I admit that I like Melissa Brayden’s books that I’ve read, but I love Marry Me. The main characters are incredibly good and kind people who have found themselves in an untenable situation. They want to do the right things to make everyone else happy – which is very much at odds with their being happy.

Allison (Ally) Hale is the quintessential girl next door. She teaches 4th grade in a Dallas public school and helps her parents out by working in their healthy eating store, Nutcase. They have struggled through many different business ventures and Nutcase is their most successful by far. They have hit on a project that seems to be a winner – the oatmeal-based Dash Bar. It is all set to move into other markets. Unfortunately, their distribution contract is with BeLeaf Foods. Which just so happens to be owned by her fiancé, Brent Carmichael’s family. As Allison discovers she has an attraction for another woman, she puts her parent’s deal in jeopardy.

Megan Kincaid is THE wedding and event planner for Dallas. She has worked hard and put her all into her business, Soiree. She has worked with the Carmichaels for years and upon hearing that Brent is engaged, she looks to be in line for the wedding of the year. When the call comes from Allison, she drops everything to fit her into the June schedule. Since they are under a bit of a time crunch, she and Allison have a lot of work to do to make the date. That means spending time together. As they become friends, they find themselves being attracted to each other – not just physically but as human beings.

Megan loves how joyous Ally is, and Ally loves how confident Megan is. They are going to have to choose if their unexpected feelings are worth the risks. They both have a lot to lose if things don’t work out.

This is a wonderful story with enough angst to keep me wondering how they were going to get their HEA – but not enough that I was worried that Ms. Brayden wouldn’t get us there. I very highly recommend you read Marry Me.

This was a cute easy read from Melissa Brayden. Woman falls for her wedding planner when she is due to marry into high society. Allison has a lot to learn about her self and her worth and with the help of Megan that happens. I enjoyed Allison oddities and quirkiness. It made her easy to connect to. At times I thought she needed to calm down a bit. In my opinion when you go over board with "silly" it can take away from the "sexy". But to each their own. Great read.

I received this ARC from NetGalley via the author for an honest review.

5 Stars
This touched all the right buttons for a wonderful love story.
I normally take a week to finish a book....this one took 2 days. I could not put it down. When I wasnt reading it, I was thinking about it. From the first meeting, to flirting, to romance, to upset, to resolution......perfectly balanced story. The resolution was so natural because it wasn't instant. It took it's time, slowly coming together.
All the characters, with the exception of Brent's father, were really nice people. You will like all of them. And the dialog is so fun, warm and natural. The dialog between the two main characters is so clever I smiled through all the playful banter.
Can you tell I really enjoyed this one. Definitely worth 5 stars.
I was given this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars. I know I’m going to be an outlier here, but after a really fun start I found my enjoyment of the second half of the book seriously going down. I lost touch with the characters down the road. The book is well written though and I’m sure lots of people will have a good time reading this, it just isn’t a personal favorite.

The book starts with Allison getting married to Brent Carmichael, one of the most eligible bachelors. She enjoys life and is happy with her relationship until she meets her wedding planner Megan.

When I pick up a Brayden book I have certain expectations. I expect likeable, funny characters and playful dialogues and banter. The first half of the book was exactly that. Very light even with the subject of a wedding that might or might not be cancelled. With this premise there is always a chance of cheating playing a role and I’m no fan of that, but I was very happy to see how Brayden handled that part of the book.
During the second part the atmosphere changed and I have to give it to Brayden, it was not predictable, but to me it felt as if they became different people, I didn’t understand them anymore. And it all leads up to a dark moment that I liked even less. A decision is made there that I could not get behind, it was not fair to the person making the decision, but also not to the other people it affected, I didn’t get it (a reason is given, but my brain rejected it). I got so frustrated that even the happy ending didn’t really get me out of my funk.

Brayden is known for writing the best friends and also in this book each of the characters has a good friend and several family members playing a role. They were fun but they didn’t engage me like some of the secondary characters in other Brayden books do and I despised Alison’s sister. I don’t think Brayden meant to write her as a horrible character, but she pushed every wrong button for me.

In the end I think this book was well written, but it wasn’t really the book for me, I enjoyed the first half, but not so much the second half. Plenty of people like this book a lot, so I suggest to also read some of the other reviews.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Marry Me is the story of a wedding planner, Megan Kinkaid, falling for the bride, Allison Hale, during the planning stages of the wedding. After a few weeks of initially meeting and holding wedding discussions at Soiree, Megan's party planning company, Megan and Allison eventually have some of their meetings in coffee shops, Allison gets invited by Megan to a girl's night at a bar, and they meet at Megan's home. They grow closer over time and have some flirtatious interactions with each other. This part of the book is wonderful.

After Megan and Allison finally form a romantic relationship, then in the course of time they are faced with obstacles. At this point in the book some of the actions of both Megan and Allison seem to be out of character from what the reader learned about them throughout the earlier parts of the story. Overall I thought the narrative was good with the flirty banter, the revelation that Allison has after having sex with Megan, and their day to day interactions. But the out of character drama that ensued was a let down. 3.5 stars

I received an ARC from Bold Strokes Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

ARC received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ok… this is a weird one to review, because it’s kind of like two separate books. The first 70% or so was good, the last part was… not.

So, as per the blurb, here we have Megan, wedding planner extraordinaire, and Allison, 4th grade teacher and bride to be. The two meet when Allison gets engaged to her boyfriend Brent, who is a rich guy who runs in the Dallas social circles and of course would have only the best wedding planner for his wedding. He and Megan also know each other socially. Brent also has ties to Allison’s family’s business.

Both main characters are fun and interesting, though Ally has moments of insecurity and I enjoyed how their relationship unfolded in the first part of the book. The secondary characters were ok, but not really greatly fleshed out, they just functioned as sounding boards for the MCs or provided drama/angst. There’s also diversity in this book as Megan and her BFF Kelsey are both POC.

Megan and Ally are attracted to each other from the get go, and I liked how this was handled, how Ally came to terms with it and how they discussed it and we’re going to move on from it, but Ally realised she wanted more and takes her chance. I also liked that Brent wasn’t written as a jerk and was pretty understanding about what was happening. Well, for the most part anyway.

Megan and Ally then get together, but not everything is wonderful, their relationship is, but there are repercussions, and while both sets of parents and most friends etc were good about it, Ally’s sister Betsy was a bitch, seriously couldn’t stand her.

Ok, so… everything’s going ok, there’s some side drama as a result of the relationship regarding how the relationship affects the various businesses in different ways, but nothing that can’t be worked out, until we hit the requisite 70% “melodrama” mark and the wheels just completely fall off. I mean, at this point both leads completely lose their damn minds. This leads to the requisite break up that contained events that were so ridiculous I couldn’t even fathom them. I mean, up to this point we had two grown women who talked about what they wanted and needed from each other and then they just… stopped doing that.

<spoiler>Ally turns into a doormat and starts helping Brent in a way that was just ridiculous, I mean, I get that he was hurt, but seriously, she’s not a nurse or his girlfriend and it was just crazy. Megan then starts to retreat, refuses to communicate even though Ally asks her to and then just implodes the relationship. But for Ally to go back to Brent and almost marry him again? If Megan showing up on Ally’s wedding day was supposed to be romantic, it wasn’t. It was pathetic and selfish. As was Ally’s decision to marry Brent when she didn’t really love him. </spoiler>.

Honestly, it was so bad that I wanted to stop reading, I actually scared my dog with the repeated WTFs while reading the last 1/4 of the book. I only kept going because I had to see how Brayden got them back together. Because it’s a Brayden book, it is of course all is wrapped up in a nice shiny bow but I didn’t care by that point. I didn’t feel like the HEA was earned and it left me feeling flat. If I was grading the first 3/4s I’d have given this four stars but the end was so bad that it’s barely scraping 3. It’s getting that only because it features a POC MC and because there was no ‘panic’ from Ally about her sexuality, which I had actually expected.

Received an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.

This is a cute, heartwarming sapphic romantic story. Well written and developed characters. A bit cheesy at times, but not overdone. The pacing felt off at times as it's not always clear how much time has past.

Overall a fun, enjoyable read, will be checking out more of Melissa Brayden's work.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4324182815
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/7958b855-3500-44db-b9b0-1c00389f41b5

'ARC provided by both NetGalley and The Publisher in exchange for a honest review'

**'Storytelling inspires inspiration. Words are meant to be the raw material in the storyline because the greater a writer's vocabulary the more effective their stories comes across...'

Heartwarming read!
'MARRY ME' is what i'd like to call a comfort read, an effortless written love story that is clean has a few hiccups here & there but evens out to be a bit old-fashioned in it's contents. Two people who meets by chance and their lives are upended and changed forever because of it.

Trapped between pleasing her parents, selfish sister and in a dissatisfying relationship that's on the cusp of marriage, Allison finally summons the courage to seek more for herself after meeting her wedding planner (Megan) -- a calm, beautiful and free spirited-person in her own right. After going it alone, Allison finds herself intoxicatingly free, pursuing these emotional feelings & attraction towards Megan while trying not to upset the people in her life. Going as far as to contemplate the meaning as to why the level of her attraction towards Megan is so much stronger than anything she has ever felt for anyone, not even Brent.
This story is littered with a cast of many secondary characters, some supportive others not so much but there is no doubt that Megan's parents were more endearing and also stole every paragraph that they were mention. Ms.Brayden did a fantastic job making them both relatable and believable with chuckle-worthy phrases, dialogues and situations that up the amusement factor a few notches. Although her (M.Brayden) storytelling might come across as simple, she did tell a very nice story from the first chapter to the very last sentence.
Overall, because of the well executed and easily paced storyline, I do believe interested readers will come away quite satisfied because of the eventual outcome -- even if there were complications through out the storytelling.
A highly recommended book!

Brayden and her whimsy are back!

I grabbed this book without reading the synopsis so I was in for a bit of surprise when I started it and a main character is getting engaged to a man. Brayden’s whimsy is a hit or miss for me because in real life I sometimes find cheerful, happy people to be annoying rather than endearing but it totally worked for me this time.

Ally (Allison) Hale is a 4th grade teacher and has the personality for it. She’s cheerful and full of sunshine and I found myself liking her. She’s newly engaged to a wealthy business owner, Brent and her sister convinces her to hire the most sought-after wedding planner, Megan Kinkaid.

Megan and her small team are busy planning Dallas’ biggest events and is thrilled to be hired to plan Ally and Brent’s wedding as it is to be the biggest event of the year. What I loved about Megan is that people in her position can have a catty, bossy-type personality and Megan isn’t like that. While she’s very driven, she’s down to earth and friendly and can appreciate Ally’s more whimsy side.

Ally and Megan have amazing chemistry and it’s very apparent from the moment they meet. The more time they spend together the more they start liking each other. Their attraction is a complete surprise to them both and I love how they handled it. The standard flirty and witty banter I’ve come to expect is there as well as the emotional connection. While there is some angst, I don’t think it delved into the heavy angst category.

What I appreciated about “Marry Me” is that Brayden surprised me several times. Every time I thought she’d go left; she went right and vice versa. When I realized what this was about, I did worry about cheating but luckily it didn’t go in that direction. Brayden treats her characters like grown ups and they all understand, acknowledge and communicate their thoughts and emotions, for the most part.

I do have some minor complaints. I thought the conflict was a bit exaggerated and one of the mains disappointed me when she fell back into an old habit of taking the easy route instead of doing what she really wanted. Also, I wish we had gotten more of the secondary characters…they seemed to come and go as they were needed for plot. However, my enjoyment far outweighed the negativity and my overall happiness is why I’m still giving this the full 5 stars.

Highly recommended for all the romance fans out there!

I received an ARC from Bold Strokes Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK. This is the type of book you put on your "to be read again" list the second you wrap up the last page. Loved the characters and could completely feel their pain and indecision come through the pages. Would like to see these characters pop up again - definitely one of Brayden's best.

Swoon and sigh and not about all the weddings either. It’s the way Ms Brayden writes such great romances. The characters are just so desirable. Her books give me the warm fuzzies, just like the gloves that Allison wears. An excellent exploration of discovering that your sexuality encompasses more than you thought. Full of moments that you read romances for - the glances, the realisations, the flirting, the confusion and resolve. A great book that is perfect to read at any time of the year.

Do I or Don’t I?

When I first read the blurb on this book - I thought I would be in for a tale of simmering attraction during wedding planning followed by a final run from the altar scene. I was pleasantly surprised when it did not.
In fact this ended up being a rather lovely story about discovery, honesty and trust. Each of these emotions are explored fully as the story unfolds and I really appreciated the depth it brought to the characters and made it a very enjoyable read. In a way I think this story is almost like a drawing back the curtain after the HEA and that’s what makes this story rather unique. Melissa Brayden delves into each of the characters motivations and insecurities which then drive some of the more angstier portions of this book. In fact there is a lot of drama in the second half of the book and at some point I almost started feeling sorry for the groom - it was funny in retrospect.
This is my first book by Melissa Brayden and she delivers on a solid plot line, funny banter and plenty of drama that had the pages turning at a merry clip. I really enjoyed reading this book and it totally lives up to her well deserved reputation as an immensely talented writer. Highly recommended: 5 stars!
Thank you NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Allison Hale is getting married, her boyfriend Brent has proposed and she is tasked with planning the wedding. Brent also happens to be one of Dallas’ most eligible bachelors from a prominent local family so this can’t be just any wedding. Allison decides to hire the best event planner in town and hires Megan Kincaid to help her get the job done. As they spend more time together they find that they are not only fast friends but may be something more.
In true Melissa Brayden fashion this book keeps you on the edge of your seat right up to the end wondering if they will or if they won’t. The angst and family drama are in no short supply all this in addition to the toaster worthy romance brewing between the two MCs. I loved this one as I have loved every book I’ve read by this author. Prepare to fall in love with these two as you finish this one.

I have been waiting for this book for a while and I am sooo happy it did not disappoint. Of course Melissa Brayden would write a fabulous sweet romance.

Allison Hale is about to become part of one of the wealthiest families in the city by marrying Brent Carmichael, so of course their wedding will be one to remember and they need the best and hottest wedding planner around, Megan Kinkaid. Megan knows how to deliver the best events and weddings, so when the Carmichaels wedding fall on her lap, it becomes her priority and first order of business is too meet the bride to-be. Last thing Allison and Megan expected was to feel their instant chemistry and an attraction they cant deny.

This book was super sweet and just like a warm hug, even thought it did frustrate me at one time, but that is part of the ride. I love how naturally they fell in love and how real it was. It was a great romance story and one I will recommend to anyone who needs a pick-me up love story that is sweet, cozy and warm.

Thank you Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Melissa Brayden has done it again, yet another book that will keep you turning the pages, with a smile on your face .

MB has an art when it comes to building good characters and the chemistry between them. And she is top notch when it comes to kissing.

Would I recommend: Yes if you want sweet with plenty of kissing story

This is another great book by Melissa Brayden and
It comes with the usual great character development and banter.

I really enjoyed this book and couldn't put it down. What I really love about Brayden's books is that you get inmerse in the story from page 1. Definitely some interesting concepts and choices on how guilt or assumptions can make us follow a complete different paths.

Highly recommended it

I liked some things but others didn't sit right with me. As always Melissa Brayden is exceptionally talented in writing flirtatious banters, Megan and Ally have great chemistry and the whole first part was absolutely perfect.

There is a moment though (the usual point where the real drama begins) which left me a little perplexed. First of all, all the secondary characters disappear and are unable to intervene in the darkest moment to put the love story between Megan and Allison back on track. It's clear that the epilogue of their relationship is exaggerated compared to the real problems they have (aka Megan is scared but then she comes to her senses on her own in no time).

Beyond that, both Megan and Ally have somewhat out of character reactions. One is afraid of letting go completely in her love story and for this, she breaks up with the other (bad) on the other hand Allison falls back into her "bad habits" and even finds herself at the altar with her ex because it is more comfortable because now she is the one scared and because it makes the whole family happy.

Frankly, I would not have wanted to be in the shoes of either of them because I find neither behaviour quite forgivable. Ultimately not my favourite Brayden but still a notch above many other titles in the genre. Probably this time more than in others I found some narrative choices a bit weak in terms of the credibility of the characters.

Melissa Brayden has quickly become one of my favorite romance authors. This book delivers great tension, flirting, and hot sex.

The only thing I didn’t love was what felt like the second “dark night” moment. I just wanted them back together again. But still highly recommend

Megan Kincaid is a top wedding planner working to plan Allison Hale’s wedding to Brent Carmichael, of the powerful Boston Carmichael’s.

While the love-triangle is a theme that’s been done, this book offered a unique perspective and doesn’t at all feel like a story that has been told before. The book avoids a common pitfall with this theme finding just the right balance of focus betwen the main characters and Brent.

The writing is top notch and the chemistry between the main characters will draw you in from the first meeting.

A minor flow in the book was overly repetitive conflict points, though this didn’t take away much from my enjoyment of the book.

Overall a great read. 4.5 rounded up to 5!

A fun story with humor, steam, and angst. Some scenarios are way over the top, others times there seems to be a gap where you wonder what happened...but overall an enjoyable story to get lost in for a bit.