The Duplicate Bride by Ginny Baird

The Duplicate Bride by Ginny Baird
Published by Entangled: Amara on September 29, 2020
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 368
Goodreads

Saying “I do” has never been this much fun in this charming new romance from New York Times bestselling author Ginny Baird.

Hope Webb can’t believe her twin sister, Jackie, is begging her to swap places and play fiancée at Jackie’s pre-wedding festivities. Sure, it’s only a business-deal sort of marriage, but Hope is a carb-loving teacher who enjoys curling up with a good book. Jackie is a workaholic whose idea of a good time is a brisk five-mile run at the crack of dawn. The two sisters couldn’t be more opposite.

Now Hope is stuck in the middle of a warm, tight-knit family she can’t help but adore and a groom who turns out to be entirely wonderful...for her.

Hotel magnate Brent Albright knows something is off about his fiancée, but he doesn’t care. Gone is the driven woman with similar career goals, and in her place is someone warm and funny who not only charms his family but him as well. She’s doing everything she can to avoid him, but that’s probably just nerves. Two people about to wed couldn’t know each other less.

Now Brent is determined to woo his fiancée, for real this time, because the more he gets to know her, the more his sweet fiancée turns out to be entirely wonderful...for him.

And that’s when things start to get really complicated...

*ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

The Duplicate Bride by Ginny Baird is a stand alone romance where identical twin sisters have to do the ole switcheroo in order to save one’s upcoming wedding and career. But things spiral quickly when the wrong twin starts falling for the groom and the groom has no idea that he’s not falling for his bride, but her sister. Think of it like the adult version of parent trap. I’m not going to lie, this book was a little hard for me to review. While I liked certain aspects of the book and thought they were funny, there were some things that bothered me about the plot.

Hope and Jackie are identical twins. Jackie is a workaholic wedding planner who, while trying to deal with her own wedding, gets into a kerfuffle with the current wedding she is trying to plan and begs her sister to take her place with her own wedding to meet the groom’s family and they’ll switch back in a day or so. Hope is a sweet, carb loving twin who loves her sister dearly. Hope, refusing her sister’s request at first, gets caught up in the tangled web and ends up reluctantly taking her sister’s place. As she starts meeting Brent and his family, she starts to fall for all of them, especially Brent. And as Jackie keeps extending when she is going to be at her own wedding, the tangled web becomes bigger.

*Spoiler warning: From this point on, it’s hard for me to get into why this is so hard to review without revealing a big plot point that isn’t brought up until 75% of the book is done, so if you don’t want to know, look away now and stop reading. You have been warned.*

I think, going in, suspending belief is required because some things are way out there. In doing so, I enjoyed the book for what it was which was like a Hallmark movie that would never work in real life but is campy enough to make you laugh. Twin sisters, one who likes to run and diet and the other who is totally opposed, physically probably don’t look alike but her own groom couldn’t tell the difference? Very sus. But I liked Brent and his family. They were all likeable and sweet and while it took a little while for them to warm up to Hope/Jackie, they end up loving her.

Hope and Brent have an instant connection and Brent realizes that there is something different about “Jackie” and as he spends more time with her, starts falling for her. I say starts because he and Jackie were going to have a marriage of convenience after dating only three months and weren’t in love with each other. At this point I’m like, ok, maybe it’s not cheating then. But 75% in we get from Jackie the breaking point “oh yeah, I’m not going to make it for my wedding. You can do it. We’re technically married already. It’s fine.”…….What!!!!??? No, nuh uh. And this wasn’t even the worst part! Because Hope goes thru with it! And when Jackie finally decides to show up, Hope finally confesses her feelings and Jackie admits she was never going to say anything!! And after poor Brent gets catfished hardcore, he reads a letter from Hope apologizing and everything is hunky dory and they wind up married…. This is why I say that if this happened in real life, I would be suing for emotional damage and not getting married to someone that played me for the biggest fool ever. Suspend all disbelief and it’s a funny read but that last quarter of the book, I couldn’t enjoy it anymore.