The Last Minute First Lady by Tinia Montford

Oct 26

Oct 26 The Last Minute First Lady by Tinia Montford

The Last Minute First Lady is fake marriage, enemies to lovers, and opposites attract all rolled into one. Jolie Caldwell’s reporting career is in the toilet, or at the very least, in the bathroom. But she isn’t about to let that stop her from doing her job, which is exposing politicians for the low-down scoundrels they are. And Cassian Anders is next on her target list.

Cassian Anders is young yet ambitious and very charismatic; which he hopes will win him the governor’s seat for the state of Illinois. With his eyes on the prize, Cassian tells a little white lie to help his chances of winning the election, until he realizes this could backfire and now he has to follow through on the lie.

Thus Cassian and Jolie end up in a pretend marriage to aid him in the election and help her with her career. What could possibly go wrong?

The pretend marriage trope is ever present throughout the novel but it isn’t the lead trope. The enemies-to-lovers trope and the opposites attract trope swim in synchronization throughout the entire novel.

Cassian is very much easy going and takes whatever is handed to him in stride, all while wearing a smile. Jolie is the exact opposite. Jolie barks and bites and bulldozes to get what she wants. But as the two get closer, Jolie can see Cassian is just as driven as her, maybe even more. He is so driven that maybe he can’t see straight and he’s putting his health in danger, still practicing law while running a campaign.

Yet the love and attraction Jolie feels for Cassian comes when she sees his interactions with his family and his involvement at the youth center he helped fund. The novel allows us to see some realness from the characters and doesn’t have them fall in love magically and out of nowhere as some enemies-to-lovers tropes do. It’s more than sexual chemistry between these two. There’s an appreciation for who they truly are. Jolie appreciates that Cassian remains down-to-earth despite being a politician. And what little glimpses Cassian gets of Jolie, he understands her struggles and admires her tenacity in fighting despite all she has been and still is going through.

The characters stay true to themselves except for the one instance just before the ending. And if you read contemporary romances, then you know the characters have a fight and temporarily take a break before reuniting at the end. This makes the characters feel cliche and a little unlike the driven, calculating power houses that they were when the novel begins.

However, The Last Minute First Lady is an enjoyable read from start to finish. A triple threat of tropes wrapped in a deliciously entertaining package. This political romance shows the struggles and humaneness of being career-driven. This novel also shows that you can have it all and eat your cake, you just have to be willing to work at it in the right way. That there’s nothing wrong with being driven, but take care in how you drive yourself.