Emergency Contact by Lauren Layne
Reviewer: Wena
Main Leads: Tom Walsh, Katherine Tate
Setting: United States, New York, New York City
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
Tags: Second Chance Romance, Hate to Love, Married Couple
Published On: October 24, 2023
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Format: e-Book
Source: Purchased
Pages: 250
Purchase It: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
From New York Times bestselling author Lauren Layne–and her real life husband and high school sweetheart, Anthony LeDonne–comes a new holiday romcom that is sure to warm even the coldest heart.
Katherine, an ambitious NYC attorney, gets diagnosed with a concussion and must be monitored for 48 hours to make sure it doesn’t get worse. Unfortunately, she forgot to update her emergency contact so the person they call is her ex-husband, Tom. Unable to be left alone, Katherine reluctantly agrees to travel to Chicago with Tom for the holidays. But thanks to a blizzard, what should have been a quick plane ride turns into an antagonistic overnight misadventure that stirs up old feelings even as Tom prepares to propose to his girlfriend on Christmas Eve.
A delightful meet-cute between The Proposal and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Emergency Contact is perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Sally Thorne.
Lauren Layne is one of my favorite authors and reading her books always make me happy. This book was another winner of a Lauren Layne story and even though it’s only October, this holiday romance really has me looking forward to Christmas. It’s a second chance romance between…a divorced couple. And I don’t know what I was expecting but whatever I was expecting went right out the window once I started the book. I read this book so fast that you’d have thought I wasn’t in one of the worst reading slumps ever. That’s how good Lauren Layne is. She writes smart romances with characters that leap right off the pages and into your heart. Kate and Tom are no different. Seeing these two fall in love again after being apart was fun. There were a lot of silly things and shenanigans that I could have done without but overall, the story was still solid and I still rather enjoyed the entire story.
Kate is a busy lawyer who is on track to becoming a partner at her law firm. When she gets a concussion, she finds out that she never updated her emergency contact so she’s shocked when her ex-husband, Tom, shows up to take care of her. They’re both not happy about the situation but Kate reluctantly agrees to go home with him for the holidays. Tom is determined to not let Kate sidetrack his plans with his present day girlfriend but when everything that can go wrong, goes wrong, Tom and Kate find themselves with nothing but time to finally deal with their feelings, both past and present, to figure out what to do about their future.
Kate was a stubborn heroine that was determined to live the life she promised her father, she lived and it took her a long time to realize that plans change and that’s okay. Her plans and her headstrong determination to stick to her plans cost her, her relationship with Tom and though she’s learned to live without him, being around him again makes her miss him all the more. And coming to the realization that her feelings for Tom are still present is something that she needs to figure out what to do about. Tom, determined to not make the same mistake twice is determined to get things right with his new girlfriend and even though life seems to be twisting him this way and that, he starts to hesitate because Kate is back and being with her has brought so many memories back, so many feelings, and he’s starting to think that he needs to deal with all that baggage if he has a shot at a final happy ending for himself.
There’s a lot that goes into this story and while I could have done without some of it, I can’t deny that I enjoyed both Kate and Tom together. They were such a well-matched couple and seeing them come to terms that their feelings, both past and present, are more present than past, was fun. Kate frustrated me a lot with her insistence that she was fine on her own, that her work was more important that everything else but even with all of my frustrations, I still liked her. I really liked her with Tom. Then there was Tom. I really liked Tom but seeing him fall for Kate again while he’s still, technically, in a relationship, shadowed my enjoyment some. Layne and LeDonne did a good job of wrapping that up so I was glad. Tom and Kate’s romance was simmering with so much chemistry and lots of sexual tension that I was happy when they finally got together. Lauren Layne and Anthony LeDonne wrote a sweet and fun romance with characters I really came to love but that’s to be expected from Lauren Layne. She never steers me wrong. This was a solid romance and though it isn’t one of my favorites, I still enjoyed it and recommend it if you’re in the mood for a sweet holiday romance.
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