Sandy M’s review of Nice Day for a White Wedding by Georgia Le Carre
Contemporary Romance published by Georgia Le Carre 30 Oct 19
Sometimes I can be my own worst enemy, it seems. I’ve been looking for new authors to read lately, so when I came across this book, the title just grabbed me. Even like the cover. So I didn’t bother with the blurb, just started reading. Maybe I can get away with ignoring the blurb when it comes to favorite authors, but I’ve learned my lesson with authors I’ve not read before. The hard way.
This book actually starts out really good. So you can imagine I was feeling pretty smug with myself that I’d found another author to place on the TBR pile for the foreseeable future. Cindy is the manager of a casino, and she knows her stuff. Her dreams are to own her own gambling house one day. Right now, it looks like she has a cheater in house, so she heads down to the floor to take care of the situation.
There she meets handsome Alex, and she can’t figure out how he’s winning. The ensuing banter between them, keeping the mystery around Alex, is what really pulled me in, enjoying these characters a lot. But the mystery and the banter doesn’t last long at all – very disappointing. Once Cindy and Alex are ensconced in her office to talk, Alex’s secret is no more and suddenly the story becomes one we’ve read a thousand times, if not more, in romance.
He needs a fake fiance.
To go with him to Russia to appease his aunt that he’s happy and secure. He makes sure Cindy agrees – he’ll give her the casino once everyone involved, with knowledge of the ruse or not, is happy with what they’ve learned. So off to Russia they go, and the story becomes boring. Getting to know his family, touring the landscape, keeping up their ruse at every turn, all with no mystery and no fun banter, and finding out Alex is/was part of the mob and is now going legit.
So because I’ve read all that before and the characters lost their luster so early on, I gave up. I never got to the nice day or the wedding or even how they fell in love to make the whole situation real. Can’t say that I miss any of it either. And now not sure I’ll be trying Ms. Le Carre’s other books, which is a huge disappointment.
Grade: DNF
Summary:
Alex
I need a fiancée.A fake fiancée and she couldn’t just be anyone.
She had to fulfill three very important criteria.
1) She had to be cool-headed, unflappable, strong, and convincing enough to fool my manipulative, grasping, greedy relatives.
2) She had to be so charming my great aunt will fall in love with her.
3) She had to be stunningly beautiful or nobody would believe the heir and successor of the Obolensky fortune had picked her to be his wife.
There was only one woman I could think of who embodied all those qualities. How to convince her to play the part…
Cindy
My three best friends are hitched and deliriously happy, and sometimes I wonder if I’m missing out, but then I tell myself I have a different dream. It’s on the back burner because I’m saving up. One day I won’t be the manager of someone’s casino I’ll be the manager of my own casino.I’m not greedy. Even a small casino, something like the one where I’m working at presently would do.
And then a man, a dangerous, mysterious, delicious man, walks into the casino.
He dangles my dream right in front of me. The problem is he is two dreams mixed up in one.
Suddenly the other dream, the one I had buried deep in my heart took a big gasping breath and pushed its way to the surface.
Suddenly, all I wanted was what my best friends wanted.
But all he was offering was the other casino dream.
No excerpt available.
