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3.5 Stars
Accidental Romeo is the 3rd book in Snow’s Marriage Mistake saseries. For no particular reason I read the rest before this one which makes it the final book in the series for me. IMHO the series has been a little inconsistent in quality. Some of the stories have been just okay and a couple others have been outstanding. This book sort of falls in between. In all the books in this series our male leads are(as Snow prefers to portray her book boyfriends) great big muscular beasts with G.Q. good looks, some facial hair, tattoos and are ex-military with deadly skills. The heroines do offer a bit more variety but for the most part they are in their mid-twenties, live non-descript lives and are either virgins or not very sexually experienced. Certainly, the sexual experiences they’ve had, haven’t left them very satisfied until they meet our hunky, virile, dirty talking hero.
I’ll get the reasons why I didn’t give this book a higher rating out of the way first. It’s a given that many if not all, contemporary romances require you to accept a bit of fantasy beyond the male leads being god like in both appearance and sexual prowess. In this story we’re asked to believe that Hunter Forsythe ex-Marine, who with his twin brother Cory built a billion-dollar defense contractor corporation lacks the common sense to realize the truth he’s trying to keep hidden should never have been hidden. Not only that but that he believes that in semi-retirement (which he takes to give him more time for parenting) he doesn’t have time for a romantic relationship because it will interfere with his ability to parent his perfectly normal 14 year old son Ben. As our heroine Wendy who seems to have far more common sense and parenting ability than Hunter even though she’s never been a parent, had no younger sibling and is only 25 years old herself tells him in exasperation, � most parents work full time and take care of their families.� The other problem I had with this story is it’s just too obvious almost from the first time he appears in the story, who the bad guy is going to be. It’s just a matter of time before the clueless Hunter figures it out.
Our heroine is Wendy Agnes, who works in her small family owned bakery. Works in is an understatement. Wendy is a brilliant baker, an artist in the kitchen who studied in Europe and even baked birthday treats for the Queen of England. She works long 12-hour days often seven days a week at her family bakery creating brilliant cakes along with the everyday items you’d expect to find at a pastry shop. Unfortunately, Wendy doesn’t seem to get much recognition or respect from her parents who work the front of the shop and the back office. Her older sister Rochelle who is an absolute attention whore bitch sucks up most of their attention. As the story opens Rochelle is only a couple weeks away from getting married and has only become a bigger bitch as a world class bridezilla sucking up all of her parent’s attention.
One day while delivering a cake to a retirement party a skateboarder (Ben) flies out in front of her delivery van. Wendy barely avoids hitting the boy causing some damage to her van as well as ruining her cake. When Ben’s father Hunter arrives on the scene sparks fly. A frustrated and angry Wendy gives the obviously wealthy Hunter a piece of her mind as to how he’s failing as a parent. When Hunter offers to pay for repairs on the van she refuses him. Which made no sense to me. After suggesting maybe his son needs an after school job to keep him out of trouble and learn responsibility she drives off in a huff. Hunter thinks that sounds like a great idea and decides he can kill two birds with one stone by having Ben work off the cost of the repairs at Wendy’s bakery. Wendy’s parents agree on the condition that he agree to accompany Wendy to her sister’s wedding in a couple of weeks. So that poor Wendy won't again be the source of family gossip for not having a date. Hence the Accidental Romeo title. Spending a little time with Wendy, Hunter is captivated by her beauty, her talent and her fiery disposition. Wendy flat out refuses his offer to accompany her to Rochelle’s wedding. But when he sees how underappreciated by her family Wendy is and how it has torn town her self-esteem he becomes determined to be at her side at the wedding and turn her into the Bell of the Ball at the expense of her self-absorbed sister.
In the weeks between the accident and the wedding Wendy and Hunter spend time together. There’s no way for her to deny her sexual attraction to the man. The more time she spends with him the more she also comes to admire him as a caring dad and pretty nice guy. Like wise Hunter cannot deny is attraction and admiration and growing affection for Wendy.
There’s plenty of warm feels in this story as Hunter forces Wendy’s family to realize how special she is; puts her wicked sister in her place and the two of them along with Ben form a very sweet family unit. There’s also some angst along the way because Hunter is sometimes an idiot. There’s some tension and drama towards the end when the pieces begin to fall into place and the shit hits the fan and Wendy's life is threatened. There’s plenty of steamy sex once Wendy gives her V-card to Hunter. And there’s a very nice romantic happily ever after. Plus as with all of these stories a flash-forward extended epilogue for three years into the future.