The Wedding Belles, #0.5
by Lauren Layne
Releasing June 6th 2016
Pocket Star
Pocket Star
Sex and the City meets The
Wedding Planner in this prequel to USA TODAY bestselling
author Lauren Layne’s The Wedding Belles series about three high-powered New
York City women who can plan any wedding—but their own.
From The Book Junkie Reads . . . From This Day Forward (The Wedding Belles, #0.5) . . .
Sweet, simple, second chance at first love. Or was it? Leah had an opportunity of a lifetime. As we all know that always comes with some type of string attached to it or something bad. Well for Leah the string was to work with someone else and the bad was it was the one man that broke her down. She has a goal and a plan. But so does Jason.
A quick read and introduction to the series The Wedding Belles. To sum quick like the book. It was a fun and entertaining read.
**This ARC was provided
via NetGalley in
exchange for an honest review.**
Up-and-coming wedding photographer Leah McHale’s career is on the rise–thanks in no small part to the Wedding Belles, the elite New York wedding planning agency that always throws top-tier business Leah’s way. So when one of the Belles asks Leah to fill in at the former First Daughter's wedding, Leah is overjoyed to say yes–until she finds out who she’ll be working with.
Jason
Rhodes is the one man who was able to capture Leah’s heart and, once he had it,
promptly stepped all over it and left her broken. Now he’s working side-by-side
with her at the biggest wedding of the season and Leah is determined to give
him the cold shoulder. Despite his persistence, she is not going to fall for his
charming, impish ways again. Not even if he still has that killer, irresistible
smile...
“Do
you have any plans for your unexpectedly free weekend?” Alexis asked as she
perused the menu.
Leah’s
eyes narrowed on her friend. Alexis Morgan might be the queen of poker face,
but Leah had known Alexis for close to a decade now. She knew when she was
being handled, and right now, Alexis was definitely working up to
something.
Instead
of answering the question, Leah took a sip of her mimosa and waited. When
Alexis’s brown eyes flicked up to hers, Leah merely lifted her brows. Waited some more.
With
a sigh, Alexis set the menu aside and folded both arms on the table, leaning
toward Leah. “I need a favor.”
“Anything,”
Leah said automatically, meaning it completely.
Her
relationship with Alexis may have started as a business arrangement—they’d both
arrived in the city ten years earlier with big dreams of pursuing their dream
careers.
But somewhere along the way, Alexis and Leah
had transitioned from sometimes business associates to friends.
Alexis had been there for Leah when she’d needed her, and Leah fully intended
to repay the favor any way she could.
“I
need you to work the Preston wedding.”
Leah
blinked. “The Preston wedding. As in, the wedding of the former First Daughter
we were just talking about? The one this weekend?”
Alexis
nodded.
Leah
sat back, stunned. “Holy crap, Lex. That’s not really me doing you a
favor, hon. More like the other way around. This would be the opportunity of a
lifetime for me. For any photographer.”
“I
know, but I still hate asking last minute like this. If it were up to me, I’d
have recommended you from the very beginning, but Kylie’s college roommate and
her husband are a two-person photographer team, and Kylie wanted to give the
opportunity to her friend.”
“So
what happened? They had a falling-out?”
Alexis
shook her head. “They live in San Francisco and she’s a few months pregnant.
There was some complication; she’s been put on bed rest. Nothing serious, just
a precaution, but ergo . . . she’s certainly not going to be flying to New York
any time soon, and certainly can’t be photographing a wedding.”
“Ugh.
That sucks,” Leah said sympathetically.
Alexis
smiled. “This is why I knew you were right for the job. You get it. You
get people.”
Leah
rolled her eyes. “You hardly have to sweet talk me into taking a job that’s
likely to be the highest-profile wedding of my career.”
Alexis
glanced down at her Bloody Mary, stirring a pickled green bean. “Well there is
one tiny thing I haven’t mentioned.”
“Bring
it.”
Alexis
looked up. “It’s a huge wedding. One photographer’s not going to cut
it.”
Leah
waved her hand. “Oh please. My ego’s not so big I can’t handle a little teamwork.
Who else you bringing in?”
Alexis
bit her lip, and Leah tensed at the rare unease she saw on her usually
confident friend’s face.
Alexis
leaned forward and touched her arm. “Leah, you have to know how impossible it
is to book one good photographer on short notice in June, much less two, and
I’m counting myself lucky because two of the best happened to be available, but
. . .”
“But
what?” Leah asked, her heart pounding faster as she somehow knew what her
friend was trying to say. Knew whose name Alexis was terrified to say.
Alexis’s
gaze cut away from hers and fell somewhere over Leah’s shoulder, even as Leah felt
the shiver of awareness that someone else had stepped into her personal space.
Alexis
glared at the newcomer. “You’re early, Rhodes.”
Leah’s
heart stopped, just for a moment. Slowly, she turned around and glanced up into
the dark brown eyes of Jason Rhodes.
He
pulled a toothpick from his mouth and gave her a slow, sexy once-over. “Hiya,
Red. Long time.”
Leah
could only shake her head. It had been a long time, but not nearly long
enough.
He
was the one man who Leah had let in close enough to break her heart.
Author Info
In
2011, she ditched her corporate career in Seattle to pursue a full-time writing
career in Manhattan, and never looked back.
In
her ideal world, every stiletto-wearing, Kate Spade wielding woman would carry
a Kindle stocked with Lauren Layne books.
For
a list of all her works, please be sure to check out her official website!
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