The Business of Love by Charley Clarke is great read for those who love their romances with multiple tropes. This particular novel has some of my favorites including opposites-attract, financial-disparity, enemies-to-lovers, and the most important one for this story…fake marriage. What impressed me the most about this narrative is that, even with some of the more volatile tropes such as enemies-to-lovers which almost guarantees angst, the love story turned out to be quite gentle.
Mackenzie (Mack) Watson has one big goal in life. She wants to take over the top spot at her family’s company. Doing this will secure her and her younger sister’s future, but there is a huge catch. To become CEO of the company, she must be married…and she isn’t.
Taylor Sutton is working as a barista in a bookstore/coffee shop as she tries to figure out what to do with her life. She has a college degree (and the mountain of debt that goes with it), but she is unsure what to do that will make her happy. Taylor and Mack have some of the same friends and tend to hang out with the same crowd, but they had a very unfortunate beginning when Mack accidentally stood Taylor up on a blind first date. Since then, Taylor has snubbed Mack every time they meet, until she overheard Mack’s wife problem and her outlandish idea of “hiring” a wife for a year. That’s crazy, right? It would be even crazier for Taylor to offer to be the fake wife, right?
The way these two women interact with each other really makes this story special. They go from dislike to grudging respect to friends and finally true partners. I totally enjoyed watching them make that journey. I also appreciated that Taylor bonded with Mack’s little sister Sophie. She ends up being quite an important secondary character.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this gentle, yet exciting, tale of two women falling in love. I received an ARC from Ylva Publishing for an honest review.
Rainbow Reflections 