This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Erica. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Contemporary Romance category.

Here is Erica's review:

First off, let’s take a moment to revel in the crackstastic-ness of this title, shall we? A Bride for the Black Sheep Brother. Not just the black sheep, the black sheep brother. Whose brother? Who the hell knows, but hopefully not the bride’s. (Reads Amazon description.) Goddammit.

Okay, so I legitimately expected to hate this book, and it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t Earth-shattering, soul-changing good either, but it was a damn good time, so I was quite pleasantly surprised.

So the book opens with a prologue, which I am usually against, but I liked it in this case. Portia is about to get married to Dalton Cain and she is losing her damn mind about it. She’s not sure the wedding is a good idea, because she’s “eighty-nine percent sure she love[s] him. But she was 100 percent sure he loved her. At least, he loved all the parts of her that she showed him.”

Portia is expected to be a good little society princess, when in reality she’s the kind of chick who goes sky diving and gets a Marvin the Martian tattoo. She’s not a perfect society princess, and her mom is a bitch about it, and Portia is (quite understandably) freaking the hell out. And then Cooper Larson, the illegitimate soon-to-be brother-in-law walks in while she’s doing a headstand in her wedding dress listening to “Jessie’s Girl” (which is some seriously hilarious foreshadowing, right?), with her apparently amazing thighs and Hello Kitty panties showing and Cooper is smitten. And he winds up talking her down off the ledge and it’s really sweet, even if he is totally fixated on her underwear.

Flash forward twelve years, and Portia is at a charity event. She’s divorced and her ex is remarried and Houston society is going to be on her ass about it, and Portia’s mom is still being a complete bitch. A waitress spills a glass of champagne on the mother (bravo to you chick, that woman is a complete waste of space), and we are launched into this exceptionally confusing backstory.

I guess Daddy Cain was a cheating bastard, and at one point, he got really sick and he received this letter saying that he had an illegitimate daughter somewhere. Then, for reasons that are beyond me but must be located in the Be a Dick Billionaire Parent for Dummies book, he tells his three sons that whichever one finds this daughter will be the sole heir to his fortune and blahblahblah power trip galore. Well, Portia thinks the waitress with the great champagne aim is the missing daughter, and she’s really close to the now ex-Mrs. Cain who is currently broke because divorcing a cheating billionaire bastard means you lose your fortune, so she goes to Cooper to convince him to go after this chick and when he becomes the heir he can give Mrs. Cain the money.

Does any of this make any bloody sense? And isn’t it the single-most convoluted thing you’ve ever read?

Anyway, Cooper is a former bad boy snowboarder and current CEO of some company that makes stuff for snowboarders and he’s rich as hell now (obvs) and wants to make some fancy-ass lodge for snowboarders. He has zero interest in any Cain family drama, but when his board votes down his lodge plan, he turns to Portia and says, hey if you help me convince people that I’m a trustworthy rich person that other rich people should respect, I’ll help you find this kid.

So off they go to Utah and the lodge is some architectural masterpiece and Portia totally geeks  out over it and Cooper thinks she’s adorable and they eventually do it.

But once they’re together, the whole insanely complicated drama bringing them together seems a tad more reasonable. They have fantastic chemistry and watching them banter and work together and TALK is just the best thing ever. For me, personally, this is what makes a romance, watching the couple interact and work together on whatever problem they’re solving. This is the good stuff. And in this book, it is lovely. Yes, they lie to themselves and each other about their relationship being a short-term fling. Yes, that is annoying. But I get it. The whole you-used-to-be-married-to-my-brother thing is a big deal, especially since they were married for 10 years. They have some pretty serious hang-ups about their potential as romantic partners, and I just get where they’re coming from.

Cooper starts getting more and more obsessed with Portia; he wants to quit work to go up to see her and he’s increasingly jealous of her working with his buddies. Okay, I just read that sentence, and it sounds really controlling and scary and something to worry about, but I didn’t have that kind of worry while reading the book. Anyway, he pulls the dick dude move and starts trying to be distant to her and witnds up withdrawing a lot. And the big party happens and they fight and then they make up and it ends and they live happily ever after.

There are some problems with the book. There’s some headhopping within scenes that was annoying (you start in his POV, then flip to hers, then to his without any break in the text/scene to show that hey, we’re supposed to be shifting POV now). There’s the insanely convoluted backstory, although the book is part of a series, and maybe that wouldn’t be as egregious if I’d read the other books. The resolution happens entirely too quickly. Seriously, they fight and like in day they’re back together and it’s over.  There are some relevations that happen at the end that should have been revealed sooner, if only to the reader, because they make a lot of Cooper’s personality and actions make a lot more sense (other than the fact that he’s a dude). I was thinking that Portia was like 40, and then it was mentioned that she was 32, and I was like, no, she’s way more adult than I am. This might be more of reflection on me than about the actual writing, but Portia felt much adultier than 32 to me.

But Portia and Cooper talking and working together is glorious. The Cain clan coming together to take care of Portia when she spends so much time trying to take care of everyone is really lovely. It’s a decent book with the potential to be really amazing.