Emma and Steve

Dragged and characters weren’t very bright

Revisado: 02-16-25

I loved the Riley Thorne mysteries by Lucy Score so I thought I’d try out her sister, Madison. Unfortunately Bride or Die didn’t stack up to the wacky hilarity of Riley Thorne. It DRAGGED, especially in the lead up to the climax where it lost all suspense, almost like “why are we still following this story?” The details of the final proposal took up TWO CHAPTERS and did not advance the story except for one small mishap. There wasn’t even any tension about whether or not the proposal would go off without a hitch.

The main character really was too consumed by her ex cheating on her (almost a year ago) to be likable and she made the kind of decisions they make in horror movies where you find yourself yelling “Why would you think the barn is safe?!” at the screen. The other characters were cliche and bland.

DNF. I made it to the villain reveal and it was so disappointing that I couldn’t keep going.

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Couldn’t finish

Revisado: 03-17-22

Why does every character have to have a side story where they fall in love? I do. Not. Care. I’m not invested in these new characters and I don’t see how knowing the details of their love lives benefits the story. Where was the editor on this one?. I don’t need hours of story in the middle about their angst and hookups that don’t drive the plot forward. I lost interest and couldn’t finish. So disappointed.

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Immature FMC

Revisado: 12-28-20

As a woman who just turned 40 and is teetering on the edge of divorce, I was really put off by the female MC in this book. I understand insecurities, we all have them, but the level of whining and wallowing in this book was reflective of something you’d see in a YA novel, not something about a woman who has had almost 40 years of life experience. I had a horrible boss in my 30’s and struggled to manage it, but I was at the BOTTOM level, not a senior level employee who was offered a VP position and turned it down. It is completely unrealistic that this character would be so mousy with someone who is literally second fiddle. Also, why does she never talk to senior management about the issues she’s having? The other employees talk about the fact that they’ve gone to management. By the time you’re at that level, you know how to handle difficult people like that and if you don’t, you don’t deserve to be there.

As for the relationship, she is an adult. Be an adult and HAVE A CONVERSATION! Jumping to conclusions and making assumptions is for teenagers who don’t know how to communicate yet. I get if she needs time to figure herself out before jumping into a relationship, totally valid (and I’m not a huge fan of a woman needing a man to love and be confident in herself) but if that’s the case, just TELL HIM. Don’t ignore his calls or attempts to explain like a child. I would have like to see some character development so she would have at least had the confidence to talk to him what she felt/though/wanted. When the guy is more mature than the woman it’s hard to believe or relate to.

Anyway, rant done. Overall, I would not recommend going into this book if you are looking for, and excited to see a strong, confident, “older” protagonist. If you want that, read KF Breene’s Magical Midlife Madness series. Here, you will just get more of the same stuff that you find in YA/NA novels except that the FMC is all angsty about the age difference as well as the same old “does he like me, no he can’t possibly, so I’ll convince myself he doesn’t, and ghost him even though I’m desperately in love with him,” BS. I mean is there any woman who actually does that?

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Immature FMC

Revisado: 12-28-20

As a woman who just turned 40 and is teetering on the edge of divorce, I was really put off by the female MC in this book. I understand insecurities, we all have them, but the level of whining and wallowing in this book was reflective of something you’d see in a YA novel, not something about a woman who has had almost 40 years of life experience. I had a horrible boss in my 30’s and struggled to manage it, but I was at the BOTTOM level, not a senior level employee who was offered a VP position and turned it down. It is completely unrealistic that this character would be so mousy with someone who is literally second fiddle. Also, why does she never talk to senior management about the issues she’s having? The other employees talk about the fact that they’ve gone to management. By the time you’re at that level, you know how to handle difficult people like that and if you don’t, you don’t deserve to be there.

As for the relationship, she is an adult. Be an adult and HAVE A CONVERSATION! Jumping to conclusions and making assumptions is for teenagers who don’t know how to communicate yet. I get if she needs time to figure herself out before jumping into a relationship, totally valid (and I’m not a huge fan of a woman needing a man to love and be confident in herself) but if that’s the case, just TELL HIM. Don’t ignore his calls or attempts to explain like a child. I would have like to see some character development so she would have at least had the confidence to talk to him what she felt/though/wanted. When the guy is more mature than the woman it’s hard to believe or relate to.

Anyway, rant done. Overall, I would not recommend going into this book if you are looking for, and excited to see a strong, confident, “older” protagonist. If you want that, read KF Breene’s Magical Midlife Madness series. Here, you will just get more of the same stuff that you find in YA/NA novels except that the FMC is all angsty about the age difference as well as the same old “does he like me, no he can’t possibly, so I’ll convince myself he doesn’t, and ghost him even though I’m desperately in love with him,” BS. I mean is there any woman who actually does that?

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Misleading

Revisado: 07-28-20

This isn’t the RomCom it’s marketed as. There is a meet cute, but the majority of the first 25-30% is quite depressing, not the light and fluffy read I wanted. It does improve, which is why I didn’t give it 1 star, but throughout the book I maybe only laughed a couple of times.

Plus, I didn’t love the male POV, it wasn’t particularly well written, and Teddy Hamilton makes him sound like a sleezeball when he’s not written that way at all. Emily Rankin was decent tho, hence the 3 stars for the performance.

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Quiet narrator hard to follow

Revisado: 05-28-20

The narrator has a lot of promise, good rhythm and level of emotion, characters were mostly well done. But her variation in pitch often made it hard to follow. Her general tone was on the quiet side and when she did the voices for some characters who were depicted as having a soft voice she got even quieter. She actually whispered when characters whispered instead of using a stage whisper. I often times found myself rewinding 30 seconds to catch something that I missed or having to turn up the volume.

Otherwise, story was interesting but I didn’t love it as much as I wanted to. Writing was also hard to follow at times. Showing is important, but if it’s not acknowledged by the main character as to what actually happened it may be difficult to picture/understand.

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Finally Will has a Welsh Accent!

Revisado: 03-29-20

Why do you do this to me, Ms. Clare?? Phenomenal. That is all I can say. A book I wasn’t sure I wanted to read and now I will now pine away until next March for the release of Chain of Iron.

As for the performance, Finty Williams was wonderful. Finally a narrator who has given Will his true Welsh accent and I loved it! My only comment is that I with there had been more distinction with the men’s voices overall. James, Thomas, and Christopher often sounded the same.

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Overly Dramatic Narration Ruined it

Revisado: 03-04-20

I usually like Emily Woo Zeller, but her narration for this book was WAY over the top. She acted out Every. Single. Word. Even when it didn’t make sense to do so. She also made the FMC sound more whiney and wimpy than I think the author intended. Overall it was distracting and took away from the story for me.

As for the story, I love Annette Marie and I think she is wonderful at world building and painting a beautiful picture in the reader’s mind, but this story wasn’t my favorite of hers, it started out on the slow side and I didn’t really see a reason for the romantic build between the two MCs. I hope we’ll get more to develop their relationship/connection in the next two books. I know her fans love this series so I’m keeping with it in the hopes that it gets better as it goes along.

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Love me some Finch

Revisado: 02-22-20

3.5 stars. The only reason this doesn’t get a 4 is because, like Finch, the snappiness of the other relationships (namely Raffe & Santana) made me want to make “a well timed vomiting noise.” Plus it’s not huge on action andthe good stuff doesn’t kick in until the end. I wish Finch had driven more of the story too. Amanda Ronconi’s narration was fabulous as usual, her portrayal of Finch is spot on - just the right amount of snark!

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Flat and choppy at the same time

Revisado: 02-20-20

DNF. The flat narration didn’t help the one dimensional characters or the choppy story and I often got lost and had to rewind with a, “wait, what? How did we get here?” Writing is poor and repetitive and it’s unfortunate because the story has potential if only it was executed well.

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