This review was written by Anne. This story was nominated in the Best Contemporary Series Romance category.

The summary:     

Travis Bravo was sick of his meddling mother and her matchmaking ways. So what better way to stop her than to bring a fiancée home for the holidays? One catch—he wasn't even dating anyone. But that was where his rough-and-tumble oil-rig friend, Samantha Jaworski, came in.

An unpolished tomboy, Sam was game for anything for a good friend. But after her girlfriend-ready makeover, she fell easily into the role of Travis's loving partner—and into his arms.

Would she be standing under his mistletoe…for keeps?

And here is Anne's review:

I chose this book because it has one of my favorite romance premises of all time: friends/coworkers falling in love.  And then it added a soupçon of “What Not to Wear” and I was pretty hooked.  I think I read the whole thing in a day or two, which is saying something since the book I read around that (started before, finished after), I enjoyed but never seemed to want to pick up.  This, I whizzed through.

That said, all that whizzing gave me some whiplash.  I feel like things went just a little too quickly for me, that problems were too easily resolved, and that feelings grew a little too instantly.  Sam starts off as an ugly duckling.   Travis, after he decides to bring her home as his fake fiancée, gives her a makeover with a (very adorable) stylist.  The day of the makeover, they’re practically having sex and a few days after that, he’s proposing for real.  Whoa.  What just happened?

The book continues this way, too.  Travis has got this emotional baggage that seems like it will forever damage the relationship, but they have one talk and it’s over.   Then Sam freaks out about the wedding for a long time, but she resolves her feelings with a single glance at Travis.

I blame the e-reading device and my not checking how far along I was for some of this.  But ultimately, I just wished there was more, especially more banter between these longtime friends become lovers.

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