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There is a special sort of magic that happens in a Christina Lauren book when the pair are firing on all cylinders. The dialogue sparkles, the characters settle into themselves quickly, and hundreds of pages fly by while you are contentedly spending time in their world. I am deeply pleased to report that The Unhoneymooners is one of the books that contains the magic.
This enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity tale has the added bonus of taking place in Hawaii – Â which is really not the worst place to locate a book that I read (and many others I will read) on holiday – and kicks off at a wedding.
Olive is the unlucky twin. While her sister wins everything from radio competitions to an all-expenses paid wedding to the perfect fiancé, Olive fumbles her way through life with slight tragedy as her constant companion. Latest example? Her sisters’ wedding, where she will be forced to be in close proximity to her sworn enemy, Ethan.
But the hits keep on coming, because the entire wedding party comes down with insane food poisoning over some bad (won in a contest) shellfish. Except, of course, for Olive and Ethan. Olive’s sister begs Olive to take her place on the all-expenses paid honeymoon to Hawaii – if someone doesn’t go, they’ll have to pay for it – and Olive is fairly gung-ho until she realizes she’ll be going with Ethan.
Okay, fine, she tells herself, they just need to get there and then she can enjoy a free vacation in Hawaii by avoiding him completely. Then she runs into her new boss, because she is the unluckiest person alive, and a small white lie snowballs into a big lie and she ends up fake married to Ethan and the Ethan-free vacation turns into their fake honeymoon.
Of course, as the days go by and she spends more and more time with the man himself, she discovers that maybe she’s, in fact, the luckiest woman.
I know there are folks for whom the patter of Lauren’s writing simply doesn’t work, and if you are in that category, this book will be no different. If, however, you are like me and count them among your favorite contemporary writers then you are in for a treat. There were a few bumps – I hate lying in a book, so there was a bit of an eyebrow raise at the continued deception practiced against the boss – but the overall charm of Ethan and the way Olive allowed herself to grow was too scrumptious to not want to read this again.
All in all, throw The Unhoneymooners into the beach bag for the summer vacation and thank me later.
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Grade: A
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 24/06/19
Publication Date: 05/2019
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Voracious reader, with a preference for sassy romances and happily ever afters. In a relationship with coffee, seeing whiskey on the side.
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Spoilers here!
FWIW finished this yesterday; it is my first book by this author/duo. Can’t say I’m particularly blown away and really wonder about the A rating when even the reviewer acknowledges a “few bumps”. I realize we should be suspending disbelief re: going on the honeymoon (they *have* to lie in order to take go on the trip, without which our leads couldn’t possibly get where they need to go together) but given that lying in general is such a big part of the story I really wonder about it’s use as the plot device. There’s lying about who is really on the honeymoon, which leads to lying about being married to a new employer, in addition to lying to the former ex, and of course the lying of the brother which provides the ultimate conflict. And Ethan was painted as too smart a character to not put his own pieces togther and believe Olive (remember, she’s a terrible liar). Sorry. Too much for me. I didn’t hate the book – at least our heroine fesses up in the end to the employer who fires her (although it turns out family is there to bail her out and she really didn’t want that new job after all, so no major harm) – but I expected much better given the rating.
This is my favorite contemporary book so far this year. I loved the humor. Thanks so much for the review. I have not read these authors before and wonder which other books they’ve written that can be recommended?
Team Lauren has been all over the scale for me lately; will try this one to see how this one works for me!
Thanks for the review! I will take a chance and give it try even though it is $10 and I just spent on $10 on “Fix Her Up” based on AAR’s recommendation and have not been able to finish it.
I LOVED Christina Lauren’s “Roomies” but have found some of the other Christina Lauren books to be well-written but “meh” in terms of getting me invested in the H and h…”Josh and Hazel” for example was just kinda weird.
I think it so much depends on taste or something because so far the people I’ve seen that loved Roomies didn’t love Josh and Hazel’s and visa versa. I really loved Josh and Hazel and Unhoneymooners, but Roomies was a little dull to me and I wasn’t wowed by Calvin.