Review: A Fool's Gold Wedding

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Abby Hendrix would do anything to help with her beloved sister’s wedding, even play tour guide to the off-puttingly brilliant—and unexpectedly gorgeous—brother of the groom. She’s a small-town schoolteacher; he’s a gifted surgeon. Nothing intimidating about that! She’ll just ask him to help her plan a top secret surprise for the wedding. No pressure.

Joaquin Kincaid has always been book-smart and people-awkward, and Abby’s sweet and social nature triggers an unexpected yearning inside him. His whole life, he’s been an outsider, while she’s so popular she’s able to convince an entire town to go along with her wild ideas. For the first time ever, he’s met a woman who accepts him as he is, quirks and all, and he feels himself falling in love. Could Abby love him, too? Or, when she discovers the real reason he came to Fool’s Gold, will he lose her forever?

Genre: contemporary romance

Publication date: July 2020

Mature content: no

Review: From the romantic perspective, this book is nice and sweet. But the rest of the plot? It just didn't make sense at all to me. Why would a renowned surgeon need to resort to deception to get into a training program? He was in college by age twelve and is supposed to be super smart - couldn't he just find another way? Or another training program?  

The plot moves on, totally ignoring these details and just focuses on the fact that Joaquin is with Abby for the wrong reasons - when there isn't really a reason. He went to Fool's Gold three weeks before the wedding to try to get Abby's uncle to accept him in this training program. But his soon-to-be-sister-in-law is as much a niece to said uncle as Abby is, so he could have tried to "use" family influence before and in different way. So why Abby and why now? No idea, other than without that the author couldn't get the plot to work...

They do fall in love, but it almost feels like everything else in the book is a set-up for them to meet, and not a very realistic set-up at that. I was totally missing being back in Fool's Gold, even with a novella, and I ended up disappointed. So, running the risk of going against everyone else's raving reviews, I'm not rating A Fool's Gold Wedding with more than 3 stars. 

Happy readings!