Rebel Bride
Hatch Kershaw, NFL hockey star (of the fictional Chicago Rebels) and son of one of the sport’s greats, doesn’t want to be at the wedding of his asshat teammate Dash and Summer, his violet eyed bride. (Dash is a trust fund bro who cheats on his fiancée and bullies his teammates.) Summer, Hatch assumes, is a gold digger marrying for the big house and bigger bucks. Watching them tie the knot is the last thing he wants to do—until, moments before the ceremony, he literally catches Summer climbing out a church window. So, because this is a romance novel, he puts her in his SUV and drives her up to his family’s home in Saugatuck, Michigan. He has some time off before the season starts… why not?
Summer—born Shelby Mae—is from rural Mississippi, though her portrayal will irritate anyone actually from there. Summer has spent years remaking herself into the kind of woman a millionaire hockey player might marry. Dash made her quit her job with the Rebels—JERK!–and it’s clear his incredibly nasty mom will be the one now running Summer’s life. So yeah, she was, technically, a gold digger, until she realized what marrying for money really meant. Now, hiding on Michigan’s Gold Coast in Hatch’s grandmother’s hand-me-downs, eating actual food again (skinny-bride syndrome strikes again), and chatting with hottie Hatch about hockey, she’s determined to start over and make a life for herself on her own terms. That, of course, means Hatch, and a relationship, are taboo.
For a romance to work, the central barrier has to make sense. Here, it’s a stretch. The teammate taboo Hatch says he should respect feels flimsy, and the idea that he—who’s been pining for Summer since he was twenty-one (!!)—would spend five years avoiding her rather than saying something strains belief.
Especially because Hatch is flawless: handsome, kind, patient, skilled in every way too many modern romance heroes seem contractually obliged to be. Here’s a man who offers emotional steadiness, oral sex, and charcuterie (Summer loves cheese–it’s a thing.) He’s a dreamboat not a dream crusher and it’s a bit much that Summer can’t quite tell the difference.
The book is crowded with a rinkload of secondary characters, all kind, witty, and perfect. (I didn’t read Book One so I wasn’t especially invested in the Kershaws and their buds.) Everyone’s wonderful except Dash and an actual gold digger who exists only to make Summer jealous. Meader gives us a relational world where every text thread is snarky but loving, every man adores his woman, and the NFL is rife with men whose focus in life, after winning the Stanley Cup, is ensuring their true loves achieve self-actualization and multiple orgasms.
I think I’m too cranky for this level of sweetness. Still, readers who crave snarky jokes, familial warmth, and well written hanky-panky will find plenty to enjoy. Meader’s prose is witty, her sex scenes female-forward, and her vision of friendship profoundly comforting. Rebel Bride is fun, flirty, and, yes, fictional. It’s a fluffy good time and readers less curmudgeonly than I will enjoy its cheery charms.