The Marriage Campaign
By Karen Templeton
Publisher: Harlequin
(Special Edition)
Release Date:
January 22, 2013
Karen Templeton wraps up her Summer Sisters trilogy in this book,
following The Doctor’s Do-Over (Mel and Ryder’s story) and A Gift for All
Seasons (April and Patrick’s story). Blythe Broussard is serving as maid of
honor and wedding planner for the double wedding of the two cousins with whom
she shared the summers of their childhood at their grandmother’s house on
Maryland’s Eastern Shore. She’s thrilled for Mel and April, but their happiness
makes her newly and acutely aware that the flip side of her treasured
independence is loneliness.
Wes Phillips, a young widower with an eleven-year-old son,
is one of Maryland’s congressional representatives. His wife was killed two
years earlier in the same automobile accident that took the life of Ryder’s
fiancée. But unlike Ryder who has mourned his loss and is ready to begin a new
life with Mel and her daughter Quinn, Wes can’t imagine himself married to
anyone other than Kym. He takes his responsibilities to his district seriously,
in part because of his own idealism and in part to honor Kim who worked hard to
see him elected. He is devoted to his son Jack, but Wes’s work in Washington
means that he is away from Jack a great deal of the time and often caught up
with job-related tasks even when he is home in Maryland.
Blythe, emotionally abandoned by her own parents, identifies
with Jack who is still grieving for his mother and angry that his father
doesn’t seem to have time for him. His grandparents live with him, but not even
their loving presence makes up for what he has lost. Blythe knows from
experience the dangers that such feelings can lead to. When Wes hires her to
design a new, more grown-up room for Jack, she finds herself falling hard for
Wes, Jack, and Jack’s black lab, Bear.
She’s not the only one. The attraction that Wes feels for
Blythe from their early meetings grows into something more powerful as the two
of them spend more time together. Soon Wes knows he wants Blyth in his life
permanently, but Blythe is all too aware of the obstacles to that ending. Jack
is not ready for someone to take his mother’s role, and even when Jack opens
his heart to Blythe, her own wild-child past makes her the last person a
politician needs as his wife.
Readers will find both Blythe and Wes likable, sympathetic
character and will feel invested in seeing them achieve their HEA. Jack is an
important character, and Templeton makes both him and Quinn, who are tweens at
that difficult stage when they are no longer little kids but are not yet
teenagers, both believable and endearing. The relationship among the three
cousins continues to be an important thread in the story and part of the appeal
of the series. Those who read the two earlier books will certainly enjoy the
glimpses of Mel’s and April’s HEAs with the men they are marrying, but The
Marriage Campaign can be read as a standalone.
The Doctor’s Do-Over is my favorite of the three books, but
this book is a strong conclusion to a trilogy that is among award-winning
Templeton’s best work. If you haven’t read Karen Templeton, this book—or even
better, this series—is an excellent place to begin.
I can’t think of many romances that feature a politician as
a hero. Why do you think politician heroes are a rare breed in romance fiction?
