Slyph’s bestfriend/roommate, Mandi, is in the business of playing fake wife to rich guys looking to trick their families/exes into leaving them alone. Mandi comes home panicked one day about having to play bride for some billionaire, Heath Starre. Slyph wants to help her friend and since the money isn’t too shabby, and sex isn’t a condition of the contract, decides to take Mandi’s place. She gets much more than she bargained for once she meets Heath, however.
The characters were likable and pretty well fleshed out. Their chemistry wasn’t the strongest or most believable, but it was charming. The villains, Heath’s younger twin brother and sister, weren’t very intimidating, so the conflict of the story was kind of ‘eh’.
The plot pulled the story down because… well, I didn’t get the plot. Firstly, I have no idea why Mandi is unable to take this job. She’s in despair when she tells Sylph about what she does for a living, but she never gives a reason for why Sylph is acceptable for this one job but she isn’t. Second, as I previously mentioned, the ‘villains’ weren’t really that bad. They dug up some ‘dirt’ on Sylph that isn’t actually dirt, it’s literally a part of her demographic you could get from the DMV, so once they present it to Heath and he sort of gets mad, it doesn’t hold up and just falls flat. On top of that, their whole reason for hating Sylph, because they want to keep as much of their daddy’s money as possible, doesn’t really fit, because unless Heath has kids their portion doesn’t seem at risk. It seemed pretty pointless. Thirdly, why did Heath wait until the last minute to hire someone to fake marry him? There was no inheritance riding on his bachelorhood, no dying grandmother to make happy, it was just a ruse to get his family off of his back? Couldn’t he do that with a fake engagement, or hell, a fake serious girlfriend? The premise of a phony wedding taking place was too unrealistic.
On top of the plot holes, this story is heavier than usual on the typos/missing words for Wylder. It just isn’t one of my favorites by her.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.