The perfect match

Kristan Higgins

Book - 2013

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Subjects
Genres
Romance fiction
Published
Don Mills, Ontario, Canada : Harlequin HQN 2013.
Language
English
Main Author
Kristan Higgins (author)
Item Description
"A Blue Heron novel"--Cover.
Physical Description
439 pages ; 17 cm
ISBN
9781335523112
9780373778195
Contents unavailable.
Review by New York Times Review

Too often, the romance genre is lambasted for elevating readers' expectations of "real life" and, arguably, of the heroes they might find in their own lives. In "The Perfect Match," the veteran romance novelist Higgins plays with this idea of "the perfect man," in the form of Honor Holland's childhood best friend-with-benefits, who readers will instantly recognize is no kind of hero. Honor is blinded by what she thinks is love, and fails to realize that the not-so-perfect, not-much-of-a-gentleman on the sidelines might actually be a better fit. This is a marriage-of-convenience story - Honor's biological clock is ticking to hilarious telltale-heart effect, the love of her life is getting married, and she's desperate to prove she's fine with her disastrous reality. Enter Tom Barlow, a British professor and boxer in search of a green card so he can stay in America with his stepson. A bargain is struck, and any romance lover can see the result will be a delightful debacle. "Honor, you're being a real champ here," Tom tells her. "But oddly enough, I like you, and I don't want you to marry me because you feel bad.... I mean, what do you get in the bargain? It's a bit drastic, isn't it?" But romance novels (and love, arguably) are about the journey, not the destination, and Higgins offers readers a journey filled with tears and laughter and the best kind of sighs, proving she only gets better with each book.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [February 9, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review

The winemaking Holland family, first introduced in The Best Man (2013), returns in Higgins' latest Blue Heron romance. Middle sister Honor has been so focused on growing the family business, she hasn't started her own family. She's then humiliated when her lifelong friend and occasional hookup partner, Brogan, turns down her misguided marriage proposal. Enter Tom Barlow, a British professor who needs a green card to stay in the country and remain close to his dead fiancee's son. After a blind date, Honor and Tom impulsively decide to enter a marriage of convenience. Of course, once they're living together for their sham engagement, their natural chemistry leads to what inconveniently seems like real love. Higgins once again blends sweet romance, quirky humor, and realistic emotion in a story that will keep readers entranced. Fans will also enjoy checking in with Faith and Levi and the other Hollands who make cameo appearances.--Walker, Aleksandra Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Honor Holland is the sensible sister with a sexy secret in Higgins's slow-building follow-up to The Best Man. Running Blue Heron, the Holland family's successful upstate New York vineyard, is a full-time occupation. Honor spices up her administrivia-filled life by enjoying hot, hush-hush assignations with her friend Brogan. When Brogan drops the bombshell that he's getting married to Honor's supposed best friend, Honor's unrealistic worldview disintegrates. An extremely stiff upper lip helps her save face, though she does get into a highly uncharacteristic but satisfying fistfight with her former bestie. When Honor first meets cute Brit Tom Barlow, he makes a poor impression, but his desperate need for a green card and her own furiously ticking biological clock convince them to marry for convenience, with all the usual Higgins hijinks ensuing. Off-putting personality traits of the protagonists makes it hard to get into their story, but the eventual payoff is the revelation of truly human emotions and pains that make them characters to root for. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Stunned when the longtime friend (with benefits) she'd always thought she'd eventually marry gets engaged to her ex-best friend, 35-year-old family winery manager Honor Holland knows if she ever wants to get married and have a family, the time is now. Unfortunately, the pickings are slim in tiny Manningsport, NY. Then she learns that Tom Barlow, a visiting engineering professor from England, needs to find a way to stay in this country to look after his 14-year-old unofficial stepson, and marriage could just be an option. The trick, of course, will be convincing the folks at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (and everyone else) that they are really in love! Verdict Zingy dialog and hilarious asides (Honor's "eggs" make pithy comments) pair with thoroughly appealing characters and plenty of Finger Lake country charm to make this refreshing riff on the classic marriage-of-convenience plot a delightfully unorthodox, captivating winner. Higgins (The Best Man) lives in Durham, CT. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

After proposing to her "best-friend-with-benefits" and being summarily rejected, Honor Holland meets professor Tom Barlow, who needs a green card, and the two agree to a marriage of convenience, risking jail time, their reputations and their hearts. When Honor turns 35, she takes the bull by the horns and proposes marriage to her lifelong best friend, Brogan, a successful sports photographer who enjoys a casual sexual relationship with Honor. Humiliated when he rejects her, Honor admits she wants marriage and children but doesn't have a lot of choices in tiny Manningsport, N.Y. She is surprised when her elderly grandmother connects her with a local professor who needs a green card since his college didn't renew his work visa. Tom desperately wants to stay in the country for his unofficial stepson, Charlie, whose mother Tom was engaged to but died before they were married. Charlie is an angry, bitter teenager who now lives with his indifferent grandparents, so trying to reach him is difficult. Things start to improve when Charlie and Tom spend time with Honor's large extended family, and real affection seems to spring up among everyone involved. On the other hand, Brogan has hooked up with Honor's best girlfriend, Dana, and now, they're over the moon because Dana is pregnant, and Dana is unpleasantly smug toward Honor, whom Dana basically betrayed. Honor is coming to realize that Tom is the true catch, though trying to convince him her feelings are sincere gets more complicated, what with Immigration investigating, Charlie's father back on the scene and Honor's family creating their typical havoc on her otherwise well-ordered life. Higgins takes the familiar marriage-of-convenience trope and modernizes it with her consummate skill in combining tender insight, bright humor and flawless character development. This, the second of the Blue Heron series (The Best Man, 2013), shines with Higgins' capacity for creating complicated layers ultimately laid bare to the most elemental emotions. Another delightful, funny, yet heart-wrenching must-read romance from Higgins.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

For a guy who taught mechanical engineering at a fourth-rate college in the middle of nowhere, Tom Barlow was packing them in. At the university where he'd last taught, there'd been an actual engineering school, and his students were genuinely interested in the subject matter. Here, though, at tiny Wickham College, four of the original six attendees had stumbled into class, having left registration until too late, only taking mechanical engineering because it still had open slots. Two had seemed genuinely interested, until one, the girl, transferred to Carnegie Mellon. But then, by the end of the second week, he suddenly had thirty-six students jammed into the little classroom. Each one of these new students was female, ranging in age from eighteen to possibly fifty-five. Suddenly, an astonishing array of girls and women had decided that mechanical engineering (whatever that was) had become their new passion in life. The clothes were a bit of a problem. Tight, trashy, low-cut, low-riding, inappropriate. Tom tended to teach to the wall in the back of the room, not wanting to make eye contact with the hungry gazes of seventy-eight percent of his class. He tried not to leave time for questions, as the Barbarian Horde, as he thought of them, tended to be inappropriate. Are you single? How old are you? Where 'd you come from? Do you like foreign films/sushi/girls? Then again, he needed this job. "Any questions?" he asked. Dozens of hands shot up. "Yes, Mr. Kearns," he said gratefully to the one student in the class who was there out of interest in the subject. According to his file, Jacob Kearns had been kicked out of MIT for doing drugs. He seemed on the straight and narrow now, at least, but Wickham College was a hundred steps down academically. Then again, Tom knew all about shooting himself in the foot, career-wise. "Dr. Barlow, with the hovercraft project, I was wondering how you'd calculate the escape velocity?" "Good question. The escape velocity is the speed at which the kinetic energy of your object, along with its gravitational potential energy, is zero. Make sense?" The Barbarian Horde (those who were listening) looked confused. "Definitely," Jacob said. "Thanks." Thirty seconds to the bell. "Listen up," he said. "Your homework is to read chapters six and seven in your texts and answer all the study questions at the end of both as well as pass in your term project proposals. Those of you who flunked the hovercraft estimates have to do them again." Hopefully, he could break the Horde with a ridiculous workload. "Anything else?" A hand went up. One of the Barbarians, of course. "Yes?" he said briskly. "Are you British?" she asked, getting a ripple of giggles from a third of the class, whose mental age appeared to be twelve. "I've answered that in a previous class. Any other questions that pertain to mechanical engineering, then? No? Great. Cheerio." "Oh, my God, he said 'Cheerio,'" said a blonde dressed like a Cockney prostitute. The bell rang, and the Barbarian Horde surged toward his desk. "Mr. Kearns, please stay a minute," Tom said. Seven female students clustered around him. "So do you think I could, like, work for an architect or something?" one asked. "I've no idea," he answered. "I mean, after this class." She lowered her gaze to his mouth. Crikey. Made him want to shower. "Pass the class first, then apply and see," he said. "Do you want to hang out at the pub, Tom?" asked another of the BH. "I'd love to buy you a drink." "That'd be inappropriate," he answered. "I'm totally legal," she said with a leer. "If you don't have any questions related to the lesson today, get out, please." He smiled to soften the words, and with a lot of pouty lips and hair tossing, the Barbarian Horde departed. Tom waited till the other kids were out of earshot. "Jacob, would you be interested in interning for me?" "Yeah! Sure! Um, doing what?" "I customize airplanes here and there. Got a project coming up. It might be good on your CV." "What's a CV?" "A resume." "Sure!" Jacob said again. "That'd be great." "You can't be using, of course. Will that be a problem?" The kid flushed. "No. I'm in NA and all that. Clean for thirteen months." He pushed his hands into his pockets. "I have to pee in a cup every month to come here. The health office has my records." "Good. I'll give you a shout when I need you." "Thanks, Dr. Barlow. Thanks a lot." Tom nodded. The head of his department was standing in the doorway, frowning down the hallway, where a cacophony of giggles was coming from the twits. When Jacob left, the man came in and closed the door behind him. This wouldn't be good news, Tom thought. Droog Dragul (not a shock that he was called Dracula, was it?) had the face of a medieval monk--tortured, pale and severe. He looked even more depressed than usual. "Dee cheeldren of dis school," Droog said in his thick accent. He sighed. "Dey are so…" Tom winced, fearing the next phrase would be well fed or iron-rich. "Dey are so unfocused." Phew. "Most of them, anyway," Tom said. "I've got one or two good students." "Yes." His boss sighed. "And you heff such a vay vith the ladies, Tom. Perhaps we can heff beer and you can give pointers." "It's the accent, mate," Tom said. "Mine does not seem to heff same effect, for some reason. Eh heh heh heh heh!" Tom winced, then smiled. Droog was a good guy. Strange, but nice enough. In the month since Tom had been teaching here, they'd had dinner once, gone out for beer and pool twice, and if the experience had been odd, it seemed that Droog had a good heart. His boss sighed and sat down, tapping his long fingers on the desk. "Tom, I am afraid I heff bad news. Vee von't be able to renew your vork visa." Tom inhaled sharply. The only reason he'd taken this job was for the work visa. "That was a condition of my employment." "I em aware. But dee budget…it is too overtaxed for dee court fees." "I thought you said it'd be no problem." "I vas wrong. They heff reconsidered." Tom felt his jaw locking. "I see." "Vee value your teaching abilities and experience, Tom. Perhaps you vill find another way. Vee can give you till end of semester." He paused. "I em sorry. Very much so." Tom nodded. "Thanks, mate." It wasn't Droog's fault. But shit. Dr. Dragul left, and Tom sat at his desk another few minutes. Finding another job in February was unlikely. Wickham College had been the only place in western New York looking for an engineering professor, and Tom had been lucky to get the job as fast as he did. It wasn't a prestigious place, not by a long shot, but that wasn't really the point. This time around, it was all about location. He couldn't keep his job without a work visa, though it wasn't like Immigration would be breathing down his neck; an employed professor was less of a concern than most of their cases. Still, the college wasn't going to keep him on illegally. If he was going to stay, he needed a green card. Fast. But first to the rather shabby house he'd just rented, and then to the much better bar down the street. A drink was definitely required. A few nights later, Tom sat in the kitchen of his great-aunt Candace's kitchen, drinking tea. Only Brits could make decent tea, and though Candace had lived in the States for at least six decades, she hadn't lost the touch. "That Melissa," Aunt Candace said darkly. "She messed everything up, didn't she?" "Well. Let's not speak ill of the dead." "But I'll miss you! And what about Charlie? How old is he now? Twelve?" "Fourteen." His unofficial stepson had been ten when Tom met him. Hard to reconcile that talkative, happy little boy with the sullen teenager who barely spoke these days. A fleeting pain lanced through his chest. Charlie wouldn't miss him, that seemed certain. One of those situations where Tom wasn't sure if he was doing any good whatsoever, or if, in fact, his presence made things worse. Melissa, Charlie's mother, was dead, and her brief engagement to Tom qualified him as nothing in the boy's life today, even though Charlie had been just a few months away from becoming Tom's stepson. Whatever the case, Tom didn't have much choice about whether or not he was staying in the States. He'd emailed his old department head in England, who wrote right back saying they'd take Tom back in a heartbeat. There weren't any other colleges in western New York looking for someone with his credentials. And teaching was what he loved (when the students were actually interested in the subject matter, that was). And so, Tom had decided to drive to Pennsylvania, visit the only relative he had in this country and start the goodbye process. He'd been in the States for four years now, and Aunt Candace had been good to him. Not to mention delirious with joy when he called after his last class to see if she was free for dinner. He even took her to the mall so she could buy a coat, proving a fact Tom firmly believed--he was a bloody saint. "Here. Have more pie, darling." She pushed the dish across the table toward him, and Tom helped himself. "Thanks," he said. "Lovely town, Manningsport," she said. "I lived near there as a child, did you know that?" "So you told me," Tom said. His lovely old aunt could bake, that was certain. "Finish that pie, you might as well. I'm prediabetic or some such nonsense. Then again, I'm also eighty-two years old. Life without dessert is too horrible to contemplate. I'll just overdose on caramel corn and die with a smile on my face. What was I saying again?" "You used to live near Manningsport." "Yes, that's right! Just for a few years. My mother was a widow, you see. My father died of pneumonia, and so she packed my brother and me up and came to America. Elsbeth, your grandmother, was already married, so she stayed in Manchester with her husband, of course. Your grandfather. But I remember the crossing, seeing the Statue of Liberty. I was seven years old. Oh, it was thrilling!" She smiled and took a sip of tea. "So that's how you became a Yank?" Tom asked. She nodded. "We lived in Corning, and she met my stepfather, and he adopted Peter and me." "I never knew that," Tom said. "He was a lovely man. A farmer. Sometimes I'd go with him to deliver milk." Candace smiled. "Anyway, we moved after my brother died in the war. I was fifteen then. But I still have a friend there. More of a pen pal, do you know what that is?" Tom smiled. "I do." "A pity you have to leave. It's beautiful there." Candy's gaze suddenly sharpened. "Tom, dear…if you really want to stay in the States, you can always marry an American." "That's illegal, Auntie." "Oh, pooh." He laughed. "I can't see myself going that far," he said. "It might be different if--well. It's not an option." It might be if Charlie actually wanted him to stay. Needed him. If Tom were anything but a thorn in Charlie's side, he might give it a whirl. He had two thin job prospects with manufacturing firms, both requiring experience he didn't have. If those didn't work out (and he was almost positive they wouldn't), he'd be heading back to jolly old England, which wouldn't be awful. He'd be near his dad. Probably meet some nice girl someday. Charlie would barely remember him. The pie suddenly tasted like ash. He pushed back his plate. "I'd better be off," he said. "Thanks for the visit." She stood up and hugged him, her cheek soft against his. "Thank you for coming to see an old lady," she said. "I'm going to brag about this for days. My grand-nephew adores me." "You're right. Ta, Auntie. I'll call you and let you know what's happening." "If I happen to know someone who might be interested, can I give her your number, dear?" "Interested in what, Auntie?" "In marrying you." Tom laughed. The old lady's face was so hopeful, though. "Sure," he said, giving her another kiss on the cheek. Let the old bird feel useful, and that way, maybe she wouldn't feel so bad when he went back to England. There was that pain in his chest again. It took four hours to drive back to Manningsport. Four hours of wretched, icy rain and windshield wipers that smeared, rather than cleared. The weather thickened as he approached the Finger Lakes. Perhaps he wouldn't get in too late to grab a bite (and a whiskey) at the pub he was becoming too fond of. Chat up the pretty bartender and try not to think about the future. Excerpted from The Perfect Match by Kristan Higgins All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.