The Wedding Crasher

Starred review from January 10, 2022
A fake relationship upends the lives of two fiercely independent protagonists in Sosa’s brilliant follow-up to The Worst Best Man. When Brazilian American Solange Pereira crashes white stranger Dean Chapman’s wedding-of-convenience, she stumbles on a reason why the couple shouldn’t get married and stops the ceremony. To make up for it, Solange agrees to pretend to be Dean’s girlfriend to help him land a partnership at his law firm—and she eventually calls in the same favor to cover a lie her mother told her judgmental aunt. Solange is holding out for true love, while Dean doesn’t believe in love, thanks to his mother’s tumultuous romances. Both agree to keep things strictly for show—but as they share secrets, build an easy camaraderie, and discover mind-blowing sexual compatibility, this proves easier said than done. Meanwhile, their busybody families (Solange’s cousins are a hoot) conspire to push them toward each other. But when Dean’s mother grieves another failed relationship and Dean learns that Solange has been keeping a secret, his pessimism about romance may spell their doom. Sosa takes incredible care developing this slow-burn romance, delivering characters readers will want to hang out with and plenty of belly laughs. With a smooth mix of cultures and a heartwarming narrative of self-discovery through love, this is an invigorating take on a favorite trope. Agent: Sarah Younger, Nancy Yost Literary.

March 15, 2022
An associate lawyer asks a woman to pretend to be his girlfriend to impress the partners at his law firm. Solange Pereira is helping her cousin work a wedding at a fancy Washington, D.C., hotel when something unexpected happens: Right before the ceremony, she overhears the bride confessing her love for another man. Although it's awkward and uncomfortable, Solange disrupts the wedding, knowing this couple could never be happy. Dean Chapman is left at the altar but doesn't seem overly bothered by this turn of events--he wasn't in love; it was nothing more than a "modern-day marriage of convenience" to him. He intends to make partner before he turns 30, and having a wife and a family are just steps on the road to the kind of stability he never had as a child. When he returns to work a week later, the partners need two associates to woo a potential new hire. Only couples can be a part of the recruitment effort, so Dean impulsively asks Solange to pretend to be his girlfriend, figuring she owes him for disrupting his wedding. Solange feels guilty about her part in the fiasco and agrees to help him out. Faking dating proves difficult; Solange and Dean not only have to fool the associate who is in competition with Dean for a partnership promotion, but also keep the truth from her loving, nosy family. The modern rom-com can be a tightrope for authors who have to balance believable, zany antics with tight, authentic characterization. Sosa errs on the side of madcap plotting, with Solange and Dean responding reactively to crisis after crisis rather than moving their romance forward because of their feelings and choices. The emphasis on escalating action makes for a fast-paced but emotionally unsatisfying romance.

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Starred review from March 15, 2022
If Solange Pereira had just opted to forever hold her peace rather than speak out, Dean Chapman would be married to Ella Smith. So a few weeks after his wedding imploded, Dean immediately thinks of Solange when his chances at making partner at the law firm where he has worked for eight years depends on him having a new girlfriend. All Solange has to do is pretend to be his romantic interest for a few weeks, and Dean will consider the karmic debt Solange owes him paid in full. The problem with the whole scheme is that distinguishing where the line between pretending to be in love ends and really falling for each other begins is becoming more and more difficult to discern with each encounter. Sosa (The Worst Best Man, 2020) brilliantly plays to all of her literary strengths as she effectively channels the electric sexual chemistry between her opposites-attract protagonists into a gorgeously romantic and gloriously sensual love story that is then further enriched with a generous measure of the author's saucy sense of wit.

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