THE KING OF NOTHING

A wedding crasher accidentally finds herself in a fake relationship with a famous guitarist in O’Day’s debut romance novel.

Ruth Clark has hit rock bottom. Her roommate Georgie has left her high and dry, her job as a personal assistant to elderly Hollywood actress Carol Ann Noble is a complete pain, and her prospects seem dim. Keen for an escape, Ruth sneaks into a fancy wedding at the property where she lodges. Drunk and eager not to blow her cover, she signs what she thinks is a waiver and ends up, due to the machinations of wedding organizer and model Griselda, married to the reclusive rockstar Sebastian Bontrager, known as King Seba. Seba is hiding from the world after the death of his brother Abel, and he has problems with his father. Ruth and Seba collide in a twist on the fake dating and forced proximity tropes of romance novels that finds O’Day exploring issues of mental health and grief through her complex main characters. The contrast between Seba’s rich circle of friends and Ruth’s struggle to make ends meet (which she hides to fit in) is compelling, mainly because the characters all have their human concerns, no matter how privileged they are: “On this beautiful beach, with these beautiful people and room to think, she was slowly coming around to the fact that there weren’t any magic erasers.” While the novel is enjoyable, there are patches in which O’Day’s writing style makes the story hard to follow—her words move so quickly, with unexpected details thrown in, that it can be difficult for the reader to try to catch up. However, Ruth and Seba’s love story will have the reader rooting for the characters to find happiness in each other and leave them yearning for more.

A complex narrative for fans of redemptive love stories.