The Duplicate Bride by Ginny Baird Published by Entangled: Amara in September 2020
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
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Hope Webb can’t believe her twin sister, Jackie, is begging her to swap places and play fiancée at Jackie’s pre-wedding festivities. Sure, it’s only a business-deal sort of marriage, but Hope is a carb-loving teacher who enjoys curling up with a good book. Jackie is a workaholic whose idea of a good time is a brisk five-mile run at the crack of dawn. The two sisters couldn’t be more opposite.
Now Hope is stuck in the middle of a warm, tight-knit family she can’t help but adore and a groom who turns out to be entirely wonderful...for her.
Hotel magnate Brent Albright knows something is off about his fiancée, but he doesn’t care. Gone is the driven woman with similar career goals, and in her place is someone warm and funny who not only charms his family but him as well. She’s doing everything she can to avoid him, but that’s probably just nerves. Two people about to wed couldn’t know each other less.
Now Brent is determined to woo his fiancée, for real this time, because the more he gets to know her, the more his sweet fiancée turns out to be entirely wonderful...for him.
And that’s when things start to get really complicated...
Note: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions shared are my own.
I was unfortunately disappointed by Ginny Baird’s The Duplicate Bride. I usually enjoy twin-swap books, and I found that the story flowed well between the two main character’s points of view. My issues with Jackie and the length of the twin-swap simply made The Duplicate Bride difficult for me to read.
In the story, Hope goes to take over her twin’s, Jackie, duties, while Jackie wraps up things at her job. Hope didn’t plan on impersonating her twin, like Jackie originally wanted Hope to do, but as Brent’s family mistakenly identifies her as Jackie and under Brent’s grandmother’s high expectations of Jackie Hope pretends to be her sister. What Hope didn’t know, however, was that Brent and Jackie’s marriage is more of a business agreement than a loving relationship.
Initially, I was really into the story. Hope and Brent had great chemistry, and I was invested in seeing how things would play out between the two. As the story went on and as Jackie continued to postpone her arrival, I got extremely frustrated with the length of time the twin-swap was lasting. The fact that Hope was pretending to be Jackie before Jackie’s wedding made it additionally problematic. I had difficulty finishing The Duplicate Bride because there seemed to be no end.
Honestly, I was able to accept Hope’s digressions because of her initial good intentions. I also accepted Brent’s flaws and his reasoning for entering the business-like marriage agreement. Jackie was my largest issue with the book. I was simply never able to sympathize with her. I thought that Jackie’s reasoning for continually postponing her arrival and her reasoning for entering the business-like marriage in the first place was weak. I would have liked to have seen her redeem herself more.
I did enjoy how the story ended. I liked how Hope and Brent made up for their mistakes. I’m also a sucker for snail mail. It honestly ended on a sweet note.
Overall, The Duplicate Bride by Ginny Baird simply wasn’t for me, but that doesn’t mean that you may not enjoy it. So if the story intrigues you and you enjoy twin-swap plots, I’d recommend checking The Duplicate Bride out.
