Natalie Anderson: BOUGHT: ONE NIGHT, ONE MARRIAGE

Natalie Anderson
BOUGHT: ONE NIGHT, ONE MARRIAGE
Harlequin
187 pages
ISBN: 978-0-373-12785-6

When Cally's friend wins her a date with Blake McKay she's shocked. While she sees herself as plain and ordinary, he is very handsome and could have about any woman he wanted. So Cally wonders how could she possibly go on a date with him. But Blake manages to get under Cally's skin and in return "buys" a date with Cally. At that time, neither of them thinks their two dates would result in a marriage.

I realize I have a hard time getting a hold of what exactly persuaded me that this book was not only worth my scarce reading time, but that I should go and look for more novels by Natalie Anderson, but I will try.

Cally is a character one can relate to, as she sees herself as an ordinary person and while she has enough money for her to never have to work again, she owns a company preparing delicious, home-cooked soups which she sells with the help of a friend and can't imagine giving up her job and stop creating new soups. So when her friend Sydney persuades her to come to a fund raiser / bachelor auction, she feels out of place and it is obvious she'd much rather spend some money and not be involved in the auction.

Blake always had everything go his way, so when Cally doesn't react to him the way he is used to, it throws him off balance at first, but then he decides to win her over. While this was really annoying at first, Blake shows his caring side when Cally doesn't feel well and after a rift between the two, mostly due to missunderstandings, he clears everything up very soon.

While at first Cally seems like an independent woman, she soon shows she can also be vulnerable, but luckily, Anderson balanced those moments well. Not only that, she also created Blake as an ambivalent character, definitely no card-board character!

Rating: 4/5