Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

For the past two years, Vanessa Mazur has been the personal assistant to professional football player Aiden Graves. She’s cooked his meals and cleaned his home, answered his emails and scheduled meet-and-greets with his fans. And in all that time, Aiden has never thanked her for her hard work; in fact, he barely acknowledges her at all. So Vanessa is determined to quit, but when she finally musters the courage to resign, Aiden surprisingly wants her back. And when she resists becoming his assistant again, he makes an even more shocking proposal: she should marry him to help him gain permanent residency (he’s Canadian), and in return he’ll pay off her massive student loans and buy her a house. Vanessa finds the deal appealing but is reluctant to enter into an in-name-only marriage — especially when she finds Aiden so frustratingly attractive.

I find myself with mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I found it a fast and compelling read, despite it being quite long for a contemporary romance (more than 600 pages!). I like a marriage-of-convenience story and a slow burn, so the plot is right up my alley. On the other hand, I do think the book is a little too long and repetitive; better editing could have tightened it up substantially. I also didn’t totally love Aiden as a hero. I have no problem with the strong, silent type, but I want my heroes to grow throughout the novel; love should make them change for the better. In this case, while Aiden opens up to Vanessa very slightly, I never felt like I truly got to know him. And his treatment of her in the beginning is pretty inexcusable; I definitely wanted more groveling from him about that! He also does some things that Vanessa reads as “protective” but that I would consider to be controlling. So overall, the romance just didn’t work for me.