The Wedding Engagement by Zoe Allison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars rounded up**
The Wedding Engagement is a Romance by Zoe Allison. This story follows MCs, Liv and Arran, and is set in Scotland.
Liv is a preschool teacher and Arran is an up-and-coming painter, as well as a single-Dad to a sweet little boy that Liv will soon have in her classroom.. Arran is Liv’s brother’s best friend, so the two have known each other for a long time.
They have a very tight knit group of friends, but when Arran occasionally needs help with his son, it’s Liv who really starts showing up for him.
Her excuse is that she doesn’t have much of a life otherwise and she doesn’t mind at all. The truth is more complex. She’s crushing hard on Arran, but yeah, also loves his son too. She wants to help him and definitely enjoys the extra time with her bro’s handsome-BFF.
Arran notices Liv showing up for him, and in truth, he’s been noticing a lot more than that. The sexual tension is boiling and their banter is just so cute.
When the two end up set-up together on a blind date, they have the opportunity to finally express what they’ve been feeling, but they both fail. Big time.
Even though it felt frustrating in the beginning, because miscommunication, this cast of characters did really grow on me. Arran was such a sweetheart and I empathized with Liv and her very real struggles and self-doubts.
I loved Arran and Liv’s banter, and more importantly, just the way they were with each other; how they considered each other’s feelings so much.
My favorite thing though was the friend group. I loved how supportive and open they all were with one another, both the men and the women.
A lot of the plot of this revolves around Liv’s brother, Sam, and his engagement and upcoming marriage to one of her best friends. Arran and Liv are both involved in the wedding planning and the stag and hen do.
I did enjoy that as well. Those types of set-ups are always fun to read about, IMO, and it helped to bring about a lot of necessary time for Arran and Liv to spend together.
Additionally, I appreciate the real-life issues that Allison explored with these MCs. For Liv, there was a lot of back story having to do with her bio-Dad and him basically being a shitbag. For Arran, there was a lot of drama involving his ex-fiance, Jess.
Granted, I don’t read a ton of Romance, but the Romance I do read and enjoy tends to tackle some heavier topics for the MCs. I need more than just sex and attraction. I want them working through things together, as a team and providing both emotional support and protection for one another.
I felt like Allison did a great job of channeling that into this story. This budding relationship had substance. I could walk away feeling like it wasn’t going to fizzle out in 8-10 years when the sexual attraction may have started to take more of a backseat in comparison with other issues.
Overall, while I’m not sure how memorable this story will be for me in the long-run, I still really enjoyed it and the journey that I went on with these characters.
Thank you to the publisher, Berkley, for providing me with a copy to read and review. This is the first that I have read from this author, but I’m definitely looking forward to more.