The Wedding Date Bargain

This was pleasant! I would file this under “true romance” as opposed to “steamy romance,” and my preference is for the latter, so this was never going to be 5 stars for me based on personal taste. If you'd like an easy read with likable characters, however, this fits that bill. It's also great to read a romance with diversity in its characters that feels true to life, neither central to the plot in a didactic way nor a side bar that is only addressed as lip service - there's a moving scene when the protagonist goes from dreading meeting her love interest's friends to relief when she realizes that the friend's girlfriend is also Black, with a restaurant bathroom conversation about it between them that is funny and joyful. One thing I did notice is that there's something about witty banter in modern romance novels that can feel a bit clunky to me - I can imagine a reader in the not-so-distant-future being baffled about the references to whatever the current technology is at the moment in a way that would distract from the actual interpersonal connection being depicted that ends up feeling distracting for me in the present (like the last romance novel I read before this had a subplot about the male love interest not having a mobile phone, but the novel was set during the present day based on references to social media, so that issue felt more like one that would have cropped up 15 years ago...but I digress). Like, I'm sure I'm missing TONS of context clues reading Austen, but that somehow doesn't seem to interfere with the zippiness of the dialogue for me, which can feel more forced in romances with modern settings. Overall, I was happy to pick this up in a lending library, even if I'm not sure I'd seek out the rest of the series. But writing this, now I'm thinking I would? Time will tell!