THE PARIS MATCH

A physician has to endure her ex-husband’s family—and an infuriatingly handsome best man—at her former sister-in-law’s destination wedding.

To hear Layla Bailey tell it, her divorce was amicable, but now she’s regretting her decision to stay friendly with her ex-husband Jamie’s family. When Emily, her former sister-in-law, all but begs Layla to attend her wedding in Paris, Layla can’t refuse. Then Jamie’s new girlfriend tags along, and there’s another member of the wedding party who’s even more distracting: best man Griffin Testa. He’s gruff, antagonistic, incredibly handsome, and visibly scarred in a way that hints at a traumatic past, and he also knows how to get under Layla’s skin with little more than a look. After a girls’ night out results in Emily getting cold feet, Griffin confronts Layla, demanding to know what she’d said to talk the bride out of the wedding. While Griffin is strangely determined to make sure this event goes off without a hitch, Layla doesn’t want to create a disruption for the family she once belonged to, either. The two reluctantly team up to calm any doubts that Emily and Michael—Griffin’s best friend—might be having, and as they’re increasingly forced into each other’s orbit, Griffin offers to be a buffer so Layla doesn’t have to face Jamie alone. Clayborn’s latest romance takes big swings, both in its approach to character and to some of the genre’s most well-trodden tropes—Griffin is likened to a dark fae prince at several turns in a way that feels like a teasing wink at romantasy. The book’s leads are both wounded in different ways, but as the story progresses and their chemistry blossoms, they lower the emotional walls they’ve spent years constructing in favor of embracing more vulnerability and honesty. The result is a tremendous love story that’s never overshadowed by its immersive Paris setting but poignantly accentuated by it, proof that Clayborn only gets better with every book.

The City of Light provides a beautiful backdrop for this stunning slow-burn romance.