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Rating: ![5 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-5-0.gif) Summary: What every girl needs Review: In Sweeping the Bride Away, Dunaway combines a fantasy and a nightmare in one short funny book. The fantasy? The bride-to-be, Cassidy Clayton, finds a man who is not only strong, sensitive and sexy, but incredibly handy around the house. And the nightmare? Her fiance's mother is interfering, commandeering, patronizing, and she lives next-door. Ouch. The heroine's parents are out of town, having left her the task of selling their home. Unfortunately the presale inspection turned up a long list of fix-it jobs, just when (and partly because) her mother-in-law-to-be is pressing to move up the wedding. Cassidy doesn't know any handymen. They just don't come with the territory for an image consultant for CEOs and politicos. Her fiance, preoccupied with his duties as a museum curator, is no help at all. But at the dive where she goes to drown her sorrows with a girlfriend, she finds a sympathetic, and very muscular, shoulder to cry on. Society girls aren't his type, but Blade Frederick knows he can help her. Rather than send an employee from his construction company, he decides to play Mr. Toolbelt himself. His visits to the house don't escape the neighbor's notice. It isn't that she believes Cassidy could be attracted to a blue-collar worker, but her future daughter-in-law must be above reproach. This is a fast fun book to read and put yourself in the heroine's shoes, as she figures out what she really wants. Could there be any doubt?
Rating: ![3 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-3-0.gif) Summary: Recommended Review: With a failed romance behind her, Cassidy Clayton accepts a proposal from the boy next door. Unfortunately, with her prospective mother-in-law Lillian also next door, tensions increase as Lillian insists on making all the wedding arrangements in the guise of "helping". Even looking like an overstuffed marshmallow in the wedding dress Lillian selects does not convince Cassidy to speak up for herself. When the city inspector comes two weeks before she closes on the sale of her house, Lillian's interference leads to four pages of repairs and a desperate search for a contractor who can do the work. Waiting for her best friend at a local watering hole, Cassidy meets Blade Frederick. With his casual bad boy look, she never suspects that he owns the bar or a million-dollar construction business. She accepts his business card and, when she cannot find anyone else to handle the work on her house, calls him out of desperation. Even though Blade's company does not do residential work; he is more than willing to help out. But Blade continues to present himself as blue-collar worker. After all, he does not believe a man like himself deserves a woman like Cassidy. Author Michele Dunaway presents considerable emotional entanglements in SWEEPING THE BRIDE AWAY. Cassidy grouses about her future mother-in-law but still manages to comply with Lillian's unreasonable demands. She knows she is settling with Lillian's son, yet cannot bring herself to act. Moreover, Blade goes along with his partner's nebulous plan to use Cassidy's political connections for his own purposes. The unfortunate result is that SWEEPING THE BRIDE AWAY lacks the flow and polish that usually characterizes Dunaway's work. By the time Cassidy finally takes control of her life, readers may have already grown too impatient to care. Nevertheless, there are classic Dunaway moments that truly sparkle, as when Cassidy finds herself rained in at Boy Scout camp. SWEEPING THE BRIDE AWAY comes recommended.
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