We’re married for the summer. Summer marriages don’t get dragged down in heavy stuff.
― Christina Lauren, Sweet Filthy Boy“Which was your favorite? Living room, or bed, or floor, or bed, or wall, or mirror, or bar, or floor?”
“Shhh,” I whisper, lifting my cup to take another, more careful sip of coffee. I smile into my mug. “You’re weird.”
“I think I need a cast for my penis.”
― Christina Lauren, Sweet Filthy Boy
Mia is not impulsive. She follows the path, checks every box, and is the dutiful daughter. The day of college graduation, she and her two best friends head to Las Vegas for a final farewell to student life before embarking on their professional careers. After graduation, Mia has a summer in her hometown before she relocates to Boston to get her MBA. Mia isn’t excited about that, but she doesn’t know what she wants and it will make her father happy. Otherwise, she is completely on her own without his support.
In Las Vegas, Mia and her friends meet up with a trio of hot men – Ansel, Finn, and Oliver. Ansel flirts shamelessly with Mia, who is unconvinced a one night stand with a hot Frenchman is worth the potential angst. The six of them drink, party, and Mia and Ansel wake up the next morning with rings on their fingers. Mia slowly puts the pieces back together. Her friends got married as well and agree that they will all get annulments immediately. Ansel, however, says he adores Mia and asks her to come with him to France for the summer to see if there is real potential between them before setting him free for good.
Mia wants to but knows it is a terrible idea. Still, she agrees to postpone the annulment as drunken Mia made Ansel promise not to let her say goodbye forever once she sobered up.
After a confrontation with her father and a last-ditch effort from Ansel, Mia throws all of her belongings in the largest suitcase she can find and absconds in the night, taking Ansel up on his free plane ticket to Paris.
Things are not all sunshine and roses. In addition to landing in Paris with a stomach virus that requires Ansel to immediately nurse her back to health, Mia is stuck with tons of solo time as Ansel must immediately return to his grueling job as a corporate attorney. Ansel’s friends warned her that Ansel is sweet, devoted, and extremely impulsive, so she knows from the beginning that this thing with Ansel may be nothing but a lark.
However, she decides to not think about her future in Boston and instead gives herself the gift of a summer in Paris with no obligations and a very hot man who is obsessed with making her feel good.
Ansel and Mia are great in bed. Instead of talking about what will happen in a few weeks when Mia must return to the US, they use their limited time together in the evenings to bang about it instead. And do they ever.
This book surprised me. It had the drunken wedding in Vegas and the two supportive and eccentric best friends tropes. It also had the stark reality of trying to figure out who you are outside of your family’s influence as well as what you actually want in life. Mia doesn’t think that good things can last, so instead of trying to find a way to make she and Ansel work as a couple, she stuffs those feelings into a box and decides to enjoy her time in Paris. While I can’t fault her for her pragmatism, she is not facing the real issues of what she needs and how hard she is falling for her hot, goofy, insightful, and kind, temporary husband.
We only get Mia’s perspective, so when shit hits the fan in the third-act breakup, as a reader we’re left wondering alongside Mia what the hell Ansel was thinking with his own side plot.
While I’m not happy with how everything was resolved in the end, this was a very very sexy, fun, and lovely escapist romance.
There are three more books in the Wild Seasons series, so I will probably try out book two, which covers Finn and Harlow’s romance.
