Marriage of Inconvenience by Penny Reid

Four out of Five Stars

Reviewer warning: I have NOT read any other books in the knitting series. Is anyone else getting tired of me reading these series out of order? 

So, my review might talk about things that didn't make sense to me, but would certainly make sense to a person who is sane enough to read things in order. 

One sentence summary: Heiress must marry as quickly as possible to ensure that the life she worked so hard to distance herself from isn't taken away from her.  

First thought: This is by far the most intense reason for a marriage of convenience. That's not saying too much, because I typically avoid suspense, but we've got a few elements of that here. I also found this book a bit verbose, but I thought that might happen since it's about 200 pages longer than my typical romance reads. 

Why I read it: This is my second Penny Reid novel, I gave up on Truth or Beard because it was a bit slow. But I've read really great things about Penny, so I decided to check out her approach to my favorite trope. 

POV: Alternating M|F Past Tense, but we hear from our heroine a bit more often than our hero. 

Setting: Chicago & Boston 

Tropes: Marriage of Convenience, Second Chance, Protector 

Our Heroine: Kat to me was an enigma. She spent her young life distancing herself from her family, fortune, and the responsibilities that came with it. Then, suddenly she had to get married and she had to take over. But like I said before, the way our author set this up, I was like YEAH KAT, BETTER DO IT! I was rooting for her the whole time and while she certainly had her hang ups, I think those were more meant to keep Dan and Kat apart, which I'll get into later in the "worst" part. 

Our Hero: Dan. The last sentence of our intro was written as if we might get some nefarious vibes from him --is he trustworthy??-- I thought we'd be reading from just Kat's POV, but when Dan came in, I thought we'd have ourselves an unreliable narrator. But right away we know this is not the case. Dan's a huge, patient, and lovable hero, so I'm not sure where the summary was coming from. 

Overall thoughts: Penny Reid, while funny, isn't my particular brand of humor. My search continues for my number one Rom Com author. Like honestly, some events in this book were a bit over the top, but I found them hilarious-- were they supposed to be serious? A question I can only answer by reading more Penny Reid.. or by you, in the comments. 

In my review of Hate Notes, I claimed that there were too many events in rapid succession. For Dan and Kat, there were so many things that happened to them and around them. There were a lot of side stories, but I really thought the novel was well paced. Also, this one was significantly longer that Hate Notes- the two arn't exactly comparable works-- I'm just acknowledging my opposite reactions to the same problem. 

I met a lot of new characters in the book, and probably missed out on a lot of jokes simply because I didn't know their personalities. But another thing I missed out on was the pharmaceutical and law business. Our author does provide us with helpful definitions, but sometimes when she explained things I'd skim and say, OK Penny I trust you, this is really our only solution.     

The sexy scenes: I'll try to dance around this, incase it's a spoiler. But, one of our MCs has quite a hang up when it comes to sex. There are a couple other things that stand in our characters' ways to create- not exactly a slow burn, so I guess road blocks... 

The best part of the book: It was well written, an enjoyable read, and has a well developed cast of characters. I liked this story, but probably won't go back for a reread. Probably the biggest reasons I liked it were for the fake marriage trope, protector trope, and Kat's girl gang.    

Worst part of the book: What I like the most about a fake relationship trope is that our MCs are not initially in love with each other. That was not the case in this story. I might have known that if I'd learned my lesson and actually read a series in order, but I went in blind, so that could be my fault. But, I really missed watching our MCs fall in love, because these two were clearly there from the start of the book. Since our characters were already in love, but OF COURSE not admitting it to each other, they needed plenty of hang ups to get in the way! But that part was A-OKAY with me. 

TLDR: I read this book without having read other books- I probably missed some stuff because of that horrific habit, and my lack of pharama knowledge maybe didn't make me the best reviewer, but honestly, I liked this one! 

How I read it: I purchased this book for $6.99 and read it on my kindle! 

Links: Marriage of Inconvenience on GoodReads & Marriage of Inconvenience on Amazon 

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