SUMMARY
Catherine Bybee serves up excitement and dizzying romance in Single by Saturday, the sequel to Fiancé by Friday and the latest entry in her bestselling Weekday Brides series.
Karen Jones: The petite blonde married a Hollywood star, yet she’s the one who spends every day playing a part: the part of a happy wife. A year ago, she agreed to wed a famous actor to diffuse rumors about his personal life. Now, her divorce sits just around the corner, along with a five million dollar payout. However, as she prepares to exit her fake marriage gracefully, her drop-dead-gorgeous brother-in-law walks through the door…and into her heart.
Zach Gardner: Dark-haired, blue-eyed hunk Zach crashes Michael and Karen’s fancy one-year anniversary party, determined to meet the wife his brother hid from their family. But sparks fly the moment he and Karen see each other. When the famous couple decides to visit the whole Gardner clan, Karen must keep Michael’s secret under wraps in front of his questioning relatives…including Zach, the man who could be the real love of her life.
New York Times & USA Today bestselling author Catherine Bybee was raised in Washington State, but after graduating high school, she moved to Southern California in hopes of becoming a movie star. After growing bored with waiting tables, she returned to school and became a registered nurse, spending most of her career in urban emergency rooms. She now writes full-time and has penned novels Wife by Wednesday, Married by Monday, and Not Quite Dating. Bybee lives with her husband and two teenage sons in Southern California. 
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
3.5 stars
Single by Saturday is book 4 in the Weekday Brides series by Catherine Bybee and I will say up front that I haven’t yet read the first three books, but that in no way impacted my read. These can be read as stand-alone books if one grabs your attention more than another, but I am planning on going back and reading the first three as soon as I can!
This was actually a light & sweet read. Karen Jones is married to one of the biggest Hollywood stars, but she’s the one who’s actually playing a part. Her marriage is in name only to help her husband, Michael, hide the fact that he’s gay. The plan is to stay married for a year and then start divorce proceedings… but Karen and Michael didn’t expect Zach, Michael’s brother to show up at their house determined to get some answers for the Gardner family. And Karen certainly didn’t expect to have to fight an immediate attraction to her husband’s brother.
After some prodding from Zach, Michael and Karen plan a trip home to visit the family she’s never met and he hasn’t seen in a while and who he’s successfully hidden his secret from … or so he thought.
I really enjoyed the depiction of the many different family members in this story. While Single by Saturday is truly Zach and Karen’s story, they don’t have the only story we get here. From ex-girlfriends, to crazy paparazzi, to an abusive situation to kidnapping quite a bit happens in this small town.
But what about Zach and Karen … I liked them. I really did. I think I sympathized with Zach a bit more because he had to struggle with these feelings he was having for his brother’s wife and the guilt those feelings caused had to be a bit overwhelming. Karen, while also struggling with these feelings, knew that her marriage was a sham and didn’t have that extra layer of guilt.
I think the reason I gave this 3.5 stars though, is that there were a few things that I felt were a bit forced. There is one situation where Karen and Michael have a fight of sorts and I just felt it was a bit overdone in order to get to the part where we get Karen’s story. Which yes, is sad, but I didn’t agree with her over reaction… and yes it felt very much like an over reaction to me.
Additionally, I didn’t find myself connecting with these characters, not like I do with a couple other romance series that I love. I just felt that the characters fell a bit flat for me.
That said, the writing is well done, the story is engaging and the characters are for the most part interesting. If you’re looking for a romance series to add to your list, you can’t go wrong with this one. I know I’ll be checking out a few of the others in this series to see if I connect a bit more with them, and I’ll definitely be checking out some of Bybee’s other books!
Thank you to the publisher for a copy of the book and including me on the tour for this series.
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