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The Wedding Trio #2
Something Borrowed
A Second Chance Clean Queer Romance
This wasn't the first time Avery had had to reinvent herself, and she could do it again. Only this time, she had a child in tow.
A fresh start in a new city is just what she needed. Avery knows she's on the right track when she lands a dream job at Love and Joy, a wedding and event planning business. Juliette, her new boss, is amazing and so is Dante, her business partner. It's the first place she's felt accepted for who she was and as a valued member of the team.
After two failed attempts at matrimony, you'd think she would shy away from the daily reminder of wedded bliss other people seem to be able to attain. Avery loves the starry-eyed couples she gets to work with and puts all her passion into making their day one to remember.
When love knocks on her door one more time, Avery pretends she doesn't hear it. Happily Ever Afters are for clients, not her.
Will Avery let down her guard enough to let love in?
Something Borrowed is the second standalone story in The Wedding Trio.
This wasn't the first time Avery had had to reinvent herself, and she could do it again. Only this time, she had a child in tow.
A fresh start in a new city is just what she needed. Avery knows she's on the right track when she lands a dream job at Love and Joy, a wedding and event planning business. Juliette, her new boss, is amazing and so is Dante, her business partner. It's the first place she's felt accepted for who she was and as a valued member of the team.
After two failed attempts at matrimony, you'd think she would shy away from the daily reminder of wedded bliss other people seem to be able to attain. Avery loves the starry-eyed couples she gets to work with and puts all her passion into making their day one to remember.
When love knocks on her door one more time, Avery pretends she doesn't hear it. Happily Ever Afters are for clients, not her.
Will Avery let down her guard enough to let love in?
Something Borrowed is the second standalone story in The Wedding Trio.
- GenresRomance
71 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 23, 2024
31 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
About the author
Daisy Landish
217 books1,041 followersDaisy Landish is a romance and contemporary fiction author, whose clean and sweet novellas have tugged at readers’ heartstrings around the world. When she’s not writing love stories, Daisy spends her time reading, hiking at dawn, and riding into the sunset on her horse, Rosebud.
Be sure to follow Daisy for new releases and join her newsletter at https://daisylandishromance.substack.com
Be sure to follow Daisy for new releases and join her newsletter at https://daisylandishromance.substack.com
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 11, 2023
Here's a completely hateful loss of a book; I picked it up on some queer book sale, and it's absolutely not good, I'm afraid.
The dialogue, social dynamics, and general character interactions are so weird, I do not like them. You have small niggles, like protagonist Avery talking about needing to "get back on the horse and slay", and more eye-rolling things such as Avery describing how the wedding planning company she works for "FEELS LIKE A FAMILY", which is such shit honestly. Plus, Avery is the kind of person to sign someone up for speed dating, deliberately against their will, and justify it with "Maybe you'll change your mind and like it".
As a protagonist Avery is basically a complete bust; it's at least interesting to see a trans woman who is also a mother (and divorced, even) for once, that is new, but aside from that Avery is kind of a nobody. It's not stated how old she is, but she turns down a second date due to a FIVE YEAR age gap being "too much". Maybe they are 18 and 23? She also knows about automobile maintenance which is neat, but not a primary interest of hers, and what she does outside of work and joking around with her gay best friends is anyone's guess.
Sarah is our love interest, and I do not love nor am I interested in her :^) At first blush she seems like a cool artbitch, having moved to the town of Summershore to open her own studio and paint cool grafitti, but try to act shocked when she behaves like a freak around a trans woman, okay?
I'm always bullying these books unrelentingly, but come on: Avery does the obligatory "I'm trans-gender", complete with a scuffed dash, and Sarah instantly launches into a big ramble, asking "Are you happy? The way you are now? Is this the person you want to be?" Damn, I didn't know we'd be quizzed on this! Is Avery seeing a psych to get her meds renewed, or on a fucking date? Wrong answer, ma'am. Sarah's tirade continues with zingers like "WHO WE ARE ISN'T ABOUT OUR GENDER, IT'S WHO WE ARE IN OUR HEARTS" which is groan-inducing on its own, but the plot takes a serious downturn when Sarah proceeds to ghost your girl for like two straight weeks.
So yes, the third act conflict is unironically Sarah being jumpy about her date being trans, and she has the gall to just show back up and carry on, "I've never been with someone who's trans! I didn't know how to take it!" Grit your teeth, Sarah, that'll help. The book lost me entirely at this point, which is pretty sad for a seventy-two pager, but we have GOT to do better than this, seriously...
The story jumps ahead by two years after that *dramatic conflict*, but the rest reads more like a lengthy epilogue that is totally unearned, given what's just happened. Buying a house (lol) and moving in together, cheesy marriage proposals (which involves references to significant events we skipped over), all that and a bouncing baby girl. It feels like we skipped the actual relationship development, and the only obstacle these two faced was Sarah being a total fucker.
Anything else? Well, it's kind of rife with typos. I won't give it too much shit, like I'm not docking points or whatever, but it does leave the reader stumbling now and then, so it is a problem.
I don't actually like being this negative. Like, sure, it's fun to riff on bad stuff now and then, but I don't relish blasting people's genuine attempts at writing inclusive stories like this. This one was really bad, though, so sorry.
The dialogue, social dynamics, and general character interactions are so weird, I do not like them. You have small niggles, like protagonist Avery talking about needing to "get back on the horse and slay", and more eye-rolling things such as Avery describing how the wedding planning company she works for "FEELS LIKE A FAMILY", which is such shit honestly. Plus, Avery is the kind of person to sign someone up for speed dating, deliberately against their will, and justify it with "Maybe you'll change your mind and like it".
As a protagonist Avery is basically a complete bust; it's at least interesting to see a trans woman who is also a mother (and divorced, even) for once, that is new, but aside from that Avery is kind of a nobody. It's not stated how old she is, but she turns down a second date due to a FIVE YEAR age gap being "too much". Maybe they are 18 and 23? She also knows about automobile maintenance which is neat, but not a primary interest of hers, and what she does outside of work and joking around with her gay best friends is anyone's guess.
Sarah is our love interest, and I do not love nor am I interested in her :^) At first blush she seems like a cool artbitch, having moved to the town of Summershore to open her own studio and paint cool grafitti, but try to act shocked when she behaves like a freak around a trans woman, okay?
I'm always bullying these books unrelentingly, but come on: Avery does the obligatory "I'm trans-gender", complete with a scuffed dash, and Sarah instantly launches into a big ramble, asking "Are you happy? The way you are now? Is this the person you want to be?" Damn, I didn't know we'd be quizzed on this! Is Avery seeing a psych to get her meds renewed, or on a fucking date? Wrong answer, ma'am. Sarah's tirade continues with zingers like "WHO WE ARE ISN'T ABOUT OUR GENDER, IT'S WHO WE ARE IN OUR HEARTS" which is groan-inducing on its own, but the plot takes a serious downturn when Sarah proceeds to ghost your girl for like two straight weeks.
So yes, the third act conflict is unironically Sarah being jumpy about her date being trans, and she has the gall to just show back up and carry on, "I've never been with someone who's trans! I didn't know how to take it!" Grit your teeth, Sarah, that'll help. The book lost me entirely at this point, which is pretty sad for a seventy-two pager, but we have GOT to do better than this, seriously...
The story jumps ahead by two years after that *dramatic conflict*, but the rest reads more like a lengthy epilogue that is totally unearned, given what's just happened. Buying a house (lol) and moving in together, cheesy marriage proposals (which involves references to significant events we skipped over), all that and a bouncing baby girl. It feels like we skipped the actual relationship development, and the only obstacle these two faced was Sarah being a total fucker.
Anything else? Well, it's kind of rife with typos. I won't give it too much shit, like I'm not docking points or whatever, but it does leave the reader stumbling now and then, so it is a problem.
I don't actually like being this negative. Like, sure, it's fun to riff on bad stuff now and then, but I don't relish blasting people's genuine attempts at writing inclusive stories like this. This one was really bad, though, so sorry.
October 23, 2022
I was really looking forward to reading this book as I have enjoyed previous (sapphic) works from this author. Unfortunately, this one missed the mark for me.
There was lots of mention of love and feelings, but not a lot of actual love and feelings. Let me qualify this statement. The writing was often more like a technical report/shopping list as opposed to an emotional journey a reader could feel and invest in and the story itself was pretty much cliff notes, skipping straight to the end.
It was such a shame as Ms Landish had the premise for an awesome romance.
As such, I concluded that either Ms Landish lacks the personal insight/experience to do this story justice or she has the deeply personal insight/experience to tell it, but feels too vulnerable to do it effectively. Either way, what could have been simply brilliant was simply lacking, too guarded or both.
Having said all of this, I would have given 5 stars just for the mantra contained in this book and for that alone, it's worth having a read.
There was lots of mention of love and feelings, but not a lot of actual love and feelings. Let me qualify this statement. The writing was often more like a technical report/shopping list as opposed to an emotional journey a reader could feel and invest in and the story itself was pretty much cliff notes, skipping straight to the end.
It was such a shame as Ms Landish had the premise for an awesome romance.
As such, I concluded that either Ms Landish lacks the personal insight/experience to do this story justice or she has the deeply personal insight/experience to tell it, but feels too vulnerable to do it effectively. Either way, what could have been simply brilliant was simply lacking, too guarded or both.
Having said all of this, I would have given 5 stars just for the mantra contained in this book and for that alone, it's worth having a read.
April 7, 2024
The story was very time-jumpy, it was clearly trying to cover several years with a few scenes. I couldn't tell if scenes were generally missing because of this, or maybe wording was just bad in some places (minor spoiler ahead) there was no break-up but they got back together.
So many romance clichés throughout the story. Follows the general format of Get Together, Argue, Forgive and Start Again.
So many romance clichés throughout the story. Follows the general format of Get Together, Argue, Forgive and Start Again.
February 24, 2024
Sweet but meandered
I loved the inclusivity and sweetness of this story. The plot seemed to meander and the writing was a bit clunky, particularly the dialogue.
I loved the inclusivity and sweetness of this story. The plot seemed to meander and the writing was a bit clunky, particularly the dialogue.
Read
March 25, 2024Quick and sweet.
But if Sarah had been with Avery since Emma was 1, and most likely nonverbal, why didn't she call Sarah mommy too?
But if Sarah had been with Avery since Emma was 1, and most likely nonverbal, why didn't she call Sarah mommy too?
July 22, 2023
What a lovely heartfelt series this is . You can feel the angst of Avery as she has to deal with Gemma’s walk out of their lives. She has to stay strong for her adopted daughter Emma ,she deserves more attention and love . So does her mummy ….
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews