e-Audio, 10:14:49
Narrated by: Keylor Leigh & Malik Rashad
Release Date: February 28, 2022
Published by: Books on Tape (Berkley Books)
Read from: February 13-15, 2023
Stand-alone
Source: PRH Audio App
TW: Toxic parent/child relationship, Abuse, Lying, Alcoholism
For Readers Interested In: Romance, Books about Books, Black Romance, Epistolary (E-mail), Racial/Ethnic Diversity, AdultIn this heart-fluttering romance by Kristina Forest, a shy bookworm enlists her charming neighbor to help her score a date, not knowing he’s the obscure author she’s been corresponding with.
Shy, bookish, and admittedly awkward, Lily Greene has always felt inadequate compared to the rest of her accomplished family, who strive for Black excellence. She dreams of becoming an editor of children’s books but has been frustratingly stuck in the nonfiction division for years without a promotion in sight. Lily finds escapism in her correspondences with her favorite fantasy author, and what begins as two lonely people connecting over e-mail turns into a tentative friendship and possibly something else Lily won’t let herself entertain–until he ghosts her.
Months later, still crushed but determined to take charge of her life, Lily seeks a date to her sister’s wedding. And the perfect person to help her is Nick Brown, her charming, attractive new neighbor, whom she feels drawn to for unexplainable reasons. Little does she know that Nick is an author–her favorite fantasy author.
Nick, who has his reasons for using a pen name and for pushing people away, soon realizes that the beautiful, quiet woman from down the hall is the same Lily he fell in love with over e-mail months ago. Unwilling to complicate things even more between them, he agrees to set her up with someone else, though this simple favor between two neighbors is anything but–not when he can’t get her off his mind.
BETWEEN THE COVERS!
*This book is part of the new adult contemporary romance genre! It is more mature than YA. I have featured it in Between the Covers as a way to feature the few Adult and New Adult titles I am beginning to read!”
*MY THOUGHTS*
Ok so y’all know I couldn’t let this book pass me by! As soon as I saw it on the app I downloaded it. Kristina Forest is one of my favorites and it’s also about books? Of course I had to read this immediately. Although it’s a YA author moving to adult, I felt the usual iffy feeling, but I needn’t have worried. Kristina Forest does it again.
Ok so the first thing I liked about this was the book about books. I don’t know, they’re like my guilty pleasure. Books about books are my jam. And this one was pretty amazing because she knows the ins and outs of the publishing industry as an author. It was pretty cool to see the part of it before it’s a book tho. I also love that she had dreams about being a children’s person. As someone who once thought about publishing and in children’s things, I felt this in my spirit. Definitely relatable. Alas, I ended up going the librarian route so I didn’t have to move to NYC.)
I also liked the characters. Like I liked them apart, but maybe not so much together? I don’t know how to explain it. Like I get why he lied, but that doesn’t mean I liked it. I just didn’t feel like it was a reason to ghost her or even to keep that lie going. As for Lily, I thought she was the sweetest. She didn’t deserve any of that. *steps off soapbox* In all seriousness, I really liked her and I liked her growth too. She was a boss at the end. I was proud how of how she finally stood up for herself.
The romance itself was cute tho. I was a little worried about how Forest would transition to adult, but I shouldn’t have. It seemed to be seamless. The smexy times were open door, but it was only like a peep, which I was expecting. I don’t usually expect authors who previously wrote YA to suddenly write super smexy stuff, so I was happy it didn’t seem like she was trying too hard. But it did get smexy tho, don’t think she didn’t deliver. It just wasn’t alot and it wasn’t over done.
The writing style I was already expected to love. BUT there was a time when I thought it was a little bit slow. It was only during the email phase. Which is weird to me because I usually love those. But I think it was the fact that he ghosted her. Definitely had nothing to do with it, but it still annoyed me lol And this was a slow burn too. And y’all know how I am about them. I am not the audience for them lol But I did like this one.
The audio of it was amazing tho. I have listened to both narrators before. Malik Rashad has only done one that I’ve listened to and Keylor Leigh has done A LOT of audios I’ve listened to. And both of them captured the character they were portraying. I really enjoyed listening to them.
This book was cuteeeeeeee! I really hope she continues with the series. Like the sisters? Or even the friends? I don’t know. Whatever. As long as she continues lol I really liked it. It was very sweet and very funny. I hope you all pick this up soon!
Overall, I give this
