Review – To Love and to Cherish by Lauren Layne

To Love and to Cherish by Lauren Layne
Series: The Wedding Belles #3
Series Rating:
Published by Headline Eternal on October 18th 2016
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
Source: Purchased
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Alexis Morgan has spent the past six years devoted to turning her tiny start-up into Manhattan's premiere wedding planning company, The Wedding Belles. Now that her business is thriving, it's time to turn towards her much neglected personal life, and Alexis approaches her relationships like she does everything else: with a plan. Not a part of that plan is Logan Harris, the silent partner in the Belles, and the one person who's been there for her since the very beginning. But Alexis needs someone fun, and Logan's all business, all the time-except when a late night at the office ends with an unexpected kiss that leaves the usually cool and together Alexis reeling.

Logan has lusted after Alexis since the day he walked into the tiny Harlem apartment that used to double as her office. But the ambitious wedding planner has always been untouchable...until now. Alexis has made it clear that she's on the dating market-and equally clear that he's not in the running. But when Alexis finds herself in need of a date for her sister's last minute wedding in Florida, Logan knows it's the perfect time to show Alexis that there's more to him than numbers and spreadsheets-and beneath the pinstripes and glasses lies a hot-blooded heartthrob. As Florida's sultry days turn into even hotter nights, Logan's out to convince Alexis that the fling of a lifetime could just maybe turn into forever...

This is the third and final installment in Lauren Layne’s The Wedding Belles series, and it’s the story most of us have been waiting for since the beginning. Alexis and Logan have been dancing around their feelings for each other since the series opened, and if there’s one thing romance readers crave, it’s HEAs for everyone.

Alexis and Logan definitely got their HEA, but they certainly took their sweet time getting there. Maybe a little too long. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked this story, but I couldn’t help the little voice in the back of my head that kept saying “Really? He just… sat there for eight years being completely ignored by Alexis? Getting less than no encouragement from her at all? He just…stayed?”

Obviously it worked out for Logan and Alexis, but I feel like that was more of a stroke of luck than anything else. I was expecting this to be a story where the reality of their feelings for each other hit Logan and Alexis like the proverbial ton of bricks, not to find out that Logan has been in love with Alexis for more than eight years and hasn’t said a single word and she’s just been completely oblivious to all of it.

And Alexis was equally confusing. I struggled to understand exactly why she was so cut off from everyone in her life. Her ex-boyfriend had broken her heart, yes. But her reaction, to completely cut off every single person and every single potential relationship of any kind, including friendship and family members, seemed a bit of an over-reaction. She genuinely likes the other Belles, but she keeps them at arms length for reasons that never really gelled for me.

I really like Lauren Layne; I think she has a great writing style, and her characters all but jump off the page for me. I really enjoyed this series overall, but it’s ending in the right place. All of the Belles have found love and gotten their white picket fences (well, their beautifully decorated brownstones) and I’m looking forward to seeing what Lauren Layne comes up with next.

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