Received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I really didn’t feel connected to this book. From the get go I thought that I wasn’t going to like this as much as I hoped, it kept my attention for three hours, other than that it’s not much to brag about

If I could I would give it 2 1/2 stars, but since I can’t and I feel just 2 stars are a bit harsh this gets 3 stars

It started out good but the story and the chemistry lost speed after half of the bok and then it dragged on.

I went into this having high expectations but once I realised the "straight but not really" trope, my opinion of this went downhill. The characters were fine and they generally made sense in terms of plot but I didn't like the deception that was occurring. If this was missing, I would have enjoyed the book much more.

2.5. Cause and Affection is the story of Kara, who is on the verge of quitting her family's advertising company because of her father's backward leadership, and Madeleine, an actress whose ten years in Las Vegas haven't lived up to her expectations. As a final job, she agrees to pretend to be interested in Kara. It's the company's annual conference, and Kara's siblings and their spouses have cooked up a plan to give her more confidence (through gaining Madeleine's affection) in order to keep her from quitting and instead push her toward taking over the company. Even though Madeleine is straight, she finds herself drawn to Kara beyond the script she's been given to work with.

I requested this because I like fake romance stories, but that ended up not being the biggest draw for me. I really enjoyed the business scenes because they gave us more insight into Kara. They also incorporated Kara's family, whom I liked, although Joanne confused me a little. She's the baby of the family and their dad's favorite, so she doesn't often stick up for Kara, which I found to be frustrating. And her husband's character is portrayed as kind of dumb and sycophantic toward his father-in-law, but he's never truly fleshed out.

The biggest problem for me was a lot happened off the page, even Kara and Madeleine's first kiss, which felt like an odd choice. Their relationship progressed much too fast and then they were split up and brought back together through an event that stretched my belief. It seemed like Wright wanted to pack a lot into the book, but it ended up being too much and topics couldn't be delved into deeply, which made for an uneven read. Overall, I'm lukewarm on this one, but I wouldn't say no to reading more by Wright.

I began reading this book thinking it was a very unique concept. However, about half way through the book, it became mundane. Which is too bad, because I really wanted to like it. The main characters, Kara and Madeline, seem world's apart with nothing in common. Typically, women in these novels have something in common. I just did not see it.
Good in the beginning, then the plot, and the characters, lost me about half way.
I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first book I have read from this author and I wasn't disappointed. It was an interesting plot, the family trying to build up one of the main characters (Kara) desire to keep going with the family business and they way the went about it was to hire a 'girlfriend' (Madeleine) without Kara's knowledge.

I found the chemistry between the characters well written, and the father of Kara was so well written I truly hated him, which I am sure the author was going for. Given that Madeleine is straight, was a bit of a twist, but I thought how the story moved along, you could see what was coming :-).

there was some jumping back and forth from Canada and New York, but the author wrote both plots very well, and you got a good feel just how much Kara had to put up with when it came to her father. All in all I found it a good read, and I read from cover to cover in one sitting :-).

I will look forward to more from this author-I received an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, but would have written the same opinion if I had come across this author on my own.

To see my Amazon review, it is under CC-Great summer read

1.5 Stars. This book was all over the place. This book is about Kara Wexler, an executive at her father's company in Toronto. She has to decide if she wants to be the CEO in a few days while attending a conference in Vegas. In Vegas, she meets Madeleine Jessepp, a woman hired to meet and spend time with her. Madeline is hired by Kara's siblings since they think Kara needs to relax and enjoy her time in Vegas. Madeline is doing this job before moving back to the Midwest. Madeline is straight and has never dated a woman before. Madeline and Kara start to go out and Madeline sees Kara as something special.

I thought this book was all over the place. I thought Madeline and Kara's interactions ramped up too quickly. They went from barely knowing each other to being in love in a very short period of time. The beginning of the book stressed that Madeline was straight and it never really felt like she was or that it made a difference. This book did not have good ramp up between the two characters. It was muddled and confusing and I did not like the story line at all, it dragged a lot. Madeline and Kara spent a lot of time apart and it did not make a lot of sense. The distance made them unsure about their relationship, but it seemed unnecessary in the context of the book. Madeline seemed to fall for Kara so quickly and within a couple days of barely spending time together, I do not recommend this book at all. It was not good.

The premise sounded very interesting and unique so I was excited to read this book. On the plus side, I really enjoyed Kara's scenes at work and with her family - the author had obviously researched the advertising world well, there were interesting work and family dynamics at play and her family members were all well developed characters. On a less positive note, I didn't really feel the chemistry between the two leads - I struggled to see how or why developed such deep feelings in such a short period of time, and this wasn't helped by the fact that we didn't get to witness the first kiss and the characters spent a lot of time apart once they got together, with lots of things happening "off camera". It felt like some key scenes between the two leads were missing. Overall, there were pacing issues and some more dialogue between Kara and Madeleine would have been great.

A likeable enough book and characters. The premise is a bit imperfect but it's executed reasonably well.

Kara is set to take over the board of her family's advertising company, but she'd tired of dealing with her Father, who stuck in the past. She wants to resign, but her siblings convince her to go on one last business trip, and meet with the board at the end of the trip. If she still hates it, her siblings are willing to let her resign. But without Kara's knowledge, her siblings hire an entertainer, Madeline, to kick Kara out of her funk and make her happy so that she might stay at the company. The two women grow closer, but when the week is over Madeline's contract says she can't contact Kara again. But was their relationship ever real? Will the two women ever reconnect to find out just hw real it could have been?

I really loved both characters. Kara's evolution was lovely to witness, how she became the woman she was meant to be, and how she came to realize she was deserving or love. The supporting characters were all really engaging was well. The romance was just adorable, so cute. The first half of the book was very engaging and entertaining while Kara and Madeline interacted. However, the second half of the book was a lot more introspective and slow and the ending dragged a lot. In this part the paragraphs were super long, with lots of introspective but not enough balance with dialogue and no conversations I got a little bogged down and wanted to skim.

I did love the little hometown Canada tie!

I received an ARC from BSB in exchange for an honest review.

An honest review thanks to NetGalley. This was a good read, I liked the idea of the arranged contract and it was a fun read as they started to fall for each other. Though once they both left Las Vegas I felt as if the story fell apart. I didn't believe that they were in love anymore and the constant insecurities and no communication caused irritation as a reader. I really did like the first half of the book, if the rest of the novel was as good as the first half this would have been an outstanding read.

This is the another entry on the typical lesfic fauxmance trope. In this particular flavor, a businesswoman's siblings arrange the "girlfriend experience" for their sister in order to...get back her mojo(?)...in order to convince the board of directors to displace her father as CEO of their firm. And here we go with issue number one that I had--in what world does this scheme sound like a good or reasonable idea? It was explained multiple times throughout the book, but I still don't understand how it was meant to work. Literally the explanation was to get "her mojo back" to take on the board, but she never actually has to do that. She shows up to the meeting, is silent, and there is a certain outcome. So essentially the driving factor of the book's setup has a zero factor. Next up let's talk about the romance aspect. Parts of that were working fine for me, but most of it didn't due to the author's bizarre style choice to tell and not show the MCs becoming emotionally (not to mention physically) closer but then reference their long, meaningful conversations in detail much later with secondary characters or skip over a first kiss and casually mention in later chapters previous make out sessions. All of this would have done wonders to help establish a growing relationship in "real time". Pacing was also a trouble for me--the fauxmance occurs and is completed within the first third of the book or so and then it turns to the irritating "soul searching" portion which seemed to drag and drag. Alone, these characters and their jobs just weren't interesting enough to care about. Even when they do rejoin, there aren't the same sparks or chemistry that existed in the earlier chapters. Two final gripes--there was a lot (and I mean A LOT) of emphasis on physical looks and beauty to the point of it being distracting and then an equally irritating amount of male deprecation. Almost every male character comes across as a piece of shit and the "straight" MC essentially decides she's a lesbian because she's not valued by men. It's a weird and discomfiting theme the author draws through the entire book for this character. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I dislike both MCs.

Synopsis got me hooked on wanting this book. However, it didn't quite delivered... Don't get me wrong, it's an ok book, but I had the feeling it's filled with stereotypes and prejudices... I mean, how really does lesbians look like? Is there a certain look that distinguishes them (us) from straight women? It bothered me, to say the least.
I also had a problem with the ending. It felt a bit awkward and rushed.

ARC received from Bella in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve not read Sheryl Wright and am not sure this was the right book for me to start with. This features MC Kara who is tired of fighting with her father over the path their business should go and is heading for the board meeting/conference in Las Vegas as the last thing she intends to do for the company. Her siblings and their spouse come up with an elaborate plan to give her a fake girlfriend to perk her up and get her back in the fighting spirit. Enter other MC Madeline, who needs the money to be able to start over again since her choreography career isn’t taking off as well as she’d like.

Usually I like fauxmances but this one didn’t hit the right chords for me. First, it’s different in that one of the MCs isn’t aware the romance is fake, which sets up the ‘wait til the other shoe drops’ thing, which is always a bit annoying because you have one eye on that until it happens. The whole premise was stupid too since the board thing didn’t even come down to a fight, her siblings could have just told her the plan for that and it still would have worked out that way.

Maddie and Kara had ok chemistry, at least in Las Vegas, but once the shoe is dropped both MCs spend more time (about the next third of the book) talking to their families (and in Maddie’s case Kara’s family as well) about what happened and not to each other. There’s also an injury injected just to reunite them and then for the last 1/5 of the book Maddie is waffling between Kara and some guy from New York, which was just tedious.

So, very uneven for me, when it worked, it was only in fits and starts. The two MCs needed to spend more time together, there needed to be way less time spent on the way the women in the story let men treat them badly and the family issues were also uneven. The writing was also a bit weird, lots of ‘my dear’ and it felt a bit antiquated.

Can’t say this grabbed me. 2.5 stars, but I’ve rounded down because this won’t be a re-read for me.

Cause and Affection was the first book that I've read by Sheryl Wright. For me it was an average book about a faux romance setup made by family member's of Kara to get her mojo back in order to take over the family company from their father. The story was fairly uneven in places and dragged for me toward the latter stages where in most books the interest factor increases. I did enjoy the poker tables scenes after Kara and Madeleine first meet in Vegas after they are initially setup.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Bella Books for an honest review.

A fun read with an original, quirky plot. I expected a light, fluffy read with an unbelievable plot, but the author carved out believable characters and the story had more meat to it than I expected. Nice read for the summer.

Really liked this book, I read it in one afternoon. I have a weak spot for the "fake relationship turns into love" stories. This one is well written and Kara's family add to the craziness of the whole setup. A must read!

I have come to expect intelligent, flawless writing from this author, and this latest book does not disappoint. As with her other books, this one is well-populated, but everyone has a role to play. No extraneous characters.

Kara Wexler is the daughter of a business executive and the time for her to breathe new life into her father's corporation has come. The trouble is, she is undecided as to whether she should continue with the corporation or branch out on her own, taking much of the talent in her father's corporation with her.

Madeleine Jessepp is an actor, singer and choreographer whose latest assignment is to befriend Kara and convince her to go for broke and chance an election as Chairman and President of Wexler-Oglethorpe.

Kara and Madeleine meet in Las Vegas, the site of the annual stockholders' meeting and the election to decide who will head the corporation. The trouble starts when Madeleine, a heretofore straight woman, befriends Kara and falls for her, which was not in her plans at all. Kara, from Toronto and Madeleine from Minnesota have some serious decisions to make.

Kara's family figures prominently in the story, as do Madeleine's parents. Each of them have opinions and a stake in the decisions made by the two women.

This is so well-written and compelling that I wanted to both find out what would happen next and didn't want it to end!

My first time reading a Sheryl Wright book and if her other work is anything like Cause and Affection then this won't be my last.
Really loved the whole concept of this story, as soon as I read the synopsis I was excited and to be honest once I started the book I wasn't disappointed.
Kara and Madeleine who are both great characters, you can feel the chemistry between the two, which leads to some sexy scenes between the two.

The story is well written and enjoyable to read

Would I recommend this book ......Yes

The synopsis of this book entrigued me quite a bit, however, once I started, I couldn’t get into it. I liked the characters but I did not feel a connection at all between Kara and Madeleine. The plot is good and a bit entertaining but the book fell flat due to the lack of sizzle and connection between the mains.