Review: Wake Up Married Series by Leta Blake & Alice Griffiths (Wake Up Married #1-#6)

Note: These ebooks were provided by IndiGo Marketing and Design in exchange for honest reviews.

Patrick's throat works convulsively. "I trusted you." 

"I know. Please, Patrick. Please." Will hates the way Patrick's shoulders slump. He hates the look of defeat on his face. He hates most that he's put it there. "I don't want to hurt you." 

"You already did."

The Wake Up Married series, which I've been calling the Will & Patrick series, has been on my to-be-read list since I first heard about it at the end of last year. When the opportunity to read and review not just one but all six books, I jumped on it because when it comes to books, I don't pass up on something as fantastic as this. I was able to get through the entire serial in one sitting and loved every single page! Now, I'm not a fan of serials because they tend to test my patience (and if you're familiar with my reviews, you've heard me explain that I'm kinda lacking in that department). However, in hind sight, I get why this was serialized and I felt that only the fourth and fifth books were the ones that had evil cliffhanger-like endings. I had the next book waiting for me, but the anticipation still built at the end of each book, leaving me wanting more of the unlikely but fated couple that is Guglielmo Molinaro, oops, I mean William Patterson and Patrick McCloud, erm, I mean Dr. Patrick McCloud. More than five hundred pages later, and I still wanted more!

This review is going to cover the serial as a whole because it just made more sense that way. Plus, I tend to give short reviews for books that were as short as the ones here, and I honestly don't think that individual reviews would have aptly explained how much I loved this six-book serial. From the moment they both woke up in their Vegas hotel room to find that not only did they have several rounds of drunken sex but that they also had matching wedding rings donning their respective left ring fingers until they had to overcome one last self-imposed challenge to their relationship, I was hooked and now I can proudly say that I'm a Will and Patrick fangirl. How the hell can you resist the combination of insecure and unsure foundation founder and director from Healing, South Dakota and the cocksure and blunt neurosurgeon from Atlanta, Georgia? These two, along with their mostly kooky but wholly memorable cast of supporting characters, had me smiling stupidly and then using the rest of the time to tug on my helpless heartstrings.

Will Patterson and Patrick McCloud meet in a bar in Vegas and wake up the next morning married to each other. While getting a divorce is just as easy as tying the knot in Vegas, Will explains that isn't an option for them, not with Will's trust fund--which funds the Good Works foundation he's founded--at risk, thanks to a stipulation in his mobster great-grandfather's will stating that when Will marries, it's for life and for love. Forced to stay married until they find a solution to their problem, Will and Patrick head to Healing, South Dakota, where Patrick feels as if he's entered an alternative universe. Will's mother and uncle make it clear they're not fans of Patrick's and Patrick doesn't really do anything to endear himself to the townsfolk. However, he soon finds a place in the quirky and gossip-hungry town, becoming the head of neurosurgery of Healing General, the same hospital that Will's foundation funds. In between dealing with interfering family and friends and waiting to file for divorce, Will and Patrick, unsurprisingly, fall in love.

Coming from the family backgrounds that they have, loving someone doesn't go like it does in fairy tales. Neither one accepts that they've gone beyond keeping things platonic and purely physical, and when it becomes clear that denying how they feel is an exercise in futility, they don't believe that what they feel is mutual. The series has quite a number of surprises, but it's the last book that certainly left me with a whopper of shocker, going in a direction that I would never have seen coming. Leta Blake and Alice Griffiths wanted Will and Patrick to work for their happy ending and the journey to that happy ending wasn't just worth it but it was one of the most entertaining and enjoyable rides I've been on for a while. It's easy to pin Will and Patrick in a stereotypical fashion, but just like the story, these two fabulous men proved to be extraordinarily unique. HottieMcBrainSurgeon won my heart with his snarky commentary that hid a caring nature and Guglielmo made me a fan with his protectiveness of his jerky, grump husband.

Now, it's pretty obvious from the title of the sixth and final book in the serial that Will and Patrick get their happily-ever-after. Of course, nothing can ever be that simple. After all, if there aren't issues to deal with, hurdles to get over, and conflicts to overcome then it would be rather boring, don't you think? And Will and Patrick have more than their fair share of all of the above. There's an ex-boyfriend who I so hated from the get-go--he treated Will abhorrently--parents who think they know better but aren't exactly shining examples of commitment, a dark past that has one swearing he would never fall in love, and so on. But through it all, I cheered for these two because how could I not? I admit that I loved Patrick a smidgen more than I did Will--because that last book had me wanting to smack him silly--and I need to make special mention of the other quirky characters, especially Jenny Burger, Tony Molinaro, and Eleanora "Nonna" Molinaro. The Wake Up Married series is an absolute favorite of mine this year and gets five-plus stars. ♥

Date Read: April 30, 2016

Learn more about Leta Blake and Alice Griffiths.

Purchase the Wake Up Married series:

Will & Patrick Wake Up Married (book one) - Amazon

Will & Patrick Meet the Family (book two) - Amazon

Will & Patrick Do the Holidays (book three) - Amazon

Will & Patrick Fight Their Feelings (book four) - Amazon

Will & Patrick Meet the Mob (book five) - Amazon

Will & Patrick's Happy Ending (book six) - Amazon