Sending two prickly strangers on a vacation together may be a terrible idea in reality, but it's a delightful premise for a love story. Less than a day away from marrying Huw, her farmer-boy fiancé, Carrie finds herself unceremoniously jilted. Adding insult to injury, she learns he's marrying someone else. In need of a diversion, she plans a tour of the Continent with her best friend, who then gets a last-minute job offer. Desperate to stop Carrie's moping, she taps Dr. Matt Landor, who is idling in the U.K. on forced R&R from his do-gooding work in the tropics, to go in her stead.
Full-on rom-com insanity can wear thin fast and alienate the reader, but Phillipa Ashley (wish You Were Here) strikes just the right tone, and then maintains it through the shenanigans that follow. Carrie is by turns heartbroken and furious, but remains fundamentally likable and relatable. Crashing Huw's wedding, she restrains herself from disrupting the ceremony (but does demolish a flashy flower arrangement). The good doctor, for his part, is hunky without being a stereotypical Prince Charming. For example, when rescuing Carrie from where she's been abandoned on a beach, stoned out of her mind, he doesn't panic, and just laughs. The bickering-but-attracted plot is nothing new, but it's enjoyably executed. Anglophile readers will also enjoy across-the-pond references to rugby fandom and jokes about David Tennant's hotness. --Kelly Faircloth, freelance writer