Review: Hired Bride

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For years, Deanna's eccentric grandmother has been trying to marry her off to a rich man, and she's finally managed to do it. Deanna has spent her life trying to take care of those she loves, and a six-month marriage should be a simple enough way to keep their historic Savannah house from falling down around their heads.

Sexy, obnoxious Mitchell Graves needs a wife to finalize a business deal, and he snaps up Deanna as the most expedient option. Because she's quiet, he thinks she'll be easy enough to manage as a wife.

He couldn't be more wrong.

Genre: contemporary romance

Publishing date: June 2015

Offensive content: there is mature content in this book, in the form of a couple of explicit sex scenes.

Review:

This is a simple, sweet romance. It reads pretty quickly and leaves you with a warm, contented feeling. 

The only downside for me was the premise over which all the story is based. It seems odd that someone decides to fake a marriage just to fend off the advances of a potential business partner. There are lots of reasons why people enter into arranged marriages, but that one in particular sounded really lame. Maybe this is why I didn't like Mitchell very much, at least in the beginning of the story, though he did redeem himself in the end.  

I loved Deanna a lot more, loved her for making all the effort to help her family and I totally sympathized with her crafty side.  And I also loved her grandmother, with her Southern sense of pride, her treasures from the past and her display of the long dead, stuffed, family pet cats. I wish the book gave some more details on her, but after the initial pages there wasn't much more other than her stay at the hospital. I got the feeling she was one lady worth to meet. 

Hired Bride unfolds in a rather predictable way, right onto happily ever after, there isn't a lot of suspense, not even a lot of backbone to the story. But sometimes the simplest things are those that bring us the most pleasure. Sometimes we just need to get away from our stressed, busy days, and this is the perfect book for that. It will not make you smarter, it will not enhance your general culture, but it will make you feel good and, for that, it is totally worth the price.  

Hired Bride is also book 1 in the Beaufort Brides series and I'm now well into number 2, Substitute Bride, and enjoying it as well. 

Happy readings,