The second book in the Kensingtons series is here! This book follows Crew’s older brother, Oliver, and his love story…this review won’t contain spoilers for this book, but will have slight spoilers for the first book, “Fake Empire” — so read that one first!
What is Real Regrets about?
One night. Two strangers. Lots of regrets…
A bachelor party in Las Vegas is the last place Oliver Kensington wants to spend a long weekend. He likes controlling outcomes, not the uncertainty of gambling. For the most part, his reputation as the reliable, responsible Kensington brother is well-deserved. But for one of the few people he considers a friend, he’ll show up in sin city.
Oliver’s focus is on work—and on getting back into his father’s good graces. But he’s not expecting absolution for past mistakes; Arthur Kensington doesn’t forgive.
So when an offer to forget is made as soon as Oliver returns to New York, it’s shocking. And it’s the same demand his father made years ago: to marry a woman as part of a business arrangement. This time, there’s no chance his brother Crew will be the one waiting at the end of the aisle, which is how Oliver’s last engagement ended.
The answer should be obvious. Most of Oliver’s life has centered around earning his father’s approval and becoming CEO, both of which he thought were lost opportunities. Learning they’re not should be the best news he’s received all year.
Problem is, there’s a piece of paper in his pocket that says he’s already married…to the blonde woman he met in the bar of a Vegas hotel.
Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Review:
We first met Hannah and Oliver in “Fake Empire,” the first book in the Kensington series. Although you don’t have to read that one in order to understand this one as both can be read as standalones, I highly recommend it! This book will contain spoilers for information we learned in “Fake Empire,” but not for “Real Regrets.” Crew and Scarlett’s love story is the center of the first book, and they appear often in “Real Regrets.”
We first met Hannah and Oliver in the first book, under very different circumstances. Hannah appears multiple times in Crew and Scarlett’s story, and to say she didn’t make a great first impression…or second…would be an understatement. Oliver has more than his fair share of bad decisions in the first book as well, and they both have a sort of redemption arc in this love story. Still, I don’t think the story benefited from having Hannah being the one Oliver ends up falling in love with. Even though her and Oliver do actually like each other, it seems like Oliver’s always just getting the scraps of whatever — or whoever — his younger brother Crew doesn’t want. If Hannah wasn’t so awful in the first book to Crew and Scarlett, I wouldn’t think anything of it, but I don’t feel as though there was enough justification for her actions in the first book.
I loved getting to see how Crew and Scarlett are adjusting to life as parents and a married couple, and how their love still conquers all even though marriage isn’t always easy. It was so nice to see them as supporting characters, not just cameos.
I was skeptical about how Hannah and Oliver were going to redeem themselves after how they acted in the first book, but I really liked getting to read from both of their perspectives. We got to see different sides of them, and how they navigate the world based on their upbringings — mainly how their relationships with their siblings (and especially their fathers) are so different from each other.
The two of them were still a great match to each other, and I really did like the two of them together, and I enjoyed reading their story. The world of billionaires and multi-millionaires is such a fun, enchanting world to delve into, and C.W. Farnsworth writes it so well — I hope this isn’t the last we see of all of these characters!
I also want to say a big thank you to C.W. Farnsworth and her team for providing me with an early copy in exchange for a honest review!
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Reviews of C.W. Farnsworth books:
“Fake Empire” – Kensingtons #1 (ARC)
“Serve” (review coming soon)
“First Flight, Final Fall” (review coming soon)
“Real Regrets” – Kensingtons #2 (ARC)
buried in a bookshelf 