The Wedding Date - Ally Blake
Mills and Boon RIVA
Harlequin Mills and Boon, 2011
ISBN: 9780263883701
My rating
From the back cover:
"Hannah couldn't wait to get back to Tasmania for her sisters wedding. But its hardly a holiday - to research a new TV show, her boss has decided to come with her!
Hannah doesn't want the gorgeous Bradley Knight anywhere near her crazy family! How can she act professional with karaoke as the wedding entertainment? And what if mojitos and slushy wedding songs prompt someone (her mother, sister or herself) to get the wrong idea...?
Under no circumstances should Bradley be considered Hannah's wedding date. Even if hes incredibly charming. Even if her disobedient legs wont do the sensible thing and walk away..."
I have had this book on my shelf for some time and I was waiting for the right moment to read it! As far as I know this is my first Ally Blake book, and I can tell you now that it won't be my last. I loved this book!
So the hero and heroine are Bradley and Hannah. Bradley is a well known TV show producer and Hannah is his hard working assistant, whom has had a crush on Bradley for a while. Bradley, unaware of this, knows that Hannah is invaluable to his work and worries that during her upcoming sisters wedding in her beloved Tasmania she may realise that she wants to stay closer to home, or even meet someone. Bradley goes with Hannah under the guise of wanting to scope out Tasmania as a potential location for the TV show. Much to Hannah's bemusement he also manages to muscle his way into being invited to her sisters wedding, although she is secretly glad to have Bradley there with her as a shield since she doesn't have an easy relationship with her mother.
The attraction between them becomes hard to ignore and they both agree to a fling, with the 'What happens in... stays in...' idea. Bradley is not interested in love and relationships whereas Hannah is looking for ever lasting love, so it's not long before feelings grow and tension mounts between them.
Almost from the first line of this book the dialogue sparkles with wit, especially between the hero and heroine. Very few authors can write dialogue with humour and sass and still manage to deal with emotions without it feeling like a joke, Ally Blake has done this spectacularly here. Both of her characters felt very real and had real issues, I love a feisty heroine and that's exactly what I got with Hannah. And Bradley, well he was complex, but in a good way and I liked how a lot of his thoughts a feelings were held back from the reader and although this made his development 'slower' it kept me reading and interested. Just like the characters I also felt the development of the relationship was very real and believable. I liked the setting, as a clueless Brit I know nothing about Tasmania and I was on the Internet while reading looking at photos of the countryside, and I think Ally described it beautifully and with passion.
I have read quite a few RIVA's now and if someone asked me for recommendations to show what this series is all about then this book would be one of them. The story and characters are modern and written with wit and sass, sparkling dialogue and great chemistry. This is a great book that had me laughing out loud and left with that all important warm fuzzy feeling!
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