I found the writing in this book intolerable, and couldn't read past the second chapter. ( )

This was my first truly ff romance book ever. I didn't know what to expect, so my bar was pretty low. I liked book, even though it had a simple premise and execution.

I didn't really like audiobook unfortunately - production quality was low and I didn't like narrator. So I'd recommend picking up physical copy.

Also since I read mostly mf and mm romances it was intresting dynamic to read about, and as bi woman myself it was pretty accurate rep of constant question - do I wanna be with her (as a friend???!??!)and what she thinks about our relationship??!?

For now it's only 3 stars, and I want to read novellea series by miss Cameron, so I hope I give it higher rating ( )

Fake marriage as a path to real love. Always a fun premise for some engaging fluff. And fun fluff is exactly what this book is.

Read full review @https://www.bestlesficreviews.com/2019/01/marriage-of-unconvenience-by-chelsea-m.html ( )

When LGBTQ Reads posted the "cover reveal" for Marriage of Unconvenience, I knew I would have to at least try the sample: I love romance novels with fake-dating/marriage of convenience plots, and this one has that plus the main characters are both women.

This is definitely that plot. The convenience part is because best friends Lo and Cara live in Boston and could really use some income of any kind - and, actually, Lo has an entire trust waiting to disperse once she marries. It's just that the women are only 24 and Lo has never really had any interest in marrying anyone yet and Cara is straight, so making use of the trust fund for the two of them wasn't something they thought about until suddenly it did. Since the two women are already basically family, and both of them need money, why not get a quickie marriage, become reasonably wealthy, and then annul the whole thing once their finances are straightened out? Yeah, about that annulment...

Chelsea Cameron takes the plot through all the typical things - mystery Feelings, hiding those feelings, lying to friends rather than admit the truth, accidental kissing, etc. It also really revels in the details of the wedding, originally planned as a get-in-get-out fast affair at the courthouse but then there's dresses and music and a reception. It felt a little like Cameron was using the book mostly as a way to comment on her favorite wedding-themed tv shows, but I'll be the first to admit that I don't care at all about those things and I didn't have the same kind of investment. Other readers, like my mom, probably will enjoy those parts more.

The narrative is very heavily flavored by both Lo and Cara being 24, fairly recently out of college (actually, Cara is still a student in between degrees), and part of the digital, social media world. I don't think the word "millennial" is ever used to describe them, but at least one joke was made about avocado (I think it was a sly joke, anyway) and the narration is peppered with topics common to "millennial" thinkpieces. After all, Lo is the "I" in this narrative and these are things she worries about. She also curses plenty and isn't always charitable in the way she thinks of others.

I mostly enjoyed the book. I like the plot, of course, and didn't mind all the wedding stuff. The two main characters are nice and lovely people, though not particularly memorable. Cara, of course, turns out to not be completely straight, and her arc is a nice way of exploring it - but I almost would have preferred the story to be from her point of view to do more with it. Lo is a great narrator, especially since it's her money and she's the one who gets the plot going, but it's Cara who really pulls the strings and makes their marriage "real". (I suppose keeping the narrative with Lo does help with the surprise and emotional impact, but it's always a toss-up which half has the better storyline in these plots.)

If there's anything that I really didn't like about Marriage of Unconvenience, it's Cameron's writing style. It's a little bit clunky and wordy and I wasn't always sure if she could hear the character voices in her head or not. She uses a lot of "that" clauses, not really a bad thing, but it started to be noticeable fairly early on and made me want to blue pen some of the phrases for more elegant, less repetitive sentence construction. Because it did get repetitive, and it caused some of the descriptive details to feel tacked on instead of genuinely adding to the setting or characterization. Even then, this is hardly the worst I've read recently, and the bones of the storytelling are sound.

I have regretted some Amazon Digital Services self-published books that I tried out based on reviews recently. The plots and characters and basic things were so awful that I couldn't even look past the bad writing styles. But while this one has some faults, none of them were so bad I wanted my money back, and in fact I ended up mostly enjoying the reading experience. Readers who really like wedding reality shows will probably enjoy this one a lot more than I did. ( )