Kimani, $7.99, ISBN 978-1-335-00588-5
Contemporary Romance, 2019

Devyn Clark’s good friend Adah is finally free of an unwanted wedding arrangement between her and Bennett Randal (oh, read all about it) and she’s so happy for her friend. Thing is, Devyn herself can’t help eyeing Bennett and thinking what a hot man he is…

No! She can’t “betray” her good friend like this, not even after Adah now has a hubby and all. Plus, Bennett allegedly cheated on Adah repeatedly through the engagement, so Devyn will never want to caress that hot body, lick those rock-hard abs, grope that tight ass, and hold that… wait, where was she again?

On his part, Bennett has always had an eye on Devyn, and he never made any move because he was engaged to Adah. Now that he’s free, however, he’s gunning for her big time.

Well, that’s Lindsey Evans’s The Wrong Fiancé.

First thing off the bat, even to readers that have not read the previous related story, is that Adah clearly doesn’t give a hoot whether Dev shags Bennett or not. Those two clearly weren’t what Dev assumed they were, and readers of the previous related story will know that Adah and Bennett have had a relationship more akin to a pair of siblings united in having to deal with annoying parents.

So, the whole story is basically about poor Dev flailing and reeling as she is torn between wanting to put out with abandon and holding herself back because she thinks Bennett is a cheating louse of a man.

Opening to the first page, I am thus already a hundred steps ahead of the poor heroine, and I spend the rest of the story cringing as the poor darling does mental contortions like a professional Cirque du Soleil performer when it comes to dealing with her feelings for the man. I feel mentally exhausted myself after a while. This is a romance novel, and every guy walking down the street is hot, loaded, and ready to blow—surely it will be less taxing to give one of those guys a test drive instead.

Now, I feel that this story would have worked better had Bennett been a cheating SOB, and this story is about him redeeming himself and turning over a new leaf. Instead, this is a story with a very contrived, forced conflict, one that could have been resolved had Dev talked more to Adah and even Bennett. Indeed, late in the story when everything is revealed about Bennett and Adah not even being lovers back then, he wondered why Dev never checked with Adah about her concerns about him. Well, why indeed.

I don’t know who came up with the plot. It could be the author, but I’ve also been around the block long enough to know that editors of category lines also have no compunctions telling the author the kind of story line that has to go into the author’s upcoming submission. Whomever that person is, well, thank you for making me cringe from start to finish at how ridiculous the entire story is. How can Dev not know that her BFF and the BFF’s ex-fiancé were in an engagement of convenience?

Then again, the plot of Adah’s story was pretty silly, if I recall correctly, as most marriages of convenience set in present day tend to be, and I guess the silliness just spills over and snowballs into this story. Sigh.