Thank you so much to St Martin's Press for an advance copy of this!
Also thank you for the author Amy Buchanan for having me on your traveling ARC team!

This book will be out January 14, 2024

"I want you to pick me because you feel the same way I do every time I look at you."

Holy moly! This book left me with such a book hangover. I have not felt this way about a romance book in quite a bit. So I apologize if this review is all over the place or perhaps doesn't give you the kind of review you need.

To me what makes a great contemporary romance is you have to have great banter, great tension, just the right amount of spice and great side characters. And I felt this book had all this and more! I am such a fan of enemies to lovers in a workplace and this book gave me exactly that.

If I hadn't slowed myself down in reading this, I would've had it done rather quickly because I just could not stop myself from reading it. The pacing was great and the chapters were not overly long that felt like you were moving through the book. I could not believe that this was Amy's first book because it was so well done. We got the full scope of the main characters and the inclusion of the secondary characters were great.

Juliana is trying to restart her life after the sudden loss of her husband and having two young girls to care after forces her to go back into the work field. On her first day she meets handsome Ben and after hearing him talk negative about her (which we learn more about later in the book) she decided to make him her enemy. And for the next couple of years, they have these little battles back and forth but now an opportunity came for Juliana to work directly with Ben on a project.

There is a moment semi early on when the flirtatious tension begin that had me silently screaming as I was reading. "Dance with me?" "I don't think that's a good idea." "I think it's a great fucking idea." What is it about dancing intimately in a club that just gets all the feelings going?! I immediately ran to the author's IG DMs and told her how this scene was so incredibly SWOONY! And moments like this continue throughout the book. Juliana tried so hard to resist Ben and his charm. Ben is such the ultimate book boyfriend. He is smart, beautiful and really listens to Juliana and wants to be apart of her world. Juliana was scared to move forward with Ben because she still felt so connected with her husband and didn't want to lose that or have her children to think their dad would be replaced. There was the 3rd act situation that Ben could have been handled WAY differently to decrease the hurt and heartbreak but as any romance it all worked out in the end.

I love Ben and Juliana together. Their lives seem to blend so well together and we see that even before they are publicly a couple. And Juliana just seems so happy when she did finally let her guard down and let Ben in their lives. When you sneak in a man into your house while your children (and his child) are sleeping in their rooms, you know you are down bad! Ben never faltered in his feelings for Juliana. He made it very clear over and over and was confident that she would eventually fall for him. "But the next time I'm inside of you - and we both know there will be a next time - I won't be playing a character. You'll have come to terms with the fact that you want me, the real me, as badly as I want you." WHEWWWW

This book just really made me happy and I am sad that the world cannot read it until January. I am looking forward to rereading this in the future and being brought back to all the feels.

ALL THE STARS! 

Please put this on your radar!!