Summary

Just weeks away from ditching DC for greener pastures, Solange Pereira is roped into helping her wedding planner cousin on a random couple’s big day. It’s an easy gig… until she stumbles upon a situation that convinces her the pair isn’t meant to be. What’s a true-blue romantic to do? Crash the wedding, of course. And ensure the unsuspecting groom doesn’t make the biggest mistake of his life.

Dean Chapman had his future all mapped out. He was about to check off “start a family” and on track to “make partner” when his modern day marriage of convenience went up in smoke. Then he learns he might not land an assignment that could be his ticket to a promotion unless he has a significant other and, in a moment of panic, Dean claims to be in love with the woman who crashed his wedding. Oops.

Now Dean has a whole new item on his to-do list: beg Solange to be his pretend girlfriend. Solange feels a tiny bit bad about ruining Dean’s wedding, so she agrees to play along. Yet as they fake-date their way around town, what started as a performance for Dean’s colleagues turns into a connection that neither he nor Solange can deny. Their entire romance is a sham… there’s no way these polar opposites could fall in love for real, right?

Review

This took me a REALLY long time to get into. It was a little bit because I was in a bit of a reading slump, but also a bit that it just gets off to a pretty slow start. I almost DNF’d it about 20% of the way through. I’m glad I kept pushing, because somewhere around the 30% mark (once we FINALLY get to the fake dating part of the story!) it really picked up steam, and then I had a hard time putting it down!

I ADORED the first book in this series, The Worst Best Man. Like, could not rant and rave about it enough, read it all in one gulp, threw it at my friends and forced them to read it level of loved. I think maybe The Wedding Crasher would have been better rated for me if I hadn’t gone into it with my expectations SO high.

Also, this doesn’t SAY it’s the second book in a series, but it’s definitely a companion/follow-up novel to The Worst Best Man. Lina and Max, the couple in The Worst Best Man, are very major side characters in this book and there are basically all the spoilers, so if you’re planning to read both definitely read this one second. I said in my review of the first book that I wanted to be best friends with a slew of characters, and Dean (one of the leads in this book) was one of them. I don’t actually remember Solange from the other book, and I’m hoping some of the other cousins that I loved in this universe will eventually get their own books too (looking at you Jaslene – but really, why not make it a series?)

The chemistry between Solange and Dean falls a bit flat for the first almost half of the book, but by about the midway point it picks up and becomes by turns sweet and smoldering. They get themselves into some real scrapes, but I love the way they both grow and learn to support each other and themselves. I’m really hoping Mia Sosa writes Jaslene’s story next!

A digital ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for review. All opinions are unbiased and my own.