Not That Kind of Ever After by Luci Adams

This fun debut brings single life and fairytales into one frothy mash-up. Utter romantic Bella Marble has been a fed a steady diet of Prince Charmings and happily ever afters, partially inspired by her own parents’ fairytale marriage. She just wants one of her own, but life as a singleton in the age of swipe rights and one night stands isn’t easy. It doesn’t help that her professional career isn’t too fulfilling either, then her parents divorce and her best friend is marrying the worst, most bland guy ever. But then, Bella’s best friend suggests she pursue her writing dreams on the B-Reader app and it gives her some satisfaction in life filled with uncertainty and disappointment.

She turns her one night stand with a hairy-selfish-in-bed prick to a hilarious Red Riding Hood and the Wolf retelling and she goes viral. The validation and her friend’s hot, annoying brother’s (that she’s so going to end up with by the end of the book that it’s not even a spoiler) suggestion that she stop looking for”the one” and have some fun inspire her to go out and do just that.

From there, she goes through every princess in fairytale canon from losing her shoe at a bar to living with several crazy men in a flat-share and dating an out-right liar whose nose should grow and grow. Each date is more disasterous than the last which generates clicks but ruins her closest relationships as the bit of fame goes to her head.

Adams clearly has a lot of fun with her fairytale mash-ups, making it plausible yet amusing to read the kinds of men Bella bumps into. Plus all the chapters are 1-3 pages making it a quick read as you speed through the next hijink Bella gets into.

But this is more than just a romance book as the cover boasts as Bella’s character development is gradually built. It’s all about perceptions, and as Bella’s descent into selfishness brings up big epiphanies regarding her point of view of others and how she has foisted her fairytale romanticism on everyone and berated them for not living up to her standards. There’s also a hefty dose of the power of friendship and support in there too. As I mentioned she predictably falls in love with her best friend’s brother who gets on her nerves, but Adams manages to have Bella dance around that realization and screwing it up before they get together.

Loathe to Love You by Ali Hazelwood

This collection of three novellas, as you may guess from the title, share a common theme-slap-slap-kiss or rivals to lovers. Following three best friends, they’re splitting up for the first time to pursue their career dreams and finding love along the way.

Under One Roof features Mara, an eviromental engineer inheriting her beloved mentor, Helana’s apartment in D.C. close by her great new job in the EPA. But at the door, she’s greeted by Helena’s nephew who tries to buy it from her. Mara is already in love with the place and refuses to budge to this smug lawyer who represents the big-oil she fights against.

So in classic rom-com fashion, they come to a truce to live together. Luckily, Hazelwood forgoes constant arguing and allows them to come to an understanding early on, sharing their connection to Helena and the other one isn’t the heinous enemy. So of course, that leads to unrequited pining from Mara’s POV as she isn’t privvy to Liam’s thoughts, leading to sizzling tension when Liam announces he’s leaving in a few months. I liked the push-pull between the two and how the anticipation and wonder adds to the heat when they finally get together.

Stuck with You continues the trope of a couple forced to confront their undeniable attraction in enclosed space when civil engineer, Sadie and her nemesis, Erik get trapped into an elevator together. Going back and forth between past and present, readers learn this enclosed trap is the worst outcome for Sadie as her feelings for Erik run from attraction to derision as weeks before they had a one-night stand and his company used her pitch to poach clients from her company.

While I found their intial attraction believable and I found them cute together in a goofy, wholesome way in how he tolerates her superstitious quirks, I just found the idea that he’d fall so deeply in love with her in that one meeting that he’d forgo his work responsibilities and such just to cater to her to be unbelievable. Even for a romance. Still, they were the cutest couple out of the group in my opinion.

Finally, Below Zero, takes readers to the Svalbard Islands in Norway where Hannah is getting to do her dream research for NASA’s populsion labs. Internally proving to her nemesis and one-time hump incident, Ian (who refused her project’s funding btw to add to the drama) that she has what it takes, she sprains her ankle in the middle of stormy conditions. And only Ian is willing to go out there and rescue her, leading to a confrontation of what went sour between them. While it was a bit different from the others, and exciting with the whole Artic rescue, I felt tired of the slap-slap-kiss thing after the last two so this was the least interesting one to me.

Overall, maybe it’s just the shared trope and reading one novella after another but it felt pretty repetitive with the couples only getting together at the last possible moment, usually sealed with sex filled with huge appendages that don’t make up for the moment’s short length. Hazelwood has a thing for men with uncontrolled urges that hold back just enough from scaring off the petite girl. I got kinda bored of it.

A STEMinist fan will enjoy this cute collection that holds Hazelwood’s favored tropes of rivals to lovers, miscommunication and call-outs of STEM’s male-centered, misogynistic co-workers especially the bonus chapter features POVs of Ian, Liam and Erik. Non-hardcore fans may want to read them over a couple of months to avoid rivals-lovers fatigue. Honestly, this felt like the same couple with changed names/jobs/hair color over and over. Will that stop me from reading Love Theoretically when it comes out? Probably not, but Hazelwood’s tropes don’t show much range.

Lunar Love by Lauren Kung Jessen

Olivia Huang Christenson is thrilled to finally be taking over her family’s matchmaking business. Founded by her grandfather, the family has been using the Chinese zodiac to create lasting and compatible matches for decades. Tradition works every time. So she’s incensed when a new matchmaking company sweeps into town, bastardizing the Chinese zodiac and the meaning it holds to create a generic swipe-right, swipe-left app. Trouble is, the owner is the cute Brien O’Bennet whom she had thought she clicked with.

If the potential of competition and customer loss doesn’t hold your attention, Jessen ups the stakes as the two matchmakers make a bet on live-podcast that they’ll use their methods to make the other one fall in love, winner gets podcast primetime and advertising rights.

Anyone can guess whom the two will end up falling for, that’s not a spoiler. But Jessen creates a meaningful connection between them as Olivia and Brian, both mixed race, bond over their feelings of not being Chinese enough. There’s also a lot of great lessons about family tradition, the nuance of keeping your heritage alive but that modernization won’t ruin the connection one has with one’s heritage.

It also isn’t a matchmaking book without theories on romance in which the only thing one can agree on is that romance is unpredictable. Yes, compability is good in the long-run, it doesn’t mean opposites-attracts won’t work either. It’s all a throw of the coin and one has to be open-minded enough to enjoy the ride.

The book has some extra enjoyable additions with reading group questions, author’s note on Jessen’s personal journey about connecting with her mixed heritage, an author’s interview, the history of the Chinese zodiac and recipes! It was a really fun book and I can’t wait for her next book about the red string of fate.

Such a Pretty Girl by T. Greenwood

Now we take a break from fun rom-coms to tackle a novel about pedophilia and child exploitation. Well it’s based on those things, but the core of the book is about a neglectful mother-child relationship.

In 2019, Ryan Flannigan lives a peaceful life in Vermont with her growing daughter, Sasha, satisfied with her career as a movie star. Until the press comes swarming back again with the latest scandal of a pedophilic/sex trafficking movie producer remiscent of Epstein down to having a female accomplice sending girls his way. In his vast collection of pedophilia pictures is one of Ryan, sending her in a spiral of her past back in Greenwich Village in the 70s.

Greenwood transports readers back to gritty 70s New York with a deft flair that you can feel the grime of the cement yet magic of the movie-making. Ryan’s mother, Fiona, moved to the hip borough to try to reach her stardom dreams but it’s Ryan who gets her leading role. It’s a classic case of young mother who neglects her child to get her big break, often forgetting her to the point her boyfriend, Henri is more of a parental figure to Ryan than Fiona.

As the book switches between years, you can feel the sense of overwhelming confusion as Ryan sorts through her complicated feelings especially as it’s clear that her mother knows more than she had let on about the creepy producer.

The book focuses on themes of protection, how Fiona failed at protecting her daughter, how she did in some ways while compleating neglecting her in others, and how Ryan tries to make up for her experience when raising her daughter. Same with exploring beauty and objectification as Ryan’s pushed into modeling and acting, surrounded by adults who seek to exploit her in different ways.

It’s a haunting book perfect for fans of A Promising Young Woman and The Tale discussing the insidious world that touches the edges with the horror of real life monsters around us.