Stevie‘s review of To Have and to Harley (Bikers & Brides, Book 1) by Regina Cole
Contemporary Romance published by Sourcebooks Casablanca 07 Aug 18
It’s been a while since I found an MC Romance series that I could really get along with, but the blurb for this, the first book of hopefully many, made me smile, and I was more than a little intrigued by the idea of a bunch of bikers organising a wedding – with or without Bridezillas to fend off. The title’s cute too, even if the hero does ride a Ducati rather than a Harley.
Trey Harding has always assumed the worst of his mother for abandoning him in a gas station bathroom as a baby. He’s forced to change his opinion, however, when a private investigator tracks him down with the news that he was kidnapped from his well-off parents and thought by most people to have died along with the perpetrator. His mother never gave up looking for him, and now she wants them to meet. But knowing his true origins makes Trey ashamed of his current profession as leader of a biker gang, even if they enforce justice on criminals rather than committing crimes themselves. On the spur of the moment, he tells his mother that he’s a wedding planner – inspired by the bridal magazines scattered around his house – and she immediately hires him to organise his sister’s wedding, much to the disgust of the maid of honour and the bride’s best friend, Bethany Jernigan.
Bethany was more or less brought up by Trey’s long-lost family as a teenager, after her father died and the rest of her family showed how unsuitable they were to care for anyone. When she meets Trey and hears his story, she’s instantly suspicious and decides to find out who he really is, at the same time ensuring that her best friend’s wedding takes place without the disasters she foresees if Trey is left in charge. Trey, meanwhile, breaks the news to his fellow bikers that they’re organising a wedding and is surprised at their enthusiasm for the idea.
I really enjoyed this story. Bethany’s family is awful, and it’s easy to see why she prefers to spend time with that of her best friend – and now Trey – but she’s also loyal to a fault and can’t just walk away from them no matter how bad their behaviour gets. Trey and his comrades try hard at juggling their regular work – including having to deal with some new bad guys who have moved into their territory – with organising not one, but two, weddings. They need to have a practice run, after all.
I liked the romance between Trey and Bethany, although some of the conflict felt a little forced. They both have past issues that bleed into their present situations: Bethany’s family keeps popping up to plague her, including breaking into her house to steal stuff, while Trey can’t turn his back on the enforcement work he’s been carrying out for the people he’s always stood by in the past.
The punchline to both plots is a great setup for the rest of the series, and I really want to spend more time hanging out with these characters. At last I seem to have the biker series I’ve been longing for.
Grade: B
Summary:
You may now kiss the biker
Bethany Jernigan owes her bestie. Big time. So when wedding planning overburdens the bride-to-be, Bethany steps in to handle the nitty-gritty. But the guy in charge isn’t anything like she imagined. He’s gruff, tattooed, and 100% male. His staff is even rougher around the edges, and it’s not long before she feels as if she’s stepped into some kind of crazy alternate reality.Are those…bikers? Arguing about wedding favors?
Trey Harding never wanted this to get so out of hand. One little lie somehow snowballed into a world of dresses and flowers and food and holy-hell-he’s-in-over-his-head. But it’s not like he can confess he’s not the wedding planner he’s pretending to be—especially now that he’s falling for the maid of honor! His charade is becoming a farce, and as engines rev and ribbons fly, Trey’s running out of time to figure out how to tell the truth without losing his new family, his crew…or the woman of his dreams.
No excerpt available.
