Review: A Contract, a Wedding, a Wife?

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“What I need most right now is a wife.”
But can their convenient marriage turn into forever?
Solitaire Saunders will do anything to save her family’s café—even marry enigmatic billionaire Xavier McQueen! As his contracted bride, she’s there to secure Xavier’s inheritance—not to enjoy his delicious kisses… It’s only meant to be temporary, until the pretense of being married starts to feel passionately real!

Genre: contemporary romance

Publication date: April 2018

Mature content: no graphic details

Review: A Contract, a Wedding, a Wife? is a simple, down to earth sweet romance story. It's cheesy in places, maybe too juvenile in others, and there are lots of cliches too. But overall it's a fun, quick read. The writing is OK, the characters are rather well developed for a book this size and the story is predictable, in a fairytale-ish sort of way.

My only concern was the way the basic premise of the plot was handled. While it's obvious Soli and Xavier were entering into an arranged marriage, it seems strange that Soli could manage to hide it from her family. Xavier's personality was apparently famous enough that Soli could find several images of him in public events while doing her background check on him, but in the months during which they are married they neither have to attend even one social event (barring an evening spent with some friends a week after the marriage) nor there is any mention that their marriage has reached the public eye. Also, despite all the issues with the evil cousin who would inherit Xavier's house if he didn't manage to get himself a wife, said cousin never makes an appearance in the story, not even to try to contest the marriage.

So you see, while A Contract, a Wedding, a Wife? may still be a nice book to cuddle with for a couple of hours, you can't expect too much in terms of plot consistency, hence the three stars rating.

Happy Wednesday,