Not my favourite, I have to be honest. I think this book is more suited to perhaps an older romance reader. It just didn't hit the points I want a romance to.

A light hearted story. Three sibling and the middle one takes on responsibilities when her mother isn’t around to. Cute as all Joan Reeves’ books are. Light and fun reading

April Fool Proposition is a very well written quick read. I highly recommend it. Romance readers will enjoy this story.

April Fool Proposition is the fifth book in A Moment in Time series. This was a short but cute romance. The pacing varied and the story seemed to go back and forth in time and even repeated itself at one point. The storyline was interesting but the skipping between the character’s point of view made it hard to follow. I would have liked to see more interactions between the main characters and have gotten to know them better. It was a cute story but needed a little more depth.
I received an ARC and am willingly leaving a review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I really struggled to get into this book. It was hard to connect to the characters and there were parts of the plot that seemed confusing.

Travis and Brenna meet at a crowded party. He is attracted to her red hair and to her eyes that are either violet or blue, and she is attracted to his crotch. He thinks she's hot and she thinks he is too hot for her. She is worried about her sister Maura's argument with her boyfriend, and he shares a heartwarming tale about his sister's marriage troubles. A beautiful woman comes up to talk to Travis and asks him if he's a physiotherapist as if it's the first time they're meeting but a couple of paragraphs later it seems like Travis knows her well enough. He's hitting on Brenna but Brenna keeps thinking Travis isn't interested.

There is some head hopping and clunky writing. ("He had to laugh when he learned the woman who was the center of attention for the purple boa gang was Margaret Smith, Cheyenne's mother, who introduced them to the other guests if you could call pointing to a group over there and rattling off names then a small group on the other side, and so on." Sorry, go again? If you could call pointing what? Why was he laughing? What's so funny about being Margaret Smith or someone's mother?) Later it turns out that Margaret is a romance author with an interest in real life matchmaking but he didn't know that when he was laughing.

This is how Margaret speaks: "I knew Maura and Liam were in love, but I also knew Maura has a fear of commitment. To become a successful fiction author, especially a romance author you have to be a bit of a psychologist and learn what makes people tick. That's how you create characters who seem real. You learn that by watching real people. I told Maura I wanted to play matchmaker for Liam and suggested Chloe's cousin Chelsea would be a good match for him. Maura turned white. I was afraid she might faint. Then I asked her if she'd be interested in dating Noelle's cousin Glen Paulson. I told her he was only interested in dating, not in relationships - the same as she. She rushed away to find Liam." Does she seem real to you?

Margaret is playing a little six dimensional chess with Brenna too, convincing Brenna that to save Maura's relationship Brenna needs to appear as if she's in love with Travis, but really she just wants to matchmake Travis and Brenna. Margaret's schemes are irrelevant, however, as the next time Brenna and Travis meet is because of an accident that has nothing to do with Margaret's cunning plan.

<quote> How she ended up on top of him, with her legs spread and his penis - his rapidly growing penis - pressing against the part of her anatomy that was probably doing a happy dance - if body parts could dance - was something that only a klutz like her could have accomplished.
--
She knew her face was burning like a torch, but she launched into the story of her accident, concluding with in trying not to fall on my face, I dropped and rolled. My right hip hit the edge of the pavement." Brenna felt his hands glide down her backbone. Oh, please let her butt be covered, she prayed. </quote>

After Brenna came in contact with his erection in that underedited passage, Travis tells her that he attempted to call several times and says her he can't be her physiotherapist because he wants to date her but she still thinks he's not interested in her and asks him to fake date her, to convince Maura to date Liam, of course. I'm sorry but this makes no sense. Nobody is this clueless about a man's interest, and how would fake dating influence her sister anyway? Maura isn't there to see it and Brenna is not even talking to her over the phone so Maura knows nothing about Travis whatsoever. When Travis and Brenna have a wild weekend of sex, out of the blue she starts talking about her parents dying of murder-suicide. I suppose we are meant to understand that her parents' fate made her skittish about loving and being loved. Suddenly she decides that her relationship with Travis is probably over and gets jealous.

I didn't hate it but it isn't good. It needs a plot that makes sense, and an editor to read some of these sentences aloud to hear how they sound. Most of the minor characters could be cut because we get introduced to far too many people for a story this short. They may be familiar if you read the previous stories in the series but I had trouble keeping them straight in my head and it didn't really matter. I get it how writers and readers may fall in love with the people from other stories and want to meet them again but in a short tale like this you shouldn't write about anyone who isn't needed to move the plot forward. However, I was expecting some kind of closure to the Margaret plotline but after she made her matchmaking schemes she just disappears and is never mentioned again.

I got a free review copy from Netgalley and these are my voluntary opinions.

Good, quick read. Brenna and Travis are likeable characters.

Interested in reading Ian's story.

I got really attached to Brenna and Travis. I felt like the story wasn't dragged on which is a good. it ended on a good note. I like romance novels and this a nice read.