases are used, more than once, in every chapter. And there are forty chapters. Imagine how much repetition was there.
As I said, I put it down for a DNF. But the next morning, I decided to finish. And it finished in a very very very predictable manner. But I was glad it is over.
Shabana Mukhtar
