Four Weddings and a Break Up

Four Weddings and a Break Up - Elyssa Patrick A 2014 favorite!
This book was a lovely first encounter with Elyssa Patrick's writing. I've followed her on Twitter almost from the first moment I ever signed up but never got around to reading any of her work so when the opportunity presented itself to read this standalone contemporary romance (one of my fave subgenres) with a fake relationship trope (one of my fave tropes) early, I grabbed it with both hands and have absolutely no regrets about that.

In a vast sea of small town contemporary romances I think FOUR WEDDINGS AND A BREAK UP stands out and that is due to Elyssa Patrick's excellent writing and voice. This book gave me warm fuzzies in many ways and that is always a good thing. It is one of my most favorite contemporary romances of 2014!

Her writing is wonderful! The way she immediately drew me into the setting and made me root for her characters, the way she used humor that varied from subtle to laugh-out-loud, the references to music, movies and TV shows I love, the way she made Cape Hope and its inhabitants come alive, the way she tackled some heavier subjects and incorporated them in the romance, the sexiness of the love scenes and the way they fit the story perfectly...I devoured it all and felt an instant click with this book! It was a perfect mix of romance, humor, sexiness, emotions and even a little heart-stopping suspense!

Memorable Scenes:
- the scene in the car after the first dinner with Ginny's family > oh boy, holy hotness!
- the night of Deb's wedding > how romantic turns to scorching in a heartbeat, then to heartbreakingly emotional and back to scorching again
- the bathtub scene with the eye-stabbing incident > OMG! I died laughing :)
- the final chapters > Sobbed my way through them...those chapters killed me!

Fave Quotes:
Wes let himself feel all these things, until the secondhand hit the twelve, signaling a full minute had passed. And then, like everything else he did in his life, he stopped and hid his underbelly under a virtual suit of armor so thick that one would wonder if there were any chinks.
No one ever needed to know that there were so many chinks, it would take only the smallest scratch to unravel all he tried so hard to hold together.

But reaching for her water meant looking away from him. And that seemed almost criminal. Punishable by death.
Plus, why hadn’t he moved away? Why was he still standing there, dripping wet? Didn’t he know that she was on the verge of doing very bad things to him?