Author: Catharina Maura
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 384
Series: Book #2
My Rating: ★★★★☆
emotional trauma, grief, relationship tension
After a messy divorce and desperate for cash, a woman agrees to a temporary marriage contract with a wealthy but emotionally distant billionaire. What starts as a business arrangement slowly turns into something real as secrets surface, lines blur, and their carefully controlled lives unravel, forcing them to decide if a relationship built on terms can survive once real feelings get involved.
I really loved the way this book handled the relationship between Val and Luca. Their banter was fun and sharp, and the running bit with her using pink sticky notes just to irritate him made me smile every time it came up. I also liked how the author leaned into Val’s insecurities about love and men and did not just mention them once and move on. You really see her work through those fears and slowly let herself trust Luca. The grief over her grandma was written in a way that felt very real to me, and those scenes hit especially hard because I recently lost my own grandma and could see a lot of my feelings reflected in Val.
There were a few moments where the emotional back and forth started to feel a little drawn out, especially around Val’s fears and Luca’s walls. It made sense for their characters, but at times I wanted them to communicate just a bit sooner instead of circling the same issues. Some of the heavier grief and insecurity scenes were also tough to read, not because they were badly written, but because they hit so close to home. It is one of those books that can feel a little emotionally exhausting in places if you are already carrying your own loss.
Overall, The Temporary Wife was a really good read that blended banter, vulnerability, and grief in a way that felt real and personal. I cared about Val and Luca and enjoyed watching them move from a guarded arrangement into something that actually mattered to both of them. The pink sticky notes, the teasing, and the soft moments under all that emotional armor made their relationship feel earned. If you like marriage of convenience stories with real emotional weight and characters who have to fight through their insecurities to choose each other, this one is worth picking up.