BLOG TOUR - Love and Shenanigans (Ballybeg #1)

Love and Shenanigans by Zara Keane 

Series: Ballybeg, #1 

Publication Date: May 16, 2014 

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Vows in Vegas… Three days before leaving Ireland on the adventure of a lifetime, Fiona Byrne returns to her small Irish hometown to attend the family wedding from hell. When she discovers the drunken vows she exchanged with the groom during a wild Las Vegas trip eight years previously mean they’re legally married, her future plans ricochet out of control. Can she untangle herself from the man who broke her heart so long ago? Does she even want to?

…True Love in Ballybeg. Gavin Maguire’s life is low on drama, high on stability, and free of pets. But Gavin hadn’t reckoned on Fiona blasting back into his life and crashing his wedding. In the space of twenty-four hours, he loses a fiancée and a job, and gains a wife and a labradoodle. Can he salvage his bland-but-stable life? More importantly, can he resist losing his heart to Fiona all over again?

“Typical,” muttered Gavin. “Bloody typical. He lands me with an untrained puppy that wreaks havoc in my house, and then he expects me to keep it under control in his.” Wiggly Poo treated his nose to a generous lick. He scowled at him. “Keep that up and I’ll walk down the aisle with a rash on my face.” A shriek of laughter from one of the rooms proved too much excitement for the puppy. He leaped out of Gavin’s arms, slid across the marble floor, and shot off in the direction of the noise. “Come back, you blaggard!” Gavin chucked Deirdre’s roses on the floor and took off after the dog. He pounded down the narrow hallway that led to the downstairs guest bedrooms. One door was slightly ajar. He caught sight of a curly canine arse disappearing behind it. He barged into the room without knocking. A chorus of feminine gasps greeted his appearance. Apart from the French designer, all the women were wearing satin dresses of various hues. Deirdre was in a lavender creation, complete with puffy sleeves. The bridesmaids—Olivia, Mona, and Brona—wore maroon dresses that reminded him of the costumes in the deadly dull Jane Austen adaptations his fiancée adored. Muireann’s wedding dress was a meringue concoction with skirts that took up half the room. It didn’t suit her, but he’d lie tomorrow and tell her it looked great. The pièce de résistance was the woman poured into a greenish-yellow frock with a weird fishtail bottom. The bodice of the dress was so tight that half her breasts were squeezed into view. He drank in the woman’s face. Her mouth formed an O of horror at the sight of him. His stomach performed a stunt worthy of an acrobat. He knew those breasts. He knew that face. He knew that mouth. Bloody hell! What was she doing at the wedding? What was she doing in the wedding? Her intelligent green eyes pinned him in place. A slide show of memories flashed through his mind—some good, some bad, some X-rated. “Gavin!” Muireann screeched, jolting him back to the present. “You’re not supposed to see my dress!” He flushed to the roots. Had he been remembering sleeping with another woman while his bride-to-be stood in front of him? Jaysus. He needed to pull himself together. Deirdre grabbed a swath of fabric from the speechless Claudette and threw it around her daughter. “Get out, Gavin. You’ll jinx the wedding!” “Sorry for barging in. Wiggly Poo is in here somewhere.” Muireann’s jaw dropped. “You brought him here? I told you to leave him at home.” “Baby, I couldn’t leave him alone,” he said in mounting exasperation. “He was wrecking the place. He pulled down the curtains and attacked my stereo speakers.” “Ah, Gavin. Why didn’t you stop him? He’s only a puppy.” “Are you sure? I’d label him a hellhound.” Fiona snorted with laughter. Muireann shot her cousin a look of pure venom. No love lost between them. In a split second, Wiggly Poo emerged from underneath an antique chair and charged at a basket near Deirdre’s feet. “Watch out!” Gavin cried. “There he goes.” “Stop him!” Deirdre screamed, veiled hat askew. “He’s attacking Mitzi and Bitzi.” Fiona lurched forward on her high heels and half-fell, half dive-bombed the dog basket.

The sound of ripping fabric tore a horrified gasp from the crowd. The material at the back of the dress split open, revealing two luscious, creamy buttocks.

Zara Keane grew up in Dublin, Ireland, but spent her summers in a small town very similar to the fictitious Ballybeg. She currently lives in Switzerland with her family. When she’s not writing or wrestling small people, she drinks far too much coffee, and tries – with occasional success – to resist the siren call of Swiss chocolate.

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Rating and review: ♥♥♥♥

Enjoyable story with a few quirky characters, maybe this should let the reader know this is written with Irish dialect incorporated and there are several Irish words and phrases used that might be confusing to someone not familiar with the dialect. There also could have been more background info on some of the characters, like Gavin for instance (there's mention of him moving to Ballybeg in his youth, but where did he move from?). Still an enjoyable book and I look forward to reading the next couple of stories in the series.