Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady Scorned - An ARC Review of Sandy Barker's I Knew You Were Trouble

The fifth and final (for now) installment in Sandy Barker’s “Ever After Agency” series finds Poppy Dean, in her all Australian glory, not acting as London’s top matchmaker, as she has heretofore, but as an avenger, a love avenger, as it were. I Knew You were Trouble begins with Kate being approached by a very tall, very hot, and very Dutch stranger - Willem - who then proceeds to blow up her life in a decidedly un-Dutch and certainly un-British way. The Thor look-alike drops the bomb that Kate’s fiance, Jon, is also engaged to his sister, Adriana, who resides in Amsterdam. Kate’s initial reaction is dubious, as would be expected, until Willem, a cybersecurity expert, provides her with a full-on dossier of iron-clad proof of her fiance’s philandering ways. As Kate, buoyed by her cousin / bestie Margot and a few bottles of vino, combs through her whirlwind romance with Jon, she realizes she willingly ignored more than a few red flags about her (not a) pilot fiance. To add insult to injury, Kate matched with Jon through an agency, not Poppy’s, though she was simultaneously a client with her while she engaged a rival matchmaking company - Perfect Partners, who clearly didn’t vet this con artist.

Thus, Poppy, who narrates alongside Kate, is drawn back into the mix (as are all her coworkers, whom we’ve come to know and, at times, love - looking at you, Ursula) as Kate approaches her not looking for her real happily ever after but some good ol’ fashioned revenge. While Poppy initially balks, she is inevitably drawn into a scheme that not only calls upon her expertise as a former psychologist and current matchmaker but also requires her to go undercover to reel in Jon once it’s discovered that there’s another woman in the mix, Lucia, Verona-based artist and soon-to-be unwitting fiance number three.    

After experiencing chemistry with Willem at their initial meeting that has Kate asking “Jon, who?”, she takes him up on his plea to come to Amsterdam - in person - to prove to his sister, who’s in denial, that she not only exists but has been conned by Jon as well. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Willem looks like Chris Hemsworth and has a protective (i.e. alpha) streak and has been deemed, by the charmingly outspoken Margot, as the one to get under to get over Jon’s deception. So, straight-laced project manager Kate, who clearly PLAYS BY THE RULES, finds herself on a train to Amsterdam, her cousin in tow, to confront Adriana. After her initial disbelief, fiance number two decides she wants in on a revenge plan and Kate, acting in a decidedly un-Kate way, finds herself on the phone with Poppy, putting an Oceans 8-inspired revenge plan into motion. For his part, Willem is decidedly against going down the revenge route (men!) and spars with Kate over it. She, however, tamps down her lust and holds her own against the large and, again, hot!, Dutchman, heating things up even more for all their sparring, which, as we romcom aficionados know, is straight-up foreplay. 

When Poppy et al at the Ever After Agency realize that Jon has a third fiance to be in the wings, the revenge plot - and Kate’s fledgling feelings for Willem - is kicked into overdrive. Rushing to Verona to save Lucia from falling prey to Jon’s, well, Jon-ness, Barker treats us to both forced proximity and an almost-one-be-trope as Willem’s Airbnb booking provides fodder for Kate’s libido and our romcom-aginations (just go with it). Alas, Lucia has closed her gallery without warning, how very Italian!, and Kate and Willem are left to their own devices. The more she gets to know him, however, the more Kate realizes that her feelings are larger than lust, and she starts to heed Poppy and Margot’s warnings that IT’S TOO SOON to be experiencing such strong emotions about her fiance’s other fiance’s brother. Especially as she’s, ya know, still technically engaged to the lying bastard whose pilot cover story makes all his time away wooing a number of other women quite easy to do. Fortunately for us, this number now includes Poppy, playing an Australian non-profit manager to rope Jon into the revenge scheme that involves him donating a huge chunk of money to a charity that he’d be appalled by, if he only knew.

After more plotting and lusting (and plotting over how to be okay with lusting while fresh off a completely farcical engagement), Kate and Willem find themselves in Verona again. This time, they have a mere 24 hour window to convince Lucia, who’s returned home, that Jon is indeed a bastardo. Poppy and her team, however, realizing Kate’s feelings for Willem might not be the knee-jerk rebound reaction they initially warned her away from, have revisited the forced proximity from the couple's first weekend in Verona and upped the ante by deleting their reservation for a second room. Yup. One bed trope. For real this time. 

After easily convincing Lucia that Jon is a conniving manchild and that she should come to Amsterdam to meet fiance number two, Willem makes a move on Kate and oh how those floodgates open. Kate, living this new daring life in which seducing a modern-day Norse, okay, Dutch, god, is par for the course, makes her move. And it. Pays Off. For both her and the reader. Granted, Barker’s spice-level is more on the paprika side (seriously, why do recipes even call for this maroon imposter?), but she ups her game here. Granted, it's with a still relatively chaste sex scene that confirms that the chemistry between our MCs runs both ways, but I'm here for it. When the two leave the hotel, holding hands (swoon), lest they run into Jon and ruin the whole Ocean’s 8 revenge plot, Willem invites Kate back to Amsterdam so they can continue their round of sexual Olympics they began in Verona. And here, dear reader, is where the inevitable dark moment occurs. 

 After Adriana, who, heretofore, had been keen on Kate, is clearly more than chuffed that her fiance’s first fiance is fucking her brother (alliteration!), and Kate gets her own bombshell revelation that cousin Margot has been more than friendly with the jilted gorgeous Dutchwoman (Dutchess?), Kate has a meltdown. A decidedly un-British, meltdown in which she essentially declares that she’s just using Willem for rebound sex. In. Front. Of. Him. 

Alas, though it’s the death knell for what was shaping up to be Kate’s HEA, she realizes that her newfound sisterhood with Adriana, Lucia, and Poppy, who’s alter-ego Penny has pulled off the honey trap and convinced Jon to part ways with that extravagant sum, which is really just a drop in the bucket for someone like him: not a pilot or geologist or art enthusiast or any of the other personas he’s adopted to juggle his three (and counting) women, but a spoiled trust-fund baby. Yet, all is right with the world when Kate, speaking on behalf all the women, lays into Jon and he realizes that he’s not only been outed but also bested, now having to donate over a million pounds to an arts (gasp!) charity for the next decade. Or, all would be right, except for that whole Willem probably hates her and she’ll never find love again thing. Though she lost her man, Kate's gained a sisterhood and a new sense of self, which, at the end of the day, is probably worth more than experiencing nightly sexual gymnastics with a Marvel hero wannabe.

And thus ends Barker’s five-book cycle.

Kidding, of course. After Kate realizes that she should be on a flight back to Amsterdam rather than toasting with the ladies, she literally runs out of the London hotel and smack into a broad expanse of chest that belongs to none other than her very own Thor (in a callback to their meet-cute in the first chapter). Barker doesn’t string us along much more than she has to, which is a nice reprieve given how most of her earlier books in the series have seemed to, and Kate and Willem confess their feelings, get their shared HEA, and have a whole bunch of hot sex (that we’re told about, at least) in their epilogue. And Poppy, having successfully matched a couple after all, finishes her own arc that’s been building over the past few stories. She's finally pregnant, bringing her own HEA to an end, for now, at least.

Let’s see if Barker’s really done with her antipodal matchmaker. For my money, which, granted, isn’t much, I wouldn’t say no to another heartfelt romance featuring a cast of characters who’ve been fleshed out enough to feel like friends you’re okay saying goodbye to even if you really hope that you’ll see them again in the not-so-distant future.

Rating: 4 / 5 Multiples in an Italian Airbnb