BOOK REVIEW (9): A Very Exclusive Engagement

Book Review:

A Very Exclusive Engagement

This would be my first Harlequin Desire.

I've always wanted to get around to picking one up, but I haven't. Until now.

Actually, I purposely went out of my way to get Andrea Laurence's sophomore novel with Desire because I read and loved her story on the official Harlequin/SYTYCW Sold! Blog.

A Very Exclusive Engagement is my first Harlequin Desire. I liked my choice introduction to this category line.

It start off with the elevator scene between heroine Francesca (yes! another Francesca) Orr and hero Liam Crowe.

As sexy as hellishly hot it was there was one part of that extended scene in the elevator I hated. During the height of her passion Francesca decides to take the one friggin’ water bottle they have as they roast in the elevator in the middle of an already 3-hour long power outage (did I mention they’re sitting ducks fifty floors above the main level? Well yeah.) and she pours the entirety of its contents over Liam’s head. You know to make it look sexier. When a few pages earlier she was trying to preserve it in case they, you know, start dying of thirst.

Francesca is sassy and Italian, and really sassy. She’s also extremely superstitious which to be honest is her (character’s) saving grace.  Otherwise I would have lost her to the zone-of-not-caring.  Liam also had some promising characteristics.  He was hella sure of himself, but then when I was beginning to suspect his perfection he reveals his totally normal fear of speaking in public.

The book has a lot of craziness.  It is a marriage of convenience trope *hint, hint* the title. What readers can expect:

*a whirlwind engagement-slash-wedding

*(not-so-sexy) kitchen counter sex scene

*a bevy of interesting secondary characters (A Very Exclusive Engagement is the 5^th in a continuity series of six books published last spring/summer)

*a lesson in Italian superstitions

*one ruined wedding cake and no bridezilla in sight

My verdict:

✮✮✮.5

(3.5 stars)