REVIEWED BY SUNNY

I enjoyed the third installment of this series. I enjoyed the preparation for Alexa and Drew’s wedding, but more so loved the enemies to lovers story for Maddie and Theo. They both were going through a lot in life and I enjoyed the quiet life they were spending together. Even though there were some repeated elements to the story, I enjoyed their tale.

i enjoyed this book, but it has been a long while since i have read this, and i do very much apologize for that. but this one just wasn't that enjoyable for me, even though i did somewhat enjoy it.

This book was SO FUN! This series continues to bring me laughs and sighs and STEAM. One of my favorite romance troupes is a secret relationship and this one was so well done and fun to read. I love how the transition from enemies to secret lovers happened for Theo and Maddie and how surprised they were by it. Lots of hook ups and near misses kept it engaging and I really enjoyed getting to know both Theo and Maddie. Maddie is so strong and I appreciate how she stands up for herself to Theo's sometimes abrupt or even rude manner. I love how Theo was not who he seemed to be at first. The ending was really well done and another really fun romance in this series.

Maddie and Theo are Alexa's best friends, but they just can't seem to get along. Theo can't help but say the wrong thing every time Maddie is around, leading Maddie to think he's a stuck-up, pretentious jerk. When Alexa asks both to be in her bridal party, they have to figure out a way to get along for the foreseeable future. "Getting along", though, turns into hooking up every opportunity they get. For some reason, Maddie and Theo are inexplicably attracted to each other, but they vow to keep this secret romance on the DL in order to keep the pressure off of each other and to keep everyone else from planning their wedding next. This is just supposed to be a light, easy fling -- so why can't they seem to get enough of each other? And once they really get to know the other person, will they be able to let go once the wedding is over?

The Wedding Party is a quick read that's light on drama and has plenty of adorable moments readers will enjoy. Guillory's fans will also appreciate the tie-in to her first book, The Wedding Date -- this book takes place during the same timeline but from the best friends' POV as they hide their secret hook-ups from everyone they know. Carlos and Nik from Guillory's The Proposal also make a quick appearance, helping to tie all three books together. The Wedding Proposal is a fun, light story that's easy to binge-read!

This author never disappoints. She writes sexy rom coms really well. Laugh out loud funny in some parts and she also manages to give the characters will gravitas and problems. The supporting characters in each book are just as well dome as the main ones and I always wonder what characters will get their happy ending next? Who knew that one meet cute in an elevator could bring so many love matches? The author has created a really wonderful world of characters that I never want to leave.

Another fantastic contemporary romance from Jasmie Guillory. This was a delightful enemies to lovers tale between a best man and maid of honor who are forced to work together and discover that the things they thought drove them crazy about the other - might be doing so in a good way!

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book. Unfortunately, this story wasn't for me and I wasn't able to finish. I look forward to future titles.

Special thanks to Berkley for providing our copy of The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory in exchange for an honest & fair review.

The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory is a sweet & sexy romp between enemies to lovers. Set it against a backdrop of a friend's wedding & it's such a blast!

A while back I read The Wedding Date & really enjoyed it. While I loved Carlos from The Proposal, I had a harder time connecting with the romance. Well, it's safe to say that Jasmine hooks me with The Wedding Party.

Even though I have the paperback version, I opted for the audio. I LOVED it! The narration is so good. Also, maybe it's just me but The Wedding Party felt a bit more open door than Jasmine's other books. I love that. Give me all the steam.

THE VERDICT

I am Really Into This book! The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory is sexy, sultry & an enjoyable romance. I can't wait to read Royal Holiday!

Very sweet, but I did not enjoy as much as the wedding date. I didn't feel as invested in the characters, and the plot did not have enough to draw me in. I still love this author - this one just wasn't for me!

Jasmine Guillory never fails to charm with her wonderful romances -- and this one is no exception! Returning to side characters from her previous books with fun cameos from previous favorites.

I’ve had The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory on my TBR since last summer and finally got a chance to read it. I read it for the #Romanceopoly2020 Challenge, and it completed one of my Library squares for the challenge.

I was happy to be able to read the third book in Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Date series since it was Theo and Maddie’s book. These two were introduced in the first book since they’re Alexa’s best friends. These two are supposed to hate each other until they end up kissing. Now they can’t stop thinking about each other. They end up hooking up further than a kiss in the book, and they want to make sure their best friend Alexa doesn’t ever find out about them. They make a pact not to tell Alexa and also not fall in love. Unfortunately, these two characters are going to end up falling for each other. It’s inevitable. They both were apart of Alexa’s Wedding party and would end up seeing each other more than they wanted in the story.

I was excited that this book was an Enemies-to-Lovers book because it’s one of my favorite tropes, although Theo and Maddie drove me crazy in this book. They hated each other, but not really. I’ve read so many Enemies-to-Lovers that their relationship was not the hatred kind. I felt their connection with each other was more of an annoyance, not hatred. Although I did feel the tension at the end of the book when Maddie ended up overhearing a conversation with Theo and his brother, Ben, it was not a pretty scene at all.

Although this book only got 3.5-stars, I did still enjoy some aspects of the story. I loved that Jasmine Guillory had this story be involved with Alexa and Drew’s wedding. I enjoyed those two in their book, which was the first book in the series. Alexa and Drew played a big part in this book, and I loved the ending of this book. Nope, not spoiling the conclusion of the book, but I will say it was the best part of the book. I knew it was going to happen.

I’m looking forward to diving into the next book in the series when I have some time to sneak in with my other books I need to read.

4.5 Stars

Rivals to lovers & secret romances are my jam.

I really appreciate the author’s ability to build up the tension and make the book sexy without gratuitous descriptive scenes just for the purpose of including them. I thought that secret romance aspect of the story was well done because it didn’t feel like there was too much back and forth between Maddie and Theo. There wasn’t a lot of drama or angst and I love how it all came together in the end.

Great and fun romance story. Love this author's sense of humor and writing style. Definitely one to order and keep on the shelves, as her books are very popular at our library!

The first two books in The Wedding Date series - The Wedding Date and The Proposal - have been delightful romances about people coming together through unlikely happenstances. Meeting each other has changed their worlds for the better. The Wedding Date this time involves Maddie and Theo who are friends of Alexa from the first book. Theo works with Alexa in the Mayor's Office and Maddie is her best friend. Alexa might be the only thing they have in common though because these two do not get along. They've somehow managed to rub each other the wrong way with Maddie thinking Theo is a snob who likes to throw his education in people's faces and he thinking she's a flighty, superficial twit. The remain civil for Alexa's sake, barely tolerating each other when they are in the same company. But then one night, after a few drinks and some goading in to a dance off, Maddie and Theo wind up tangled in the sheets and neither are sure of how to proceed.

First off, you knew this was going to go one of two ways: they either continue hating each other or they finally let off steam. The latter is way more fun but it's what happens after that's far more interesting. Neither want a relationship especially with the other but they're also hopeless at making their one night stand stick. They agree to just be sort-of-friends-for-benefit and agree not to tell Alexa. Even though they might not have much in common at first, Maddie and Theo do get on surprisingly well when they loosen up their defenses. I did get a kick out of their tendency to piss each other off because of miscues. They just communicate differently and it's a matter of getting used to the other' language. I think that's every relationship but they tended to latch on to things mainly to "convince" themselves why they shouldn't be an item. Nothing funnier than watching a couple trying to avoid the inevitable. And nothing sweeter than watching two people finding common ground. Both Maddie and Theo have personal dreams that their careers are built on. Something so personal and deeply meaningful means putting themselves out there and risking failure. These two who could barely go a few words without slinging insults turn it around to become each other's biggest cheerleaders. The magic times may be fun but there's something profoundly sexy about a couple building a genuine connection together, and that's the aspect of the story I liked the most.

Fans of the previous books in this series will definitely enjoy The Wedding Proposal. Maddie and Theo, two seemingly opposites who slowly fall for each other and fall hard...isn't that a love story we all want?

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free ARC of this novel. Regardless of the way I acquired the novel, the thoughts, opinions, and views stated in this review are completely unbiased and one hundred percent my own.

I received this novel as an eARC from Netgalley, finished the novel, and then didn’t post a review! I really dropped the ball, and made a promise to myself that 2020 would be the year I picked that ball back up. So here we are, back with a library copy of this absolutely gorgeous book, ready to smash out my review. Finally!

That’s one of the major things you miss with an eARC, is the beautiful cover art. A cover design obviously won’t make or break a book, generally speaking. It’s the plot that counts. But missing out on this cover for a second time would have been a huge bummer. She is so shiny!!!

I thought that, because this was a reread and I knew what was going to happen and why, it might be less enjoyable. I’m happy to report that I was wrong, and I enjoyed this book even more the second time!

During my first take on this novel I found our main character Maddie slightly annoying. I only saw her on the surface level, and what she was portraying to the world. It was her armor I noticed the first time, but it was her heart I found the second time. Cue the violin, amiright?

I’m gonna get REALLY nit picky, so stick with me until I come back to normal land. But Maddie had a favorite word she’d call Theo (our male main character), pedantic. It was used so much and so randomly, it felt like someone had made a bet with the author to use this word “x” amount of times in her novel. Each time it appeared it kind of threw me out of the story for a minute. I’m really interested to see if this was just a character trait, or if this is a writing quirk. Does it appear in Guillory’s other novels? I’ll have to find out…

The novel itself is written in two points of view, both male and female. For some reason I really liked Theo’s POV better. He’s sweet, smart, and steamy. It was like he would say and think everything a woman wishes a man would say, do, or think. I don’t know if we can attribute this to him being written by Guillory herself, or if men like this really exist. Either way, after reading this book my standards are higher than ever. 😉

I did have a small issue with this being taglined as enemy-to-lovers. They disliked each other, sure, but the major underlying tension wasn’t there for me. I think that’s in part to the fact that we do see both sides of the story from their individual POV’s. More than anything, their dislike for one another came from miscommunication and misunderstanding of the other person.

That’s not to say that their dynamic didn’t work for me, because boy oh boy, it sure did. I loved watching these characters interact face to face, via text, and through their mutual friends. I also found myself really relating to their relationship, and why it did, or sometimes did not, work for them.

If you take away anything from this review, let it be this last paragraph. This novel does such a great job at so many BIG things. Female empowerment. The importance of single mothers. Friend dynamic shift from single-engaged-married. Positive portrayal of masculinity. Importance of volunteer work and helping the underprivileged. Inequality in the workplace for POC. Safe sex. <—That last one was a big deal for me. It’s something that can so easily get skimmed over in text, but Guillory made sure that every scene depicting intercourse, included a condom.

Overall, I thought this novel was really well done. It had all the steamy things I wanted, even though Guillory could be SUCH A TEASE with how she set up each scene and ended them. And it had really important messages throughout. I’m so excited to have been introduced to this author and her work. I’ll definitely be picking up her other novels ASAP.

Alexa and Drew's wedding (the couple from 2018 Summer Reading Guide pick The Wedding Date) is around the corner and there’s just one problem: Alexa's best friends Maddie and Theo hate each other. But there can be a thin line between love and hate and what was supposed to be a one-night stand quickly turns out into “hooking up until this wedding is over” situation. And if they're disappointed when the wedding suddenly gets moved up and it means their time together is coming to an end, surely it doesn't mean anything.

I enjoyed this much more than the first book of the series. I found Maddie and Theo a complex, sometimes fun, sometimes angtsy couple. From enemy to lovers with friendship benefits. I really enjoyed the way Guillory turned the trope enemy to enemy with benefits on its head. Both Maddie and Theo find solace and unlikely friendship and support along with some really good sex.

The whole Alexa's wedding was a nice set up for Maddie and Theo to get to know each other.

I really enjoyed a great many things about this book. Characters were fleshed out and the plot was well spaced. Some of the secondary storylines could've used a bit more page space but all in all an enjoyable read!

After enjoying the first two books in this series, I was excited to step back into this world and friend group. And Guillory didn't disappoint! I loved the cameos from past couples and was glad I'd read the previous books. I've mentioned before that I don't think Guillory is the strongest writer, which is still true. But as soon as I start one of her books, I don't want to put them down. So I can't complain too much! This is a hate-to-love romance, and it was fun to see this couple navigate their growing attraction to one another. Bless their hearts for trying to keep it a secret, however. That aspect was a dumb, but I didn't care very much. This was fun, light read and I So Enjoyed It! It was steamier than I prefer, but I easily skipped those parts.

I have enjoyed this series thus far, but must admit that this volume was just okay. It was lovely to see the interwoven characters and story lines, but sometimes seemed to be missing. I still enjoyed it, but not as much as the previous two volumes.