A Simple Wedding by Leigh Duncan

Jenny is the personal assistant to a Academy Award winning actress, Kay, who also happens to be her cousin.  When Kay gets engaged to her equally famous co-star, she sends Jenny to make the arrangements  Heart's Landing, a small town dedicated to making every bride get her ideal wedding. Kay makes Jenny promise to pretend to be the bride and hide the identity of the real couple getting married in order to avoid the paparazzi. As Jenny starts to interact with vendors, she develops friendship relationships with many of them, but especially with the baker, Nick, who has agreed to do the wedding cake. Sparks of attraction fly, but both try to suppress their feelings because Nick thinks Jenny is engaged. Things get even more complicated when Kay changes her plans, and Jenny is left to try to make excuses to all the vendors for difficult last minute adjustments. 

After finishing the Great Courses series, I decided to try something much lighter, and went with a contemporary clean romance.  I hadn't read anything from this author before and I didn't realize when I started that this book is published by Hallmark, and is very much like a Hallmark movie. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case, I didn't end up liking the book very much.  The main thing that drove me crazy is that, with all Jenny's problems there was such a simple solution, but she wouldn't take it. In my mind I kept shouting, "Just tell the guy the truth, that you are arranging someone else's wedding."  But no, even though her bratty cousin was being totally manipulative and inconsiderate, Jenny stuck to her promise to impersonate a bride and keep her cousin's secret. Not only was it frustrating, it didn't really fit her personality.  It felt like the author was making her character do something out of character in order to make the plot work.  I am afraid Ms Duncan is not making it on my Favorite Clean Romance Writer's list. (2020, 300 p)