Marriage by Design

This is a favorite that I pick up a couple times a year. The story moves quickly and has great characters.

Ms Lynn Michaels is masterful at intertwining two complete plots with each other. She is light-hearted in her presentation. Her love scene highlight is WOW! Her plots are about solving a mystery and developing a romance. Lynn is a great writer in league with Evanovich and Patterson. I hope to see her earlier work reprinted. I urge her to continue writing well nto the future.

I enjoyed the story, I truly did. My one pet peeve is that for a fashion designer, Mia had a lousy sense of personal style. At least that's what all the descriptions sounded like. Sweatshirts over turtlenecks, a courderoy jumper over a turtleneck, a poncho over a turtleneck (seeing a pattern here?), a pink sweater with rhinestones and a brown fur collar, a purple stadium coat. Yikes! I can't help but imagine her as either a soccor mom or someone who shops in juniors, not a savvy, chic designer. Sorry, that was the one thing that really put a dent in an otherwise well-written and tremendously fun book. I wish she'd found Stink a girlfriend and that we'd heard from some of the more fun minor characters a little more too, but what can you do?

Mia Savard has grown tired of designing couture bridal gowns for her father's design company. But the day she turns in her resignation, Mia becomes the number-one suspect in an investigation into who sold the design for the governor's daughter's wedding dress to the competition. Lynn Michaels, author of several novels, including Honeymoon Suite, hasn't disappointed her fans with her latest, Marriage by Design. The story is lively, romantic and entertaining and--while Michaels leaves too many loose ends at the unraveling of the mystery for true mystery buffs and it fizzles where it should climax--chick lit fans will love the charming characters and the sweet love story that comes to a steamy apex of its own. Armchair Interviews says: Delightful and fun to read.

This was just an all around great romance. The chemistry between Mia and Joe was sizzling and they were very likable characters. The story was interesting. The secondary characters were fun. The writing was witty and I found myself laughing out loud throughout. Best of all, it was utterly romantic, which is what I look for in a great romance book. Don't pass this one up.