‘Pride, Prejudice and the Perfect Match’ by Marilyn Brant

STORY: Would an Elizabeth Bennet by any other name be as appealing to a Darcy?

A single mother and an ER doctor meet on an Internet dating site—each for reasons that have little to do with finding their perfect match—in this modern, Austen-inspired story. It’s a tribute to the power of both “pride” and “prejudice” in bringing two people romantically together, despite their mutual insistence that they should stay apart…

Beth Ann Bennet isn’t looking for love. She’s an aspiring social worker using an online alias to study sex-role stereotypes. Dr. William Darcy isn’t looking for love either. He’s just trying to fund his new clinic by winning a major bet. Both think Lady Catherine’s Love Match Website will help them get what they want—fast, easy and without endangering their hearts. Both are in for a big surprise.

Pride, Prejudice and the Perfect Match…where true love is just a fib and a click away.

REVIEW: If you’re expecting your typical ‘Pride and Prejudice’ contemporary re-telling of Jane Austen book, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by finding out that while some names have stayed the same and brought into the 21st Century, the roles might be a bit reversed.

As blurbs go, this one’s perfect and gives you just enough of a peek and a hook into the story saving me the trouble of summarizing it for you, thus letting me tell you the reasons why I liked it.

Ms. Brant cleverly takes some of the bones of the original, shakes them up, guiding them to their perfect landing and giving us a story that is all her own.

The characters, main and secondary, were three-dimensional to a point that they might have been your neighbors or your friends, that’s how real they felt. The plot was intriguing and kept you in anticipation of the final reveal, which kept the story moving and entertaining.

And just when you thought you got it all figured out, Ms. Brant gives you a surprise or two!

You know what else I liked about this story? It made me remember what my husband once told me and at the time, I don’t think I appreciated his wisdom. He said I was everything he never wanted…but go tell that to his heart!

Sometimes, what we find when not even looking is not what we want, but rather what our heart knows we need. That’s what happens to our hero and heroine, and getting there, Ms. Brant made them work for it! I found the individual life stories of both characters touching and way too real, that by the time they got their happily ever after, I was emotionally fulfilled.

‘Pride, Prejudice and the Perfect Match’ is a great tribute to Jane Austen by Marilyn Brant and it will have you sigh as much as the original, if not more so. Highly, highly recommend you get it! Promise you’ll love it!

*Book provided by the author.

‘Holiday Man’ by Marilyn Brant

STORY: A Year of Holidays…

Shannon Quinn is the small-town girl who runs “Holiday Quinn” — a holiday-themed inn and resort based in scenic Door County, Wisconsin.

One winter evening, wealthy Minneapolis businessman, Bram Hartwick, blows into town along with the fast-falling snow. The sparks Bram and Shannon create succeed in heating up the chilly Midwestern night, not to mention plenty of holiday weekends in the year that follows…

But is their relationship only for special occasions, or might it be the elusive everyday love that neither of them thought could be found?

REVIEW: As I finished this story [3 am Thursday morning!] the one word that bubbled in my mind as I tried to encompass everything within it was ‘honest’.

Make no mistake, there are many more like, hot; sensual; funny; entertaining; warm…romantic. But somehow the word HONEST was the first to pop into my head. Ms. Brant had created these two characters with honesty of who they are within their vastly different upbringings.

Everything in Shannon’s life involved and revolved around the legacy that was left in her keeping. She accepted it with love and dedicated herself to making sure she didn’t disappoint anyone, her new patrons and her regular guests; her friends and employees. In pleasing everyone and making sure that the Inn thrived she neglects her love life and all other dreams are left on the back-burner to be dealt with sometime down the road. Except that ‘down the road’ line keeps moving further and further. I really, really liked her. She was such a sweetheart and totally relatable character.

Bram, our hero, was one of those men that finally starts to see the fruits of his labor. As the CEO of his company, he was very much a ‘hands on’ man and never left anything to chance. He belonged to the family of overachievers and workaholics, so the good and bad habits were in his genes. His love life suffered greatly because of them and his globetrotting.

As these two lonely people meet and consequently embark on an affair, the author is clever in throwing them a curve ball of reality, and that’s where I felt the honesty of a real life and real problems and insecurities intrude into their life and bringing this story closer to the reader.

The chemistry that the author created between the two was raw and sizzled throughout the story. For that alone, this is one worthy read!

For me, a very surprising moment came almost at the end of the book, and it will stay in my memory for ever. I hate giving spoilers, but I’ll give you a hint…I am Serbian.

‘Holiday Man’ by Marilyn Brant

BOOK BLURB: A Year of Holidays…
Shannon Quinn is the small-town girl who runs “Holiday Quinn” — a holiday-themed inn and resort based in scenic Door County, Wisconsin.

One winter evening, wealthy Minneapolis businessman, Bram Hartwick, blows into town along with the fast-falling snow. The sparks Bram and Shannon create succeed in heating up the chilly Midwestern night, not to mention plenty of holiday weekends in the year that follows…

But is their relationship only for special occasions, or might it be the elusive everyday love that neither of them thought could be found?

EXCERPT:

Bram strode over to the counter where Shannon and Jake the Prick stood.

“Bram!” she cried, her expression and her voice indicating delight. He hoped it was genuine. She leapt away from Jake and threw her arms around him. “You got here early!”

Not early enough, apparently. He held Shannon for a long moment, then he kissed her hard on the mouth, tasting alcohol.

With a lethal look in Jake’s direction, Bram reached for Shannon’s glass, sniffed it and said, “Mind if I have a taste? It’s been a long drive.”

“Sure,” she said, grinning up at him. “Jake made it, but I’ve had more than enough already.”

Bram took a tentative swallow. Long Island Iced Tea. With a mix of seven different kinds of liquor, those things were damn potent, but its strength was disguised by the kind of flavorful fruitiness women loved…and every man on the planet knew that. Only dishonorable men exploited it, though.

He gazed into the defiant green eyes of Jake Marcolis, loathed him with every fiber of his being and knew with absolute certainty that he was going to beat the bloody crap out of the bastard. And soon.

Shannon, for all her luscious curves, was still a lightweight when it came to alcohol, and she seemed to be getting a little unsteady on her feet. How many of those drinks had she had?

“You hungry, sweetheart? I wasn’t in the mood for fast food on the way here, so I’d planned to fix myself a little something when I got up to the room. Join me?”

“Of course,” she said, laughing. “I made sure the kitchenette in the Astaire Suite was fully stocked.” She paused. “Good thing, too. I never got around to eating dinner. I’m starving.”

Bram shot another glare at Jake. From the guilty look in his eyes, the assistant had known about this, too. Jake would be sorry. Bram would deal with him later.

“Well, goodnight Jake,” Shannon said cheerfully. “Drive home safe, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Jake,” Bram said. “Drive home safe.” Or not.

The assistant stood to his full height, five-foot-ten, maybe—Bram was taller so it didn’t matter—and waved a farewell to Shannon. “Goodnight, babe,” he told her.

Babe?

That guy was so dead.

To him, Jake continued to raise his hand, but he subtly lowered the thumb, index finger, ring finger and pinky of that hand as he turned toward him, so Jake’s “wave” goodnight was a whole lot like a flip off. Bram suspected this was entirely intentional.

As far as he was concerned, the gauntlet hadn’t been thrown down—it’d been hurled to the floor with a smack. And Bram was not one to let a challenge like that go unacknowledged, either in business or in his personal life.

Jake the Prick had better watch his back.

“Let me take you upstairs,” he whispered in Shannon’s ear once the assistant had left the building. “I’ve got a lot to show you, and you know I’m an impatient man.”

She shivered in his arms then hugged him tighter. “I’d been worried, you know,” she admitted, “about how it would feel when we were face-to-face again. It’s been such a long time.” She pulled him by his necktie down to her and planted a long, wet kiss on his lips. “I’m not worried anymore.”

He led her to the stairway, aware of her slight stumbling and unusually relaxed posture as they wound their way to the suite. “I’m glad you’re not worried. You have nothing to fear from me.” Except the untimely demise of your assistant. “I was looking forward to seeing you so much, I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to get here.”

She grinned at him as she fumbled with the door key. “Bram, I think I’m a little drunk.”

He eased the key gently from her fingers. “I know you are, sweetheart. But, like I said, you don’t have anything to fear from me. I’ll take care of you until you’re thinking clearly again. Okay?”

“Okay.” She paused as they entered the suite, watching him as he tossed his bag on the chair and kicked off his dress shoes. He felt her eyes scanning him. “Then what’ll you do? Once I’m thinking clearly again, I mean?”

He smiled at her, enjoying her warm and open expression, her waterfall of auburn waves, her intelligent and imaginative way of being, and he said, “Then we’ll have wild and raunchy sex until you shriek. Sound good?”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Well, yeah…”

FEATURED AUTHOR:Marilyn Brant

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‘Friday Mornings At Nine’ by Marilyn Brant

STORY: Every woman remembers her firsts: Her first kiss. Her first lover. And her first time contemplating an affair…

Each Friday morning at the Indigo Moon Café, Jennifer, Bridget and Tamara meet to swap stories about marriage, kids and work. But one day, spurred by recent e-mails from her college ex, Jennifer poses questions they’ve never faced before. What if they all married the wrong man? What if they’re living the wrong life? And what would happen if, just once, they gave in to temptation…

Soon each woman is second-guessing the choices she’s made–and the ones she can unmake–as she becomes aware of new opportunities around every corner, from attentive colleagues and sexy neighbors to flirtatious past lovers. And as fantasies blur with real life, Jennifer, Bridget and Tamara begin to realize how little they know about each other, their marriages and themselves, and how much there is to gain–and lose–when you step outside the rules.

REVIEW: Jennifer is married to Michael, mother to twin girls, and works as freelance web designer.

Bridget is married to Graham, mother of three and had just recently started work again.

Tamara, married to Jon, has one son and is stay-at-home mom.

These three middle-aged women meet each Friday at the Indigo Moon Cafe, to share their lives with each other.

Tamara’s husband is a lawyer who’s never home. Keeping company with her neighbor, a very handsome writer seems a thing to do. As their only son is off to college, she’s left all alone. Lonely and bored she makes her home and especially her garden a sanctuary of sorts.

When Jennifer receives an unexpected message from her ex-boyfriend arrives, she has a choice to make. See him with telling her hubby, or not see him and not tell her hubby?!

Bridget gets a job at Dr. Luke’s dental office, and both are happy to discover that they share their love for cooking…

The suspense of this tale is in trying to figure out which one of these women will succumb to infidelity. To be honest, I didn’t see it coming, and hope you won’t either.

Marilyn Brant went out on a limb with this story, calling it romance, and while some will no doubt not see it as such, once you get into the story, vest yourself in these complicated, sometimes frivolous yet very human characters, you’ll see the romance of it. What drew me to this story at first was the subject matter, but what grabbed me and held me captive was the humanity of the story.

You’ll appreciate this author’s serious thought and consideration to this topic which I’m sure wasn’t an easy thing to do when writing romance. She went all out in making sure we, the readers, would have the full story and in the end we were left to accept the decisions of these women without any prejudices and judgments. Now, that I call some crafty writing!

This was one book I wasn’t looking forward to reading and after I was done with it, I had a hard time penning a review of it. This story needed digesting and coming to terms with. Stories of these three women were just hitting too close to home. I identified with all three of them. I saw bits and pieces of myself in them, and like them, had at one time or another come with that same dilemma, so in the end I did…well, this is not about me, is it?

If you like well written contemporary stories, with lots of humor and plenty of reality, this one’s for you. I’d say if it comes to ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ and this one, skip the ‘Shades’. You’ll be glad you did!