Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts is my go-to author for romance and Happy Ever After, the fourth book in the Bride Quarter, left me feeling satisfied and happy with the successful matching of each of the main characters.
The previous books in this series introduced the four women who run a wedding business together and gave photographer Mackensie, florist Emma and patissier Lauren the opportunity to find the man of their dreams. In this last book it is the turn of Parker Brown, who runs the whole business, a crack at finding her own special someone.
Parker wasn’t the easiest person to find a bloke for. She was beautiful, came from the most socially impressive family in town and ran an enormously successful business, so I would never have expected her to fall in love with a bad boy mechanic who had been hanging around in the background of the previous three books playing poker with the guys.
Parker and Malcolm had a lot of chemistry from the start and I enjoyed watching their friendship and romance develop. I like practical men who like cars too, so he was probably my type of hero even though in my experience men who tinker with cars always have scratchy hands and grease under their nails, no matter how much they wash them. Every time Malcolm ran his hands over Parker I kept thinking about how scratchy must have been. Parker never once mentioned them though, so they clearly didn’t bother her. Or ladder her stockings.
Anyway, regardless of the state of Malcolm’s hands, I truly enjoyed this romance, even if Parker is the most irritatingly perfect woman who has ever starred in a romance novel. The four heroines of the Bride Quarter have unfailingly been wonderful friends and business partners for each other, and I’ve loved reading about the many, many weddings they’ve put on for their clients, which have included every lovely detail about the bride’s dresses, handsome grooms. bridesmaid’s dresses, extremely attractive best men, the wedding cakes, flowers, the bride and room’s first dances, the drunken ex-wives who crashed the party… no, not really, there haven’t been any drunken ex-wives, I was just checking to see if anyone was still reading.
Anyway, since Happy Ever After was the last book in this series, I’ll return to Nora Roberts’ Boonsboro Inn set for romance, unless the author cares to introduce some new characters into the Bride Quartet and extends the series. Surely the business needs a glamorous but sweet accountant to run their books who could be paired with a cute artist who moonlights as a bartender, or a pretty young waitress working her way through college who might fall in love with the gardener who works on the estate, or a single mother who plays the harp during the wedding ceremonies who unexpectedly bumps into the emergency plumber who is there to repair the leaking hot water service (if you are wondering how the last pair could possibly have met during a wedding it is because the trolley for her harp is stored in the plant room when not in use).
Over to you, Nora Roberts, and don’t hesitate to ask for my assistance if you need any more ideas because I’ve got loads and will happily share.