Terms and Conditions

Middle books of connected series are usually bridges; Terms and Conditions is a load test. Lauren Asher's second Dreamland novel takes the brother nobody warmed to in book one, a man introduced as a glacier in a suit, and runs the genre's most reliable experiment on him — the marriage of convenience, administered by his own assistant. The desk reports that the experiment succeeds, and that this is now the volume we recommend first to marriage-of-convenience readers shopping the series.

Declan Kane's grandfather left a will with teeth. To claim the company he has spent his life preparing to run, Declan must marry, and the clause does not care about his feelings on the subject, possibly because the old man knew he had none available. The only person who can stand him, professionally, is Iris Castillo, the assistant who has managed his calendar, his moods, and his relentless family for years with a competence he has mistaken for furniture. The proposal is exactly as romantic as a term sheet, because it is one: marriage on paper, appearances in public, her financial future secured, his inheritance unlocked. Iris signs. The desk wishes to note that she negotiates first, and negotiates well, and that her lawyer of a spine is the book's first pleasure.

The second pleasure is watching a contract discover it has a body. Asher runs the fake-marriage machinery through its full sequence — the performed affection that stops performing, the single hotel room, the family who cannot know, the in-laws who adopt Iris with a speed that embarrasses everyone — while underneath, two people raised to believe love is conditional (his conditions were achievements; hers, endurance) conduct a slow audit of the premise. The needle Asher threads is making Declan's thaw legible without cheapening it: he softens in actions long before language, budget lines before endearments.

Honest notices: the third act depends on a miscommunication the desk saw arriving from several chapters out; the landing recovers it. Heat is explicit and well spaced. Content notes for parental neglect and a manipulative family figure.

Who is this for? Marriage-of-convenience purists, assistants who have ever considered invoicing for emotional services, and readers who met the Kanes in book one and doubted this brother could carry a novel. He can. It required paperwork. The third brother's book completes the estate, and readers who finish this one already suspecting which clause his will assigns him are, the desk confirms, going to enjoy being right. Grandfather Brady remains the series' presiding intelligence — a matchmaker operating from beyond probate, and proof that the best wingman is a well-drafted will.