May the Best Man Win by Mira Lyn Kelly (Best Men #1)
Publication Date: August 2, 2016
Contemporary Romance
Sourcebooks

Reviewed by Kini

Blurb

Four friends
Each a Best Man at a wedding
One chance to get it right
Jase Foster can’t believe his bad luck. He’s been paired with the she-devil herself for his best friend’s wedding: Emily Klein of the miles-long legs and killer smile. She may be sin in a bridesmaid dress, but there’s no way he’s falling for her again.
They can barely stand each other, but given how many of their friends are getting married, they’ll just have to play nice-at least when they’re in company. Once they’re alone, more than just gloves come off as Jase and Emily discover their chemistry is combustible, and there may be something to this enemies to lovers thing after all..

This is the first in a series about four friends and their adventures in falling in love. The title might imply a situation where more than one man is vying for the heroine’s affections and that is not the case.

Jase and Emily have shared history, they knew each other in high school. Jase wanted her to be his girl but his best friend Eddie made the move first. As a result of that, Jase proceeded to start disliking Emily and hold her responsible for all that was wrong in the world. Even after she stopped dating the best friend, Jase continued to dislike her. As they are now grown-ups they continue to run into each other and get paired up at weddings, they are both very tall.

Jase works as a banker, has a weirdly loving relationship with his assistant Janice, is a somewhat of a commitmentphobe, a good son, and has some abandonment/mommy issues.

Emily is in public relations and dated Eddie in high school. The book is predominantly told from Jase’s POV. Jase really dislikes Emily, yet it is pretty clear early on, he secretly likes her. They exchange some banter at a wedding or two, but I felt like there could have been more dialogue between them. I felt like a lot of page time was spent on other characters, probably to help set up future books. I would have liked to see the hate they had for each other more.

The “I hate you but really I love you trope” is one I enjoy, especially when it is done well. I think it can really up the tension and when they do drop the hate really satisfying. I didn’t completely buy into his disdain for her, but I still enjoyed reading their story and seeing them come together.

They also get caught up in the we are just going to have sex once and be over it. Never happens that way, but I love it just the same.

She stopped breathing. Because Jase wasn’t looking at her like he wanted to insult her. Or carry on with the banter. He looked like he wanted something else. Maybe the same thing she’d only in that second realized she wanted too.

They definitely have some ups and downs. Jase has some trouble trusting due to his childhood issues. He is kind of mean to Emily. They work through it and work on trust and being friends and seeing what can develop. I did enjoy seeing this. It is kind of like a longer, grovel without being a straight grovel. Emily still cares for him but plays it safe in order to not get hurt. “…when I am with him, I forget about protecting myself. I lose track of all the reasons to keep a few solid defences in place.”

Overall this was a cute and fun read. Cute banter, smexy times after weddings, and slightly broken hero and a heroine that does stand up for herself. I enjoyed reading about them developing a real friendship and wanting to be there for each other when it really counted. I would have liked to have gotten more from Emily’s perspective. There were several secondary characters, some that had more page time than I liked- Sally and Romeo, yet they played a part in the overall story. And I would have liked to have seen more of Janice, she seemed interesting. She definitely laid groundwork for the stories of Jase’s friends to be told, but in doing so I felt like took away from the main story just a smidge more than I liked.

Grade C+

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