GRR Reviews Make-Believe Honeymoon by Vivi Holt

Callum, ex-SEAL, is now a private investigator. He needs to investigate a case where a billionaire with biological children died and left EVERYTHING to his step-son. When this step-son booked a cabin on a Honeymoon cruise with a wife, he needs to get onboard... Which means finding a fake wife ASAP. // Jessie, single mother and former beat cop, is moving home after her husband (a fellow cop) was gunned down by corrupt cops. She chose to start over as private investigator, and it seems her first assignment will be a pretend-wife to Callum on a cruise. She's definitely not ready for love, and definitely not with her boss. But with the magic of the Caribbean cruise, who knows what will happen, even as they try to uncover a nefarious plot?

I saw the ending long before the actual end, but it was done well nonetheless. There are just too many points of mystery and suspicious behavior and there can be only one conclusion. It was also pretty ingenious to mix it with a fake marriage trope. 4/5

GRR Reviews Make Believe Wedding by Vivi Holt

The Holdens and the Belugas are enemies from two generations back, running rival newspapers. Tim Holden left the editing room behind for life as a firefighter. He met Molly Beluga while on the job, removing her from an unsafe building while she's busy cranking out an article. Their families are opposed to them getting involved, which made them wanted it even more, even if just as a setup to get the two families to talk again. But soon, the fake relationship turned very real...

Sort of a retelling of Romeo and Juliet, the setup was pretty good, though why they would be the ones who decide to bring the two families back to the table was a bit nebulous. OTOH, having a firefighter carry you down and out of a building is kinda swoon-y... Ending felt a bit too fast though. 4/5

GRR Reviews The Billionaire's Email-Order Wife by Vivi Holt

Cassidy lost her husband after three years of struggling with cancer. With a load of medical debt, she had to move back in with her parents, while taking care of three kids and working two jobs. She's getting burned out, and she sees no way out... Her friends signing her up for online dating did not help. Until there was a match in the same small Georgia town... // David Weston had enough of his rockstar life, after a full decade of debauchery. He just bought a mansion in his hometown in Georgia, with his own recording studio, hoping to figure out where to go from there. Being matched with an email order bride in the same small town is a surprise. Finding it was his old high school sweetheart Cassidy was... priceless. But can he ever convince her that he wants her for who she is now? That they should get married first, and the love will come later?

Sweet, good use of kids, but the threat to love was basically a ton of self-inadequacy (no way I am good enough for him/her).  Also, it's sort of between marriage of convenience and marriage of love. Cassidy needed a man, and David has plenty of money. But Cassidy basically believe that he did it out of pity, and that's almost a TSTL moment. 4/5

GRR Reviews The Bilionaire's Email-Order Bride by Vivi Holt

All Eve wanted was to be a famous chef in New York City, and she's made it to sous chef so far in a famous NYC dining spot. So when a notice from ICE arrived stating that she had lost her work visa, she scrambled for a solution, and the only one that seems to fit is to be an e-mail order bride...  for a billionaire workaholic who only want to appear married, and sex optional... // John had been deeply hurt before, that he threw himself into work and no longer seems to know how to woo women, yet the loneliness is starting to sting. So he reached out to a matchmaking firm... Find him a beautiful wife who understand that the marriage is in name only, that he can take to functions and so on. They sent him Eve... // The match seems perfect... She needed a way to stay, not love. He needed companionship, not love. But they managed to fall in love anyway... Until a tragedy challenged their perception of their relationship, and both will have to make a choice...

Nice, very nice, if a little forced. Chef lost visa and must marry for convenience had been done before, but this is a nice and sweet (if slightly cliche "billionaire") take on it.

Category: Contemporary

Overall Rating: 4/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below.

GRR Reviews The Billionaire's Email-Order Date by Vivi Holt

Chris, a rich businessman, is closed off after death of his wife. Needing to take a date back home for Christmas, he ordered one online through a very discrete service, and promptly took the woman who showed up, in an elf costume of all things, to his home in Montana... // Kate is a struggling artist abandoned by her fiancee and lost her adopted parents. She wanted to find her birth mom in Montana, but in the meanwhile, she's doing Christmas singing grams. When her latest gram brought her to Chris, and he got the wrong idea... and told her they're going to Billings, Montana, it's a chance she cannot pass up, esp. when she'll be paid in cash. // When Chris learned that Kate was keeping a few secrets, he really had no one to blame but himself: he didn't give her a chance to say no. But she also intrigued him... Is there a chance for this odd couple to be together? Will Kate get to see her birth mom?

Good twists and turns, and this is one of those "mistaken identity" stories that actually sorta make sense, instead of relying on a series of unfortunate circumstances.

Category: Contemporary

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below.

GRR Reviews Make-Believe Fiance by Vivi Holt

Woman got a divorce and got taken to the cleaners... AND her evil ex is still after her for money. All she can do is work at the school... AND waitress at the local cafe. Perpetually tired, she didn't notice her latest customer is the hot, single, and rich heir... who doesn't have a date for his cousin's wedding. AND he needed a finacee to convince his dad to hand over the reins of the family company to him... one he already ran... as a stand-in. So he made her a proposal: pose as his fiancee for a week... No sex, just be pampered for a week, and he'll pay her rent down payment, and a little more for her troubles. It's just a business arrangement... right?

Good polish, though "evil ex made woman work extra hard out of fear to be rescued by white knight" is a trope. As is the "I need a fake fiancee for _____" trope. But when you mix the two properly, add some evil ex's, and mix thoroughly, you get a good story.

Category: Contemporary

Overall Rating: 4/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below.

GRR Reviews Dalton by Vivi Holt

Dalton was a bronc rider who had to give up his dream when his ride ended with his leg broken in two places and will soon result in permanent damage if he kept going. He also just learned he inherited a ranch from his grandpa Joe, but it was so run-down, he had to spend a lot of money keeping it up, but it's only his if he kept it running for a year. He decided to turn it into a stud ranch... // Hazel is the third chair in a symphony who doesn't get any love at home... All her parents want to ask her is when is she getting promoted. When she found her roommate Jennie, a vet, lying nearly unconscious on the floor, she called 911. Turns out she had appendicitis, but she has this urgent assignment she had to go to the next day... Hazel reluctantly agreed to accompany a mare to a stud farm in Jennie's place. But she's dressed all wrong, talked wrong, and generally behaved wrong. And Dalton... well, he's a genuine cowboy in South Georgia. And after surviving a tornado together, it's clear they had a something for each other, and the truth came out. How can they be together, when they are so different?

While I like the way this unlikely couple is handcuffed together, and the romance simmers rather than boiled over, I honestly didn't quite see when the his curiosity for her turned into love.

Category:

Overall Rating: 3.5/5 (rounded up)

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below. 

GRR Reviews Mail Order Bride: Christy (Orphan Brides) by Vivi Holt

"Mail Order Bride: Christy" by Vivi Holt has a good setup, but the rest of the book is just mail order bride trope, about two wounded people coming together by circumstance. It's clean and spiritual, and not much more.

Christy and her parents were on their way to California when the train was robbed, and her parents were caught in the crossfire and killed. When her relatives back in Ireland contested her father's will and the money that had been left, she's stuck in Kansas, with no money, no family, and no friends (they're all on the East Coast) and nowhere to go. A kind-hearted family took her in temporarily, but she knew she can't stay. She agreed to be a mail order bride to a rancher to the south... Brent lost his love when a horse bucked her off. He had suffered years alone. He did not expect Christy to be so beautiful... and so vivacious... And Christy found Brent very... handsome. But can two total strangers love each other, under such tragic circumstances? And when misunderstanding threaten their trust? Will they work through it, or is she leaving?

Eh... somehow it's just change of heart for the ending. It's clean, it's Christian (not too much Bible talk, but enough) But it's kinda... Meh. Too much setup, not enough struggle.

Category: Historical Western

Primary Plot: Young woman lost her parents and had no money; chose to mail order bride herself to widower rancher; can they find love?

Tropes: mail order bride, orphan, family pressure, different worlds, fish out of water, widower

NOTE: We're using "widower" label on the MMC even though he wasn't actually married.

Overall Rating:  3/5