Jilted On Her Wedding Day

‘The Convenient Groom’ by Denise Hunter is a contemporary romance. Although this book is the second in the Nantucket Love Story Series, each book can be read by itself. None characters from her other books interact with the characters from this story.

Kate Lawrence is a celebrity marriage counselor and advice columnist with her first book about to be released to the public. The marketing department of her publishing company decided that her wedding and her book release should coincide. And they would get even more publicity if the groom was unknown before the wedding! So Kate planned her wedding and her publisher foot the bill.

Five hours before her wedding, Kate is checking items off her to do list. One item that needed to be ready and wasn’t, is the gazebo she had specially ordered for the wedding ceremony. While talking to the woodworker, Lucas, she got a call from her fiancé telling her that he couldn’t marry her. She, the marriage and relationship expert, was being jilted on her wedding day! Apparently their relationship was “missing something”, which is why he had fallen in love with someone else!

Lucas Wright owns a store where he makes and sells furniture. He had the second floor available for rent and Kate is the one who ended up renting it. Ever since then, Lucas has admired her from afar and then fallen in love with her. But Kate was already dating her boyfriend/future fiancé at that time. He never thought that he would have a chance with her until that phone call. Everything was set for the wedding; all that was missing was the groom. A little voice whispered in his head, What if I was the groom?

To make matters worse, Kate gets a phone call while she’s still with Lucas that says Dr. Phil would like to host her on his show! Who would want to look to a marriage counselor for advice on marriage if she couldn’t even pick the right groom? If the wedding doesn’t take place, then the book sales wouldn’t happen. The interview with Dr. Phil, or any other well-known TV or radio show, would also never take place. She would be a laughing stock and her career would be gone!

Then Lucas says something crazy! He tells her that he would marry her. She doesn’t really know him! But if she doesn’t marry someone that day, then she would most likely be jobless! Finally she agrees to a name only marriage for a year, to let her book have time to sell. Lucas figures that he has a year to help her see what a nice man he is and maybe she’ll fall in love with him and they can make the marriage real.

This is an excellent book and my favorite of this series. It’s good for all ages, but probably 15+ would like it better. This comes in book and e-book formats.