"Double The Pleasure, Double The Fun"

Jessica Parks is a naive computer programmer, just out of college, when her twin Tracy asks her for a favor. This is the first favor that Tracy has ever asked of Jessica and it is a lulu--she wants Jess to pretend to be her during her wedding rehearsal scheduled for the next day. Tracy lies to Jess about the reason for the switch, but promises to return in time to marry Devlin Hunter. Jess is not sure she can pull off being Tracy, as Tracy is a sophisticated executive. Tracy tells Jess just to act like a witch and Devlin won't know the difference.

Devlin Hunter has agreed to marry Tracy to become CEO of her step-father's company. Devlin is a hard-charging executive who has his own deep reasons for suggesting the marriage-of-convenience. When Jess appears at the Wedding rehearsal Devlin immediately knows she is not Tracy.

Not only is Dev on to the switch, he knows where Tracy is and what she is up to. He arranges to thwart her efforts to return in time for the wedding and Jess is forced to go thru with the sham marriage. When Dev confronts Jess with the truth after the ceremony, he insists they fly to Vegas and get married in reality. Jess agrees in order to protect her family from scandal; but, there is also a very strong attraction between the two.

What was arranged to be a marriage of convenience for business reasons between Tracy and Dev, becomes a marriage in reality on their wedding night between Dev and Jess and then the real fun begins.

Twin switch storylines are often not my favorites as they generally require a great suspension of disbelief by the reader and stupidity on the part of those who don't recognize the difference between the twins. But, in THE WRONG BRIDE Carr takes the stupidity out of the equation by having the prospective Groom immediately realize that the wrong twin is about to marry him. He goes ahead with the marriage for his own reasons, but this fresh twist to the story made it work for me and did not require too much suspension of disbelief on my part.

This is a fun, quick read with likeable characters and a properly evil villain and villainess, who get their comeuppance as all good romance villains do.

This book is published by Heartline and is available on their website (www.heartlinebooks.com). I hope it will receive wider circulation as it was an enjoyable book with two very likeable characters and a fresh spin on an oft- told tale.

Reviewed by Linda Hurst
Posted February 20, 2002