Heat Factor: The door closes early! And I don’t often feel this way, but it’s actually disappointing because there’s a lot of possibility there for building the relationship during those scenes.
Character Chemistry: I honestly didn’t care what else was happening when Finn kept saying “my wife” (swoon!)
Plot: Woke up married (Irish tourist edition) plus Hollywood politics drama
Overall: The epilogue is from the dog’s perspective. 😐
I picked up this book because it uses the “oops, we’re married” trope, which I currently find irresistible. It was an audiobook from the publisher via NetGalley, and we know I love an audiobook because I can take it with me. This story was a great, easy listen as I wandered around town, running errands. I hadn’t listened to narrator Cady Zuckerman before, but I’d listen to her again. As a reminder, listening at 1x is a bit too slow for me, so I think I listened to this one at 1.2x, which was fine for keeping the voices aurally normal, and if there were any odd pauses in the 1x speed, I didn’t catch them at the higher speed. It was a lovely listening experience.
With respect to the story, you’re not going to get big surprises. Cara is on a trip to Ireland by herself for a long weekend because she was supposed to go with her boyfriend as he presented at a conference, but he dumped her two weeks prior to the trip. The Ireland portion of the trip is brief, primarily focused on Cara finding herself, climbing out from under the shadow of everything she thought before. But obviously we have ⅔ of the book left to go, so she’s not quite done when she wakes up next to Finn after a drunken Leap Day celebration.
Finn is primarily present as the character who helps Cara find herself. The story is from her POV, so Finn is opaque, and his motivations aren’t clear, which is, of course, useful when we get to the dark moment in Act III. He is very much a spontaneous, glass-half-full free spirit, and Cara is drawn to him because of this aspect of his character, but mistrusts it when everything hits the fan.
At the end of the day, this story is great for the comfort of its familiar rom-com energy and the charm of using the trope to create intimacy for a pair of romantically inclined strangers. The push-pull of “want” and “should” for Cara, as well as the mystery of what’s going on in Finn’s mind, keeps things interesting. Cara is galled that she woke up married to a man she’d known for three days, and while Finn makes all the right noises about ending the marriage, it’s clear he’s more invested in staying married than Cara is. Thus, every time Finn referred to Cara as “my wife” I absolutely swooned a little bit. As I was meant to do. Good job, Walker.
Please see:
“What are you doing?”
He flashed her a cheeky grin as he placed his other hand on the small of her back and pulled her close.
“Dancing with my wife.”
…
“It feels like a weekend activity.”
“There’s fifty-two weekends in a year. Multiply that by how many years we have on this earth, and that’s not nearly enough. If you want to live life to the fullest, you’re going to have to dance on some Tuesday nights.”
I am le sigh.
Was this book mind-bendingly amazing? No. It was charming and sweet and hit the spot. It was perfectly what I needed it to be when I chose to listen to it.
I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.
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