Re-read, December 2021: Although I’m occasionally flummoxed by the syntax and word choice, I still enjoy the characters, the story, the dreamy setting, and the shout-out to an obscure song from Brigadoon!
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UPDATE 2018: I'm retroactively pushing this to 4 stars, because it's been sticking in my mind, and that makes it special.
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I don't think I've ever read a marriage-of-convenience story set in the modern day. This one was pretty nice. Both the people are genuinely likeable, and the setting in Vienna is beautiful. This is a short read, more like a novella. ( )

I'm not quite sure how to rate this. The actual story itself is swoony. The romance between Oliver and Rose is sweet - but it also falls flat. The writing during the first movement is clunky. It was lyrical - but it seemed to miss the mark when it came to providing a fully developed narrative. It improved marginally as the story progressed but it often felt as though only snippets of a scene were told and it made it feel very disjointed and somewhat flat. That said, this story isn't bad. There were a lot of great quotes and there were a lot of swoon worthy scenes between Oliver and Rose. Oliver and Rose are mostly well developed with motivations and backgrounds and feelings, but the rest of the characters were mere signposts. There's a lot of potential for a five star read - with the help of a decent editor to tighten up the narrative and polish up the talent. For the moment I'm sticking with a 3 star rating and I'd be interested to check out more of the authors work. ( )