Customer Reviews

Bride Needs Groom

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

BRIDE NEEDS GROOM by Wendy Markham
October 9, 2005

Amazon rating 3/5

"In this 3rd in her Chickalini family series, Wendy Markham focuses on Dominic, who was also featured in her previous Once Upon a Blind Date. Dominic is still single and travels to Las Vegas on a business trip. On the plane, he encounters the most beautiful woman he has ever met, wearing a wedding dress. He cannot stop staring at her.

Mia Calogera is on her way to elope with Derek, a man she has never met. She made contact with him through an online orchid-lovers' club. Mia is determined to get married, but not for love. She will lose her grandparents' inheritance if she does not wed by year end. Derek is her safety net to ensure that she keeps the same living standard she's had since her grandfather won the lottery. In the prologue, Mia and her best friend Lenore are told by a psychic that Mia will marry, within the year, a man whose name begins with a 'D' and ends with a 'K' sound - she thought Derek was that man. When Mia meets Dominic on the plane, she realizes that he may actually be the one the psychic predicted she would wed." Complete review at BookLoons dot com - M Lofton.

These are not great books, but for a quick beach read, these books do the trick. The redeeming feature are some of the secondary characters, which help make the stories enjoyable.

This book is very cute. Especially if you just want to read a laid back love story.

I loved the premise of this book and I had enjoyed the first book in this series but, this one was tedious. I found that many of the flashbacks were annoying and I still don't understand why a few of them are in the story. While reading this book it felt like the author just pushed it out to get another book in the series done. It was jumpy and not many of the scenes were fully played out, making the reader go "ok, so they are doing what now".

I found Dom to be a male "pig" that apparently changed almost overnight, which is a bit unrealistic. I found Mia really needed to grow up. And who gets married, whether for love or money who doesn't tell her best friend for days after she comes home, Come On!

If you have a burning desire to read this book I suggest find it either on bookcrossing.com or a used bookstore!

In order for Mia to continue to receive a healthy stipend from her grandfather's lotto winnings, she has to get married and settle down. This is an ultimatum, and rather than have gramps bring back a mail order husband from the old country, she decides to find one herself on the internet.

When she arrives for a flight to Vegas, with plans of matrimony, she starts talking to the man in the seat next to her, and soon she is telling him her sob story. Dominic just wants to get to Vegas, have his business meeting and do some gambling. When she propositions him to be her groom instead, he has visions of moving away from his dad, and agrees, despite having an aversion to commitment.

When they return to Queens, everyone is excited about the marriage, and Dom for one feels like a heel because it meant a lot to his family, and they were not there to share in the celebration. Despite intense attractions to each other, their lack of communicating outside the bedroom starts to strain the marriage. Will they both wake up and realize that they care for each other?

Markham's sequel to "Once Upon a Date" and "The Nine Month Plan" has all the old characters back, but this one is not quite as good as its predecessors.

In recent years, Mia Calogera has been spoiled because her grandpa won the lottery. However he is also from the old country and demands Mia marry before she reaches her thirtieth birthday or he will cut her out of his will. He even offers to bring a groom from Sicily for her.

Mia meets Derek Jackson, an orchid grower, over the internet. They exchange email, chats, and pictures, and soon agree to wed. She flies to Vegas to marry him at the Chapel of Luv. Her first class row mate on the flight is Dominick Chickalini. On the plane they hit it off starting with both being from Astoria Queens. In the Vegas Airport she decides to drop Derek and try to convince Dominick to marry her because she feels attracted to him. She offers Dominick money, which he needs to move out from under his father's roof so he marries her. Soon the newlyweds each wants to make their relationship permanent because they love each other, but neither is willing to take the daring first step.

BRIDE NEEDS GROOM is a fun lighthearted romantic romp that fans of contemporary tales will appreciate. The lead couple are fun to read about as they marry for the wrong reasons, but all the right reasons are there too if either courageously reaches out to the other. Readers will enjoy Wendy Markham's amusing tale of love across the tracks in Astoria.

Harriet Klausner

This was the first time I have read anything from this author. And the last. The first thing I noticed about this book is that it is written in the present tense. I kept thinking of "two men go into a bar, one turns to the bartender and says..." jokes. To me, parts of this read like a play rather than a novel. The heroine is spoiled and aimless and the groom is lazy with no ambition. Apparently the fact they are both very attractive is supposed to make us forget their personality flaws. They only thing bringing them together is sex and "a feeling" and as their relationship develops into marriage sex is still the only thing they do together. Then they split up and after no contact get back together because it is "true love". They still don't know each other or like each other but suddenly it is all good. There is no sense of following a blossoming romance. The characters never progress or learn anything about each other to lead them to love. And other flaws abound. The heroine's purse is left in a rental car with her jilted first-choice for a groom. She apparently doesn't have his cell phone number or remember his email address (although that is how they met) to get her things back, so she is stranded with no money or credit cards etc. In this technology -laden day that just doesn't ring true. The blurbs describing this book sound good, the book itself just doesn't live up to the hype. Find it at a library if you really want to check it out.

It was a super fun read. I could not put it down. It was very entertaining read.

BRIDE NEEDS GROOM starts out with Dom(inic) on a business trip in an airplane to Las Vegas where he meets Mia. Mia is in a wedding dress ready to get married to her mail order groom, which she has to do in order to keep her inheritance and luxury lifestyle.

They get talking to each other and after Mia decides not to get married to Derrek (her mail order groom) she comes to find Dom, who agreed to marry her to help her out. It was planned as just another business deal but of course they can't deny their growing attracting for each other and end up staying together.

Even though this book isn't as good as the first, it was still a nice refreshing fun read with lots of laughs and insides in the characters unusual meeting and way of thinking.

It's a story,not a series,it stands alone. Who cares if he's a little younger or older in this book. I was more interested in curling up and reading, than counting how old the characters *should have been between one book and another. It's about the love story and in my opinion so far everything I've read from Wendy Markham has had a good love story and been a fun, interesting read.

This was a very cute love story about Mia Calogera and Dominic 'Dom' Chickalini (you may recognize the name from her previous books) meeting on a plane on the way to Las Vegas. Dom is going for business while Mia is going to marry a man she's meeting for the first time. Without ruining the romance and story, I will say that this book met my expectations compared to Wendy Markhams previous romance books.
If you're in the mood for a light hearted romance quick read that 'll leave you feeling happy, this book is for you.