Avril Tremayne

I’m a reader who is captivated by covers. If I fall in love with a cover, this book must be mine. I loved the simplicity of the cover of Wanting Mr Wrong by Avril Tremayne (doesn’t the heroine look despondent at falling in love?) and okay, I liked her hair and lipstick cover. Plus the colouring of the cover made it perfect to read in the lead up to Valentine’s Day!

But as we all know, you can’t judge a book by its cover. So what’s inside Wanting Mr Wrong? This story is a wonderful romantic comedy from the first person point of view of Evie. Evie is determined to date only the smartest of smart men – no man candy for her. At the very least her perfect partner must be a doctor or be part of ground-breaking technology to revolutionise the world. Why does Evie feel like this? Well, she feels like she’s the dumbest person in her family of doctors, researchers and high flyers. She’s just a regular girl in a regular job, not doing anything special. But then Evie gets a crush on a movie star (something that has never, ever happened before) and her life begins to spiral out of control. Well, it’s not strictly due to the movie star crush, but the entrance of Australia’s hottest film star, Jackson J. Stevens. Jack happens to be Evie’s best friend’s brother and he wouldn’t mind getting to know Evie a bit better. But Evie’s just met Lachlan, a doctor specialising in tuberculosis research and The Perfect Man® on paper, if not in real life. Will the pheromones get the better of Evie? Will she give in to date an… actor?

This story begins with laughs aplenty. It’s funny and the dialogue is snappy, witty and realistic. There’s a real sense of camaraderie between Evie and her friends and when Jack is introduced, he fits right in. Lachlan in contrast feels rather awkward, like he’s not in the right place (as I’m sure he was intended to…) and as the story goes on, it becomes increasingly certain that the Perfect Man on Paper just doesn’t translate to perfection in real life. Compared to Jack, Lachlan is just…blah. Evie realises that too, but she’s determined to ignore it in the hope that her increasing lust for Jack will just go away. Of course it doesn’t, and the reader is treated to some very steamy scenes.

Once Evie and Jack satisfy their initial lust, the story becomes a little more serious as Evie begins to ponder what a relationship with a famous man is like. The more she thinks, the more she backpedals and this is where the we find out why Evie has been so against actors. Prior to this, I didn’t really understand the depth of Evie’s fear/reluctance and thought she was a bit weird, to be blunt. (I mean, Jack sounds like Hugh Jackman and everyone loves Hugh Jackman!) Once the whole story was out, I felt a lot more sympathy for her. Evie’s a girl with quite a few self-esteem issues and I wish she’d just listened to her friends a bit more! Jack was a lovely character – down to earth, wise and incredibly patient. I think it was his patience to wait for Evie that made me like him even more. His determination to protect her from the media was just the icing on the cake!

This story was a really fun read and one that I think would work well on screen – I’d love to see the quick-witted dialogue acted out!

Thank you to Random House Australia for the copy of this eBook. My review is honest.

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