A review by showmethemonet
Secrets of a Wedding Night by Valerie Bowman

2.0

2.25 Stars.

I've enjoyed other books where couples are reunited after years apart, but this one just felt phoned in. The characters, their beliefs and perspectives were very wishy-washy, so certain behaviors contradicted decisions one page prior over and over again. That can absolutely happen in a romance novel...but not to the point where you feel like the characters are throwing out five years worth of behavior, hurt feelings and consequences.

Spoiler

The fact that their parents are the reason they were kept apart isn't revealed/resolved until the end. The entire book's premise was that a spurned love writes a pamphlet about how terrifying a wedding night is, and delivers it to the new fiancee of her ex for revenge. He threatens her outright that he'll seduce her to get a retraction published.... and Lily basically walks right into it. Every time. She she tells herself no. She does it hours later...Devon does all this except it seems a switch is flipped, never even addressed but he's suddenly acting out of admiration. The fact that they got as far as they did without addressing the monumental hurt they were supposedly feeling is just unbelievable.

By the end I couldn't really say I knew the characters at all...which is really disappointing after reading the delightful Playful Brides series first (Bowman wrote this book first.) If I'd read this first I probably never would've gone on to discover those. Not sure about the next book... All Annie was good for in this book was turning away and running up the stairs in a huff. She had one redeemable moment but it didn't exactly hook me in to be excited to read about her after this...