Starling Ranch Inn promises to be a tropical paradise, and Sybil can’t wait to escape there, all expenses paid. Well technically the expenses were paid—last year, when she was supposed to go to Hawaii for her honeymoon with her then-fiancé Jamie. But the wedding didn’t go as planned (or at all), and now she’s decided to use those hotel vouchers alone, before they expire.

Sybil’s expecting mai tais, med spas and me-time, so she nearly plunges backwards into the infinity pool when she sees that Jamie has had the same idea! His family business is thinking of buying the resort, so he’s here with a gorgeous, tangerine bikini-clad “colleague” to give the property a once-over.

Desperate to save face in front of the ex who broke her heart at the altar, Sybil accidentally-on-purpose blurts out that she’s here with her boyfriend. But what starts as a harmless lie to spare her dignity soon spirals into an ex-fiancé fiasco when Sebastian—the second of Sybil’s three failed engagements—pops by fresh off a photography gig. Seb’s always up for a good time, and happy to play along ...sparking unexpected jealousy in Jamie.

From snorkeling snafus to stunning vistas to staff parties at the beach, Sybil does her best to juggle two ex-fiancés, but it’s becoming clear that her past of broken promises must be reckoned with once and for all—including that first fiancé, Liam, the one she never talks about…

Is the notorious free-spirit, life-of-the-party, runaway bride Sybil Rain ready to heal from her three past engagements and make room in her heart for a fourth and final chance at love?

Ok. I’d like to preface my review by saying I watched Hannah Brown on The Bachelor and then I watched her season of The Bachelorette. I like Hannah! She’s fun and will never pretend to be someone she’s not. Well, except for an author. I think this is the first celebrity book I’ve read before, and it taught me that I don’t like the idea of ghostwriters. I know that people sign up for this. They go into things knowing that they are writing a book for someone else and that that “someone else” will be taking all the credit. I didn’t know I hated the idea of this until I was reading the book and trying to picture Hannah having written it and not being able to. I’ve gotten to know well enough on TV and then on social media to know that this book does not sound like her. Why did she need to write a book so badly? Like, if she couldn’t or didn’t want to write it herself then why have someone else do it for her? I just don’t get why this is a thing and why people then flock to the celebrity and say things like, “oh you’re such a good writer I loved your book!!!” and they feel confident and happy enough to say “thank you!” when they didn’t write it. I could never! The imposter syndrome would be too severe for me. lol. BUT that’s just me. I would love it if you shared your thoughts on ghostwriters in the comments below.

This book has some undisclosed trigger warnings that blindsided me and could be upsetting to certain readers. I consider these warnings to be spoilers, but I absolutely wish I’d known about them before going in and these aren’t even my personal triggers. If you want to skip my warning, scroll past the pink arrows and italicized words below and pick up with “Review time!”, which has been bolded for your convenience.

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There’s a lot of discussion about the main character’s previous miscarriage
that occurred before the book begins, as well as infertility due to her chronic health condition (PCOS).

These topics are broached without any warning and the discussions are
plentiful enough that they’re unavoidable. Please read with care. 

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Review time! Let me start out with what I liked, because I have some conflicting feelings that I’m struggling to organize. I did not realize that The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain is a companion novel to Mistakes We Never Made. I have not read MWNM and didn’t feel the least bit lost reading Sybil’s story, so go forth and be unafraid if you’re in the same boat I was in. I love a travel romance, and Sybil’s solo vacation really intrigued me. I wanted to escape to the beach, and I enjoyed the snorkeling and horseback riding and sunsets. The descriptions of the scenery were lovely, and I felt transported to Hawaii. I’ve been through a lot in my dating life, and the idea of making up a new boyfriend in order to save face in front of an ex-fiance is exactly the kind of idea I’d come up with but be too afraid to carry out. The fact that her fake boyfriend ended up being another real ex-fiance of hers was the cherry on top. This. Was. Messy! I’m willing to rip my hair out while I watch The Bachelor franchise shows, so obviously I enjoy drama. And the drama did its thing really, really well. I couldn’t look away and had to know how this all turned out.

But then… there were quite a few things I didn’t like. You can tell that this book was written for a celebrity influencer. There are a lot of brand names and discussions on content creating. Sybil is a content creator for a company that makes period panties and is not just in Hawaii to use her expiring travel vouchers, but to cover a blood moon for her company (because periods…). There’s a lot of talk of harnessing your feminine power from the moon and mentions of a holistic positivity coach when Sybil really should have just been in real therapy instead. Both Sybil and her most recent ex, Jamie (the one she’s lying to about her fake boyfriend), are extremely shallow and immature and go through no growth throughout the story. Sybil in particular is incredibly self-centered and feels she’s perfect and that everyone else she associates with is the problem. She takes no accountability for her choices and actions, and just when I thought she might grow up a bit she slid right back to where she was. I liked Seb, Sybil’s other ex and the one she’s pretending to date, but he’s a caricature of every free-spirited photographer I’ve ever seen in fiction and lacked the emotional depth he easily could have been given. I was excited about the promise of the fake dating trope, but quickly grew disappointed when it took a turn and ended up not being a true “fake dating” romance. This chaotic romance also leans very heavily into the miscommunication trope, which I never enjoy. The pacing felt very off. I got tired of the long passages about Sybil’s previous relationships that were oddly placed randomly throughout the story and threw me out of the present. I have a few more complaints about the actual romance that I consider to be spoilers, so I won’t share them… but yeah, I was disappointed with the ending and really wasn’t rooting for anyone by then.

All in all, this was a big disappointment for me. It started off strong, and I loved the summer vacation vibes and the promise of a fun fake dating romance, but was instead presented with a lackluster second chance romance between two characters who were way too immature to enter a relationship and some emotional content I wasn’t expecting that really dragged things down for me.