Review Post: Fool Me Once by Catherine Bybee

Rating/Review: ☕☕☕☕ 1/2 (4.5 cups, this romantic suspense will give new meaning to The First Wives Club)

You never know what you really would be getting when reading a Catherine Bybee book.  On the outside, each book can definitely hold its own as a great contemporary romance novel.  Read a little bit further, you get well-defined, multilayered characters and a romantic suspense in the making. Pretty soon you will be amazed on the intricate storyline balanced well with the main characters developing romance.  Fool Me Once is definitely a Catherine Bybee book.  The first in her new series, First Wives,  Fool Me Once is also a spinoff from her popular Weekday Bride series.  And yet again, Ms. Bybee delivers in her great characters, well thought out plot and melding her two series together without one overpowering the other.  

The story starts out as the head of Alliance and their legal go to person, Lori try to help one of their client who unexpectedly lost her husband.  To get her away from the fall out of high profile proportions, along with other Alliance Brides, Lori has accompanied them to European Cruise.  They have fun, they flirt but it's basically women bonding time.  Until a lot of unexpected events starts happening on the ship.  Along comes Reed, he seems like an upstanding guy, is in fact a Knight in Shining Armor in one instance but he's definitely hiding something.  What happens next is a lot of high octane, intricate plotting and some pretty interesting secondary characters.  Including a recently deceased mother-in-law and her penchant for planning way ahead!  Lori and Reed's romance navigates the suspense/mystery aspect of the book excellently.  It's not instantaneous love and there are instances readers will definitely hate Reed (don't worry he redeems himself really well!)   But the romance works for these two!  Fool Me Once is a definite page turner, a romantic suspense story at its best!

FOOL ME ONCE 

By Catherine Bybee

First Wives Book 1

Publication Date

From Weekday Brides to First Wives, a dazzling series about four women and their alliance of newfound friendship, unexpected love, and second chances.

Cynical divorce attorney Lori Cumberland lives by one motto: Love is grand, but divorce is a hundred grand. With one failed marriage under her own personal belt, Lori had fallen hard and early—and it isn’t something she plans on repeating. She’s content focusing on the temporary marriages of her rich and famous clients. When she joins some of her recent divorcées on a celebratory cruise, her only vow is fun, sun, and new friends. But Lori finds herself tempted by a jury of one.

For Reed Barlow, falling into the world of private investigation was easy. He knows the law and knows how to avoid breaking it—all while doing his job. His rule to live by? No emotion, no involvement…until Lori. His charming smile and cocky attitude distracts Lori and lowers her guard, which is exactly what Reed desires.

But what appears as a one-time-only flirtation may be a plot orchestrated by Reed. As he’s taking his investigation to a dangerous level, it’s Lori who could end up in jeopardy. Reed has only one shot for Lori to grant him a second chance. But if he comes clean with her, he blows his cover. And that just might cost him the opportunity for an alliance of family…and of love.