What Happens in Vegas...
...does not in any way stay there!
I drive through Vegas a LOT these days, now that I drive between LA and Colorado so frequently. I hate Vegas. I hate gambling. The only good things about Vegas for me are that there’s an HOV lane that allows me to speed on through if I have a co-pilot, and also that there are roller coasters. Now, though, I can add one more thing- sometimes, a pretty good romance novel is written where Vegas features prominently! For instance, these three waking-up-married stories that begin with a drunken night in Vegas and end in… come on. You know.
(sidenote- are you a creative person? Do you fear that someday, you might need to crowdfund? FEAR NO MORE! I’m hosting a crowdfunding workshop next Thursday and I’d love to see you there!)
Dirty Rowdy Thing by Christina Lauren. Christina Lauren’s first two series (the Beautiful series, featuring my favorite toxic OTP, and this one, called the Wild Seasons series) are unlike any they’ve written since, so if you’re a fan of their more recent work, prepare yourself for a fairly different tone. The Wild Seasons series is about two groups of friends who party together in Vegas one night and pair off and get married. The first couple stays married the whole time and the other two get immediately divorced but, spoiler alert, eventually get back together. This is book 2, and my favorite of the primary trilogy (there are two further books set in this world but are kind of separate from the initial premise).
ANYWAYS. Couple #2 is Finn and Harlow. Harlow is the daughter of a big shot Hollywood guy, a spoiled but self-aware rich girl based in San Diego, and Finn is a decade older and runs his family’s fishing boat business up in Maine (or something, does it matter?? He’s far away). After their quickie marriage, hot hot night, and then a quickie divorce the next day, he and Harlow haven't seen each other but for a single day when Harlow impulsive flies to his home in just a trench coat and they have another hot hot night before she heads home. He thinks she’s ridiculous and a distraction from his flagging family business, she thinks he’s an asshole who unfortunately she can’t stop herself from being wildly attracted to.
Finn’s in town for some business stuff and they reconnect despite their fundamental incompatibility (at least according to the two of them, if we all pretend to ignore the dynamite chemistry and mutual kink exploration), and if they’re ever going to find happiness individually and together, they’re both going to have to do a lot of thinking about who they are and what they actually want, not what they think they should want.
This book is EXTREMELY hot, and while a slightly spoiled heroine/ hardass hero isn’t my favorite pairing, these two WORK.
Rating: 4/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Unexpectedly Mine by Erin Hawkins. Emma is a wedding dress designer on the cusp of true success; she’s about to be featured in a major bridal magazine! She’s also in Vegas to celebrate her birthday, but after a few too many drinks she wakes up married to one of the strippers from the show she attended the night before. The ceremony might have been small, but the viral video posted about them broke containment immediately, so Emma begs Griffin, her new husband, to keep up the facade at least until her magazine feature comes out and the drama blows over.
Griffin reluctantly agrees to temporarily move to NYC with his new wife, considering he was already one foot out of his stripper days anyways. He’s been dancing for the last decade to support his little sister, but she’s graduating from college soon and he’s been in law school on the side, so they’re both ready for a new adventure. A quick trip to NYC will be like a mini vacation with a beautiful women, and once he’s divorced, his plans back in Vegas resume.
Or… will they? They won’t. Obviously.
I find there to be a bit of annoying prudishness near the beginning of this “fake” marriage story which always annoys me, but they get over that quickly and it becomes a lovely tale of two extremely (but differently) independent people committing first to their chemistry, then to themselves, and then to each other.
Rating: 4/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Shenanigans by Sarina Bowen. Neil Drake is a famous, extremely rich, extremely handsome hockey player for the Brooklyn Bruisers. Charli is a broke former sex worker* turned women’s hockey player for the Brooklyn Bombshells women’s team who just won a medal in an all-stars competition. In celebration of the medal winning, which takes place in Vegas, wouldn’t you know… these two crazy kids wake up married!
For many reasons, they stay married, but when their teammates and Neil’s extremely pushy/toxic richy rich family gets involved (not to mention Charli’s past catching up to her as a result of her new rich husband and successful sports career), things get complicated between these two explosive chemistry kids. Can they overcome their class differences and their wildly different upbringings to be a hockey power couple with equal power?
*Ok spoilers ish. There’s an asterisk here because the definitions of sex work are often vague and changing, but here’s the deal: Charli was a topless bartender for a while to fund her life in Brooklyn as the female hockey team got started (because of misogyny women’s athletes are paid like shit), and at some point in the book she’s blackmailed with media of this former employment. I’m 100% behind #FreeTheNipple and I also recognize that this job is meant to be (my deepest apologies) titillating for the clientele. She might not be dancing/stripping, but if a topless model on OnlyFans is a sex worker, so is Charli. Which there’s a lot of baggage with! Societally and personally! And I think this book does a solid job treating Charli with the care she deserves, and the subject matter with the nuance IT deserves.
And while rich guy/poor girl pairings can be tough for me personally because I find the rich guy’s richness too easy and convenient to make stakes interesting, overall I think this book is more complicated than that and is one of the better examples of this trope.
Rating: 4.25/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be recommending books prominently featuring lots and lots of animals!
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!
Also, another great Vegas book is "Honey Girl: A Novel" by Morgan Rogers! It might be less steamy and more focused on the romance (also, Vegas is the catalyst, the rest of the book takes place between Portland and NYC) but it's a really wonderful book.
I'm always excited to read a book featuring characters that are sex workers/former sex workers. I'm glad that you feel the book respects her and the profession (obviously there are characters in the book that don't, but I'm glad you feel that overall the book/author does).