The Marriage Bargain

Marriage to a Billionaire, Book 1

By: Jennifer Probst

Narrated by: Coleen Marlo

Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

To save her family home, impulsive bookstore owner Alexa Maria McKenzie casts a love spell. But she never planned on conjuring up her best friend's older brother - the powerful man who once shattered her heart.

Billionaire Nicholas Ryan doesn't believe in marriage, but in order to inherit his father's corporation, he needs a wife and needs one fast. When he discovers his sister's childhood friend is in dire financial straits, he offers Alexa a bold proposition: a marriage in name only with certain rules. Avoid entanglement. Keep things all business. Do not fall in love. The arrangement is only for a year, so the rules shouldn't be that hard to follow, right? Except fate has a way of upsetting the best-laid plans.

©2012 Jennifer Probst (P)2012 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Full of nonstop sexual tension that crackles off the page." (Laura Kaye, author of Hearts in Darkness)

Great romance! Don't Wait!

I truly loved this story.
I laughed, I cried a bit, I smiled and overall very satisfying!
I know it's a great book when I listen before bed and I look down and it's 12:30 am.
I couldn't stop listening! I can't wait to listen to the next one. Only wish there were more than 2!
The narrater was excellent!
5 stars all the way across...

Entertaining

This story was entertaining and easy to get into. I enjoyed her writing style and the characters were likable.

Nice little gem

This is one of those feel good romance stories with siblings best friend. I know it sounds cliche but this was one of the better stories. Great narration also.

Good story, bad narrator.

Story was good. Narrator was awful. main character was from New York and grew up middle class and yet she had an accent like a 50 year old socialite from England.

A Light Read

Rating: 3/5
Heat Rating: 3/5
Narrator Performance: 4/5

THE MARRIAGE BARGAIN is a light and enjoyable read. Not much happens but the story doesn't drag. It's engaging enough to have kept me listening even if I found it to be an average read.

I liked the narrator. She had a nice, pleasant voice that made me want to keep listening to the story. I had no problem getting pulled into it.

Simple Entertainment

Would you try another book from Jennifer Probst and/or Coleen Marlo?

I probably would after a little time.

Any additional comments?

This was a great book for a simple short listen where it was just for pure pleasure. It was fun and interesting but simple. It is the type of book I like to listen to once in a great while just for quick story.

Surprisingly good

Honestly I wasn't expecting much from this one, I picked it up on a $4 Audible sale... I was pleasantly surprised by the story though.

It started off with a scene from the past to introduce us to our characters, but in this blast from the past you can already see whats going to happen. It's a really predictable story, but enjoyable all the same. There were a few holes in the story (why wouldn't she know anything about his family when his sister has been her best friend for years?) but it kept things light and interesting enough that you can easily look beyond the mistakes.

The epilogue basically spells out the next book for you, but it may end up on my to be read pile anyway!

Predictable romance

Fairly predictable story line, but it was really a modernized bodice ripper. I found myself rolling my eyes at some of the scenes and dialogue. It was ok overall, but I won't be continuing with the series!

Good book

This book made me laugh out loud but was still sweet. The narrator was not one of my favorites but was tolerable.

A Straight Romance - nothing more

What happens when a special snowflake meets an unfeeling ass, why chemistry of course. This is one of those pairings where I feel the author took everything they could think of to make these two folks complete opposites and threw into the book. I’m not saying opposites can’t be attracted to each other but this one was beyond unrealistic.

This book contains everything you need for a romance: a past between the two characters, fighting that turns to passion, stupid assumptions keeping them apart and of course jealousy. This is a very straight forward romance and there isn’t much more to add.

You get what you ask for with this book which is a straight romance and that is exactly what this is almost to point of being formulaic. I needed a “brain-break” due to high work stress and decided I hadn’t listened to a good old romance in a long time and chose this one. Now why didn’t I rate it any higher than 3 stars; I didn’t because my taste in stories is changing and I almost didn’t finish this because it was a little too straight forward.