July 20, 2022 - Staff Reviews

Marriage on Madison Avenue

By Lauren Layne

Release Date: January 28, 2020

Ebook Available from WV Reads!

https://wvreads.overdrive.com/media/4815416

4 Stars! - A nearly perfect friends to lovers romance with an excellent fake engagement set up. Clarke and Audrey are basically the ideal couple everyone can see but them of course. Neither can bring themselves to call off the fake wedding and their chemistry really makes this slow burn worth the read.

Lauren Layne has a way of making even the simplest or basic of moments romantic, and her ability in that shines here. Audrey is a very likable heroine, a sweet society girl whose childhood friendship with Clarke has seen her through the worst of times. I'm still not a fan of the series set up with Brayden. It does, however, her lack of trust is understandable. Clarke's pretty indecisive the whole book. But he's always there for Audrey and cares about her so genuienely.

Audrey's friendship with Naomi and Claire has a chunk of this story as well, and it continues to grow through all the wedding planning hoopla. It's cute and fun to see her friends know her better than she knows herself. Plus, their hunky guys return too. I will say Audrey and Clarke have the classic miscommunication problems going on the entire book, and it can get frustrating. And worth noting, Layne's signature steamy scenes are completely absent here. Also, I went into this with low expectations but by halfway through, I was undeniably hooked. I think that's when the story peaked though. Lauren teased us with build up scenes that had the potential to be really dynamic, but they sort of came and went quietly without much of a bang. Like the whole ski lodge trip. The ending was much the same. The payoff was sweet and satisyfing, but I still felt like there was more fleshing out to do there after so much build up the first half of the book. Overall though, this was a fabulous little romantic comedy sure to please.

(NS)