Reviewed by Kimberley
TITLE: The Worst Best Man
SERIES: Dreamspinner Desires
AUTHOR: M.J. O’Shea
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 208 pages
RELEASE DATE: February 1, 2017
BLURB:
It was her special day… but his worst nightmare.
A rekindled romance wasn’t part of the plan.
Despite his American background, August O’Leary is the most sought-after wedding planner in London. Naturally, Libby and Edward come to him for a wedding the city will never forget. But Edward is an international businessman, so the details are left to Libby and her best friend—who happens to be the love of August’s life and the one who broke his heart eight years ago: Christopher Burke.
How’s August supposed to pull off the event of the year with Christopher distracting him and old feelings crashing the party uninvited?
Christopher has let money and status dictate his life, but no more. His failure to stand up to others’ expectations cost him his future with August—one he hoped would include marriage. Now he has to face August’s hurt and anger and prove he’s still the best man to make August happy.
REVIEW:
I wanted to love this book. I really did. The author did such a lovely job with…okay. It’s not the author’s writing style that I didn’t like, it’s the characters. For some reason neither one of these characters were likable to me; I just couldn’t connect with them. The technical aspects of the book were really very good: the editing was on point, there were no holes in the storyline and the dialogue was okay. It’s not the writing style, it’s just the characters I couldn’t seem to connect with that made this book bit on the bland side for me.
Here you have these two young men who were deeply in love with each other. Then the relationship ended abruptly. August was still angry with Christopher eight years later over it. And his anger is supposed to be this living driving thing that’s been keeping him from entering into any romantic relationships because of it. So when he sees Christopher again after so long I expected a lot more passion, anger, lust, hurt, something. Anything. The author wrote it there but I didn’t feel it with these characters is what I am trying to say.
And Christopher’s character wasn’t likable to me at all. I understand family and societal pressures but he just irritated me and I couldn’t get past that feeling.
Truth be told, I found the supporting characters a bit more interesting that I did the MCs. I just could not feel any kind of passion between these two men and that’s why it was hard for me to be sold on the decision that they try again. I just felt that this book was like a meal cooked in nothing but water. It had no spices to give it any definition or flavor. The love scenes were just, in my opinion, too Hallmark movie-esque for my tastes.
Oh, don’t get me wrong: I am in no way saying that this book or any other romance needs to have characters shagging on every other page. I have read plenty of romance books where there was little to no sexual contact between the characters but the story was strong enough to sustain it. This unfortunately was not the case in this book. I felt that because the story was so bland the heat factor needed to be raised. There should’ve been a little Cayenne pepper or red chili flakes add it to this meal to give it some flavor.
It was a good recipe, it just could’ve been executed a little better.
RATING: 
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