Title:  Secondhand Bride
Series:  The Almost Wives Club #2
Author:  Nancy Warren
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
Published:  April 15, 2015
Publisher:  Ambleside Publishing
My Rating:  4 stars
Source:  NetGalley
Cover Description:

Five brides and one (possibly cursed) wedding gown. Will any of them get to wear the designer wedding dress down the aisle?

As the poor relation in the rich and powerful Carnarvon family, Ashley Carnarvon is used to hand-me-downs. But getting handed down a wedding dress that’s cursed? Okay, the curse is bad enough, but even worse, the dress doesn’t suit her. The fabulous gown was designed for a taller, slimmer bride who ran away before the wedding and never wore the dress – which gets back to the curse…

At twenty-five, Ashley’s not sure what she wants to do with her life. She’s still living on the Carnarvon compound in Malibu, sharing a cottage on the property with her mother. She goes to school part time, works part time and parties more than she should. Mostly, she parties with Eric Van Hoffendam, who’s the slacker in his rich, powerful family. A lot of their friends are starting to get married and when Eric asks her to marry him, she likes the idea. Eric doesn’t look down on her or demand anything of her. Life with him would be easy, and Ashley likes things to be easy.

Bennett Saegar has a bad habit of making his life harder than it needs to be. Trying to make it as a Hollywood screenwriter is hard enough, but when a movie star stages a very public suicide attempt over unrequited love for him, the media frenzy is so bad he needs a place to hide out. Luckily, the pool house is free on the property of his family friends, the Carnarvons. He’ll be out of sight and able to concentrate on his next screenplay. Best of all, he’ll be far away from women.

When he moves into the pool house, the first person he sees is Ashley Carnarvon. Ashley who had a world class crush on him ten years earlier. Now, she’s all grown up and something about her pulls at him.

Good thing she’s engaged, or she could be a serious distraction. Then, Ben meets her fiancé and realizes this guy is all wrong for Ashley. She’s got so much more potential than she realizes. He wishes he knew how to show her how special she is without anyone getting the wrong idea about his intentions. Especially him.

Secondhand Bride is the second in a series of five romantic comedies about the designer wedding gown that plays havoc with weddings!

Read on for my thoughts on Secondhand Bride.  No true spoilers, promise.

Oh what havoc a cursed wedding dress can cause.  Ashley has been “gifted”, or in other words, handed down the cursed wedding dress.  It actually is a horrid dress, not suitable for her at all.  But for some reason her decision to marry long time friend with benefits, Eric, has created a whirlwind of family getting involved to get this wedding done… fast.  What’s the hurry all of a sudden?

When Ben comes to the estate to stay in the pool house, hiding out from his nutcase stalker, Ashley’s safe wedding is in danger.  This is the guy she had a huge crush on years ago.  She had sworn she would love Ben forever but that wasn’t possible now… or could it be?

Ben’s discovery of the all grown up Ashley has him rethinking.  He doesn’t exactly want to encourage Ashley, but she is worth so much more than that loser Eric.  Now he just has to convince her – and maybe win the girl who was written just for him all along.

I adored Secondhand Bride.  The concept of the cursed wedding dress is such a fun hook, and brings us so many interesting and fun couples to get to know.  We are all so much different than our teenage selves – I admit, there are times I’d like to go back in time and smack my younger self.  So to see Ashley and Ben’s reaction to each other years later was such fun.  This is a fast paced, funny, charming and entertaining story.  Perfect for those of us that enjoy a touch of comedy with our romances, I can definitely recommend this second novel in the series to anyone who just loves a good love story.  Pick this one up and enjoy.

*I received an e-ARC of Secondhand Bride from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. That does not change what I think of this novel.*

*Any review is just one person’s opinion. You might feel the same or totally different. The only way to know for certain is for you to read it. This was my opinion of this particular book.*

Secondhand Bride is available for the Kindle