The WINO* Next Door: *Wife In Name Only by Vanessa Gray Bartal

Dexter Nieman was not the type of person to marry a stranger on a whim. Steady, predictable, and maybe even boring, he liked his settled life, loved being in his rut. And he certainly didn’t intend to marry his neighbor, an eccentric recluse who worked odd hours and inexplicably owned a cauldron. But his job involved putting out fires for four insane brothers. And when one of those fires spiraled out of control, involving Dexter and his quirky neighbor, a pretend marriage seemed the only solution.

Lainey Andrews quit her job to follow her dream of making candy, straight into total ruin. She was about to fail spectacularly, but nothing new there: she failed at everything. In desperation she accepted an odd proposal from her straight-laced neighbor–pretend to be married and he would solve her financial woes. The rational part of Lainey’s brain knew she shouldn’t do it, but when had she ever listened to that?

Both of them went into the arrangement with their eyes open. After all, it was only business. It wasn’t like two people so opposite in every way could fall in love.Certainly they wouldn’t wind up being exactly what the other didn’t realize they’d been missing, and they absolutely wouldn’t find the love and friendship with each other they’d tried and failed to find with everyone else. Because things like that didn’t happen, not to Lainey and Dexter, not to anyone. Something so unexpected, so wrong in every way couldn’t fill their missing pieces, couldn’t make them fit when nothing else did. Right?

Funny, warm, lighthearted, wholesome and uplifting, The WINO Next Door is this summer’s perfect beach read!