Marriage on Madison Avenue (Central Park Pact #3) by Lauren Layne-Dual Review & tour
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From New York Times bestselling author Lauren Layne, comes the final installment of the Central Park Pact series, a heartfelt and laugh-out-loud romantic comedy that’s perfect for fans of Sally Thorne and Christina Lauren.
Can guys and girls ever be just friends? According to Audrey Tate and Clarke West, absolutely. After all, they’ve been best friends since childhood without a single romantic entanglement. Clarke is the charming playboy Audrey can always count on, and he knows that the ever-loyal Audrey will never not play along with his strategy for dodging his matchmaking mother—announcing he’s already engaged…to Audrey.
But what starts out as a playful game between two best friends turns into something infinitely more complicated, as just-for-show kisses begin to stir up forbidden feelings. As the faux wedding date looms closer, Audrey and Clarke realize that they can never go back to the way things were, but deep down, do they really want to?
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Sandy’s Review MARRIAGE ON MADISON AVENUE is the third and final instalment in Lauren Layne’s contemporary, adult CENTRAL PARK PACT sweet romance series focusing on three friends: Naomi Powell, Audrey Tate and Claire Hayes-three woman who would discover there were all in a relationship with the same man. This is thirty-one year old, businessman Clarke West, and twenty-nine year old, social media influencer Audrey Tate’s story line. MARRIAGE ON MADISON AVENUE can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty but I recommend reading book one, PASSION ON PARK AVENUE, for back story and history.
SOME BACKGROUND: Approximately 18 months earlier, Claire Hayes, newly widowed discovered that her husband of seven years had been having numerous affairs including affairs with the two women who would become her best friends. The Central Park Pact was an agreement to never let one another fall for a womanizer like the man with whom they had all fallen in love.
Told from dual third person perspectives (Clarke and Audrey) MARRIAGE ON MADISON AVENUE follows the childhood, best friends to lovers, fake fiancé relationship between thirty-one year old, businessman Clarke West, and twenty-nine year old, social media influencer Audrey Tate. Audrey Tate considers herself a loser at love, and social media appears to agree calling her cursed when it comes to men and love. As her best friends begin to fall in love, Audrey becomes the odd woman out until Clarke West offers a deal that would likely stop his mother from trying to set him up with a woman from his past-a fake engagement to quiet the haters but an engagement that quickly spirals out of control. What ensues is the fall-out of a relationship that is threatened by jealousy and the inability to see the forest for the trees.
Audrey Tate and Clarke West both consider themselves non-marriage material, and continue to reiterate the belief at every opportunity but as the ‘fake’ engagement begins to take on a life of its own, our couple struggle between head and heart preferring to ignore the obvious when it is obvious to everyone else.
The relationship between Audrey and Clarke is a best friends to lovers/fake engagement that finds our couple doing what couples have done from the beginning of time but Audrey refuses to acknowledge the elephant in the room believing herself cursed to never marry or fall in love. Clarke struggles with a failed relationship from the past, a relationship that is hoping for something more. The $ex scenes are all implied and fade to black.
All of the previous story line couples play secondary and supporting roles: Naomi and Oliver (Passion on Park Avenue), Claire and Scott (Love on Lexington Avenue), as well as the introduction of Clarke’s mother and father Linda and Alton West; and his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Milsap.
MARRIAGE ON MADISON AVENUE is a story of jealousy, controlling parents, past mistakes, and moving forward in life. The premise is entertaining; the characters are energetic; the romance struggles in the face of secrets and lies, and in this I did not feel the connection between our story line couple, and I struggled to like our story line heroine.
From the outset Audrey is quick to dismiss any action that resembles a loving relationship but it is her friendship with Clarke that is battling to survive. From my perspective, Audrey is immature and self-centred, and all she cares about is her social media image, but again, it is her image that forced our couple to take drastic steps in an effort to fend off trolls and commenters. Clarke’s mother Linda is desperate to reunite Clarke with the woman from his past but Clarke only sees Audrey, a woman who is unable to see beyond the immediate gratification of social media. MARRIAGE ON MADISON AVENUE is a frustrating read but the author has done her work if she can get an emotional response, one way or another.
Reading Order and Previous Reviews
Passion on Park Avenue
Love on Lexington Avenue
Marriage on Madison Avenue
Barb’s Review:
Marriage on Madison Avenue by Lauren Layne is the 3rd book in her Central Park Pact series. This is the final book in this wonderful trilogy focusing on three heroines of this series, who became friends after the death of the cheating husband/boyfriend; the concept of these fabulous friends helping and supporting each other was great.
Audrey Tate is the third heroine, and we knew whom her “perfect love” would be. We got to know Audrey and her best friend, Clarke West from the start of this series; as they have been friends since they were kids. Clarke has always been a playboy, and loves hanging around with Audrey. When Audrey starts getting bad publicity from her popular Instagram account, she and Clarke devise a plan to pretend they are engaged. When Clarke’s mom becomes involved, and brings in Clarke’s ex-girlfriend, things begins to change. At first, they have fun playing the fake engagement, and in a short time, they begin to feel things and see each other in a different light. As the wedding date looms closer, with their feelings escalated, will they cancel or go through the wedding?
What follows is a fun, delightful, flirty romance between two people that have been together for many years, and could never see what was right in front of them. It was a lot of fun to see Audrey go through all the steps of a wedding; party, tastings, wedding planner, bridesmaid gowns, and having her two best friends help her (Naomi and Claire); knowing that the wedding plans will eventually be cancelled. But best laid plans do not always work out. I really did like Audrey and Clarke together and rooted hard for them to open their eyes.
I adored the fantastic friendship between Naomi, Claire and Audrey, with each of them going out of their way to be supportive and help them find the right man and just being there for each other.
The story was very well written by Lauren Layne, with the fantastic concept of these women who did not know each other in the beginning but became the best of friends; and Layne also has created some wonderful secondary characters. Marriage on Madison Avenue was a fun, sweet, passionate finale with another fabulous couple, and the enjoyment of spending time with the previous books couples. This was a fantastic and delightful series, which you should not miss.
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Lauren Layne is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen romantic comedies.
A former e-commerce and web marketing manager from Seattle, Lauren relocated to New York City in 2011 to pursue a full-time writing career.
She lives in midtown Manhattan with her high-school sweetheart, where she writes smart romantic comedies with just enough sexy-times to make your mother blush. In LL’s ideal world, every stiletto-wearing, Kate Spade wielding woman would carry a Kindle stocked with Lauren Layne books.
