Marriage On Madison Avenue tells the story of Audrey Tate. Audrey thought she loved a man who she believed was finalising his divorce, in reality she was one of three woman this man was stringing along. When the girls find out, they form a pact to look out for each other and warn each other off any future bad relationships. Now the other two girls are all settled down in a good relationship that just leaves Audrey. Audrey has had disastrous relationship one after another and really is starting to feel like her happily after will never happen. So when Audrey’s best friend since she was a kid, Clarke West, announces to his mother that he’s engaged to her she goes along with it on the condition they would break off the engagement within a couple of days. However, the pair quickly discover that pretending to be in a relationship together may not be as easy as they anticipated.
First of all I can’t believe that this is book number three in a series and second of all I can’t believe that I’ve never read or even heard of the first two books in the series because if they’re anything like book three this is definitely going to be one of the best romance series. It’s been quite a long time now since I read a book that I absolutely adored and this definitely fits in that category.
Audrey and Clarke are great characters and I loved reading about them. Audrey on the surface seems relatively fake especially given that her career is being an influencer, making money from posting up photos on Instagram. She somewhat thrives on the good press and business opportunities she gets from being engaged to Clarke. Clarke as well has his flaws, he’s a womaniser and knows that he is absolutely not the kind of guy to settle down. However, when you read the book you quickly realise that the pair are so much more than they appear on the surface and what I particular enjoyed reading is the love the pair have for each other, even as friends. No matter what they’re both always there for each other and that is such a fantastic character trait.
The storyline itself, you already know what is going to happen from quite early on in the story. Does that ruin it when it actually happens? Absolutely not. The last few chapters when things are really heating up and you get the speech which just makes your heart melt with the sheer romantic-ness of it all – its everything you wanted from this book. I absolutely loved the way in which the author writes, she captures your attention from the word go and you go through the emotional journey with the characters are you’re reading. I laughed, I cried and I wanted to go into the story and scream in frustration at the characters for not seeing that they loved each other as more than friends, if that isn’t the sign of a good story I don’t know what is.
I knew from the blurb that this was going to be my kind of story but I never anticipated loving this story as much as I did. It’s very rare than I buy a physical edition of a book nowadays as I just don’t have the space so I have to really love a book to buy the physical copy but as soon as I finish writing this I’m heading to Waterstones to preorder the book.
Marriage On Madison Avenue is out on the 28th January and if you like romance novels then this book is just about as good as you’re going to get and I truly couldn’t recommend it more.
Synopsis –
From New York Times bestselling author Lauren Layne, comes the final instalment of the Central Park Pact series, a heartful and laugh-out-loud romantic comedy that’s perfect for fan of Sally Thorne and Christina Lauren.
Can guys and girls ever be just friends? according to Audrey Tate and Clarke West, absolutely. After all, they’ve been best friends since childhood without a single romantic entanglement. Clarke is the charming playboy Audrey can always count on, and he knows that the ever-loyal Audrey will never not play along with his strategy for dodging his matchmaking mother – announcing he’s already engaged…to Audrey.
But what starts out as a playful game between two best friends turns into something infinitely more complicated ,as just-for-show kisses begin to stir up forbidden feelings. As the faux wedding date looms closer, Audrey and Clarke realize that they can never go back to the way things were, but deep down, do they really want to?
Whenever anyone gets me into a conversation about musicals, it doesn’t take me long to start talking about how much of an incredible performer I think Alex Brightman is. When I saw him in School Of Rock I left the theatre in awe of his performance so the minute I heard he was going to be staring in Beetlejuice I knew it would be amazing and I could only hope to get to America to see the show, which luckily I did.
If you’ve spent any time on this blog at all you’ll know Dear Evan Hansen was always going to be in my favourites list. I was lucky enough to see this show twice this year (Broadway and West End production) and words cannot describe how much I adore this show.
Number one on my list this year is Ben Platt. It’s not a surprise that Ben Platt ended up as number one as not only have I listened to his own album (Sing To Me Instead) on repeat, my listening of Dear Evan Hansen and The Politician is also classed as Ben Platt.
Will Roland being second in my top artists of the year really surprised me. This has obviously come from my obsessive listening of the Be More Chill cast recording (with probably abit if Dear Evan Hansen thrown in for good measure) as I was so excited to see the show on Broadway…then it shut early!
I know I said I was only going to be doing two options for each but I feel like Taylor Swift needs a special mention. I know based on last.fm that I’ve listened to Taylor a lot this year but a lot of the ways that I listen to her won’t have been counted online. I play her music so much on vinyl and on my iPod which is so old it isn’t Spotify compatible.
I saw Cats in London’s West End a couple of years back and since that day I have repeatedly told people that its the worst theatre show I have ever seen. It wasn’t that the actors weren’t doing incredibly and seeing the shows hit song Memory performed on stage was every bit as amazing as I expected – I just didn’t get the show. I thought the set itself was quite dated and I just didn’t understand what on earth was going on. Despite this I have to admit that I have never dashed to a cinema so quick to see a film. The trailer looked so good and I hoped the film would help me piece together the parts of the musical that I just didn’t understand.
Sienna’s sister is getting married, the only snag is that she can’t afford the wedding of her dreams so ropes her entire family to take part in reality television show, Wedding Games. Sienna is an actress, except she’s bar a couple of tiny roles she’s failing miserably. A reality television show isn’t her first choice of a role but she decides that its the perfect opportunity to get onto the show’s producer radar which could lead onto job opportunities. The groom’s best man, Fox on the other hand is less up for the spotlight. He discovered the reality of being in the public eye when he was younger and now wants absolutely nothing to do with it, but when he’s asked to be the best man at the wedding he knows that he has little choice but to agree. The bride and grooms family and friends are pitted against each other in a series of competitions in order to win the power to plan certain aspects of the wedding. It doesn’t take long for sparks to start flying between Fox and Sienna but can opposites really attract?
melissay 