Book Review And Giveaway : To Have And To Hold by Lauren Layne

Sex and the City meets The Wedding Planner in The Wedding Belles!

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD

The Wedding Belles #1

Lauren Layne

Releasing July 26th, 2016

Pocket Books

Sex and the City meets The Wedding Planner in The Wedding Belles, her sizzling brand new contemporary romance series about three ambitious wedding planners who can make any bride’s dream come true…but their own.

Discovering her fiancé is an international conman just moments before they exchange vows devastates celebrity wedding planner Brooke Burke’s business—and breaks her heart. Now a pariah in Los Angeles, she seeks a fresh start in New York City and thinks she’s found it with her first bridal client, a sweet, if slightly spoiled, hotel heiress. Then she meets the uptight businessman who’s holding the purse springs.

Seth Tyler wishes he could write a blank check and be done with his sister’s fancy-pants wedding. Unfortunately, micromanaging the event is his only chance at proving Maya’s fiancé is a liar. Standing directly in his way is the stunning blonde wedding planner whose practiced smiles and sassy comebacks both irritate and arouse him. He needs Brooke’s help. But can he persuade a wedding planner on a comeback mission to unplan a wedding? And more importantly, how will he convince her that the wedding she should be planning…is theirs?

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Review

 A great start to an awesome new series by Lauren Layne!!I've been waiting for To Have And To Hold ever since I read the prequel novella in the Wedding Belles series-From This Day Forward and I'm happy that I got to read this book early.I enjoyed it immensely and as always LL never disappoints!

Brooke Burke, a wedding planner, has just moved to NYC from LA for a fresh start and is going to start working for The Wedding Belles, the premier wedding planning company in New York.She had discovered that her fiance was a conman, moments before their wedding, when the police came to arrest him.Not only was she humiliated and heartbroken because of it, she also lost all her clients.She doesn't believe in love anymore.

Seth Tyler loves his sister a lot, but he doesn't have faith in her current choice of husband.He has had to manage his company and become CEO prematurely, as his father died quite suddenly and without ever telling him that he was ill.He showers Maya with a lot of love and gives her whatever she wants, but is also a hardass.He believes that Maya seeks attention in the form of adoration from her partners and friends, and in turn they take advantage of her.So, he is afraid that her current fiance is also doing the same and that he is just marrying her for the money.

Maya is Brooke's first client.She needs to pull off this wedding to establish herself.But, fate throws a wrench in the plan in the form of Seth Tyler.Not only is she attracted to the bride's brother, but he asks her to steer Maya away from the wedding, which she isn't ready to do.She is equal parts attracted to him and annoyed.Seth is quite rude to her in the beginning.He is also attracted to Brooke(who he calls "Malibu Barbie") and tries to buy her off.When his tactics don't work, he is intrigued by her and is determined to chase her.So will Brooke pull off Maya's wedding or will it end in a disaster?And what about Seth and Brooke?

This book had the trademark LL feel to it, with a perfect combination of romance,humor,steam and emotions.All relationships from Seth and Maya's bond to Brooke and her parents were thoroughly explored.Seth had a kind of Mr.Darcy feel to him which I loved!Brooke was also a confident and ambitious character.Looking at her, people assume that she is a dumb, blonde bombshell.Only those who look beneath see her intelligence and caring nature.She has put up walls around her heart and isn't ready to trust a guy again.Seth usually indulges in casual relationships, but Brooke makes him long for something more.

Maya also adds to the fun, by trying to match them both.Heather and Alexis, the other planners in the Wedding Belles are also amazing characters.I just wish we could have seen more of them especially Alexis!!

So, guys even if you are an LL fan or not, Buy this book when it comes out on July 26th as it was a really beautiful story!!And if you haven't read any of Lauren Layne's books yet, what are you waiting for?! I recommend you start with After The Kiss :)

P.S. Can't wait for Heather's and Alexis' stories in the upcoming books!! :D

Excerpt

It’s not as though Brooke had meant to start dating a con man. She certainly didn’t intend to get engaged to one.

But that’s the thing about con mans. The good ones were good at, well . . . the con.

And Clay Battaglia had been a good one. The best, actually, if you took the word of the FBI agent who’d debriefed Brooke and her family—while she was still in her wedding dress.

Turns out that while Brooke had been happily building her wedding-planning company, Clay had been quietly and competently been getting away with every white-collar crime in the book. While she’d been planning their wedding, he’d apparently been knee-deep in yet another Ponzi scheme.

Brooke hadn’t even known what a Ponzi scheme was when the FBI had told her.

She did now.

Following Clay’s arrest, she spent weeks researching white-collar crime. Wanting to know what he’d been up to all those times he’d quietly kissed her forehead late at night and told her he needed to make some phone calls for “work.” Wanting to know what her life would have been like if the FBI hadn’t taken him down beforethey’d exchanged vows.

Still, while Brooke would be ever grateful that she’d learned the truth before she’d become Mrs. Clay Battaglia, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that the timing of it had stung just a little bit.

If they’d only taken him down a day before. Heck, even an hour before.

But no.

Just moments after Brooke kissed her father’s cheek and prepared to marry the man she loved at the wedding she’d poured her heart into, the FBI stormed—yes, stormed—the church.

Clay was in handcuffs before she even registered what was happening.

Numbly she watched as he listened to his Miranda rights at the precise moment he should have been listening to the vows she’d spent months writing.

And as reality slowly sunk in, Brooke waited. Waited for him to look at her. To look at her and say that it was all a lie. All one big misunderstanding, and that they’d be on their way to Bermuda as planned by tomorrow.

He didn’t.

He didn’t even apologize.

No, the man she’d loved for two years with every fiber of her being merely smiled at her and then shrugged.

There’d been plenty of photos taken that day, but that was the one that made it onto the front page of every major newspaper on the West Coast.

“The Greatest Con of All.” “Arrested by Love.” And her personal favorite, courtesy of her very own LA Times: “White-Collar Bride.”

The stories all read pretty much like you’d expect. About Clay, mostly, and the litany of accusations against him, but also about Brooke.

The papers had stopped short of defamation, but the implications were there. She was clueless and ditzy at best, a potentially overlooked accomplice at worst. Completely oblivious to the fact that she’d been sharing a roof with the most nefarious white-collar criminal in a generation—or pretending to be.

None of that had bothered her. What had bothered her was that she’d been a fool. Self-absorbed, naive, and downright blind.

Brooke had been dodging dumb-blonde jokes for most of her life, but the debacle with Clay was the first time she thought she might really, truly be deserving of the title.

She hadn’t been surprised when new clients had stopped calling. Hadn’t been surprised when current clients canceled. Nobody wanted to hire that wedding planner.

Brooke had even been relieved, at first. In those first weeks after Clay’s arrest, she hadn’t been able to handle any talk of weddings. Not her own, and not other people’s.

But the worst part of all of this, the part that kept her up long into the lonely nights, wasn’t the negative effect on her career. No, the worst part was that sometimes, in the very darkest corner of her soul, she feared that she might still love Clay, at least a little. Sure, her brain knew that all the things she’d loved about Clay had been a lie. Her brain understood that his name wasn’t even Clay.

But her heart? Her heart was having a harder time forgetting the way he always let her be the little spoon and tuck her cold feet against his warm calves. Or the way he’d brought her coffee in bed every morning. Or the way she’d come home after a long day with the worst sort of bridezilla and Clay would make them cocktails and sit on the deck with her, and watch the sunset and laugh.

She’d imagined that all their nights would be like that. All the nights for the rest of her life, with maybe with a couple of kids thrown into the mix eventually.

Brooke swallowed.

There wouldn’t be any more nights on the patio watching the sunset with Clay. Wouldn’t be any patio at all, because Brooke’s real estate broker had made it quite clear that she should be counting herself lucky to get a dishwasher in New York—a patio was out of the question.

So no patio. No Clay, or whatever his real name was.

No man at all, really.

No falling in love.

Not ever again.

About The Author

Lauren lives in New York City with her husband (who was her high school sweetheart--cute, right?!) and plus-sized Pomeranian. 

Five years ago, she ditched her corporate career in Seattle to pursue a full-time writing career in Manhattan. 

She writes smart romantic comedies with just enough sexy-times to make your mother blush, and in her ideal world, every stiletto-wearing, Kate Spade wielding woman would carry a Kindle stocked with Lauren Layne books. 

When not bringing The Sexy, she likes to blog about her Instagram addiction, and why mean girls are the worst.

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