Category: Romance

Thoughts: Please refer to my post last year when Party of Two came out, but Jasmine is the queen of romcom stories. The Wedding Date series doesn’t have to be read in strict order, but it makes the books even better when you know the side characters. The story follows Ben (Theos younger brother for TWD series fans) as he kicks off a marketing campaign featuring a Hollywood star, Anna. The story has all the workings of a great romcom and creatively ties into the other books in the series with such ease. If you’ve already read the series you probably didn’t even finish reading this before ordering your copy. But if you’re a romcom fan and haven’t done this series, start it now!

Summary: Ben Stephens has never bothered with serious relationships. He has plenty of casual dates to keep him busy, family drama he’s trying to ignore and his advertising job to focus on. When Ben lands a huge ad campaign featuring movie star, Anna Gardiner, however, it’s hard to keep it purely professional. Anna is not just gorgeous and sexy, she’s also down to earth and considerate, and he can’t help flirting a little…

Anna Gardiner is on a mission: to make herself a household name, and this ad campaign will be a great distraction while she waits to hear if she’s booked her next movie. However, she didn’t expect Ben Stephens to be her biggest distraction. She knows mixing business with pleasure never works out, but why not indulge in a harmless flirtation? 

But their light-hearted banter takes a turn for the serious when Ben helps Anna in a family emergency, and they reveal truths about themselves to each other, truths they’ve barely shared with those closest to them. 

When the opportunity comes to turn their real-life fling into something more for the Hollywood spotlight, will Ben be content to play the background role in Anna’s life and leave when the cameras stop rolling? Or could he be the leading man she needs to craft their own Hollywood ending?

Thoughts: I love Beth O’Leary so it was no surprise that I enjoyed this so much. The story follows Addie in every persons worst nightmare, getting stuck in a car with her ex on the way to a mutual friends wedding. What I like about Beth’s style of writing is they’re the perfect light romcoms and don’t usually follow the typical positive love story one big drama then a happy ending flow. Her books usually start out with a weird tension and skip over the huge occurrence which makes them feel even lighter for me. If you’re looking for a light romcom with some funny moments woven in this is a perfect pick. 

Summary: Four years ago, Dylan and Addie fell in love under the Provence sun. Wealthy Oxford student Dylan was staying at his friend Cherry’s enormous French villa; wild child Addie was spending her summer as the on-site caretaker. Two years ago, their relationship officially ended. They haven’t spoken since.

Today, Dylan’s and Addie’s lives collide again. It’s the day before Cherry’s wedding, and Addie and Dylan crash cars at the start of the journey there. The car Dylan was driving is wrecked, and the wedding is in rural Scotland—he’ll never get there on time by public transport.

So, along with Dylan’s best friend, Addie’s sister, and a random guy on Facebook who needed a ride, they squeeze into a space-challenged Mini and set off across Britain. Cramped into the same space, Dylan and Addie are forced to confront the choices they made that tore them apart—and ask themselves whether that final decision was the right one after all.

Thoughts: This is the same author as Beach Read, and she brings the same light hearted vacation quick read to this. Two best friends started a tradition in college of taking a yearly trip together, but after a falling out on a trip they lose touch. They decide to take a trip together to see if they can/want to become friends again. The style of the book goes back between the current trip and then past trips which gives great insight of the history of their relationship and how they end up where they are. If you’re looking for a quick vacation read this was a nice light one. 

Summary: Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
 
Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.
 
Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.
 
Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?

Thoughts: I loved this SO much, the perfect light beach read. This had a great balance of humor, entertainment and the cliche romcom scenes you’d want. At Olives twin sisters wedding the entire guest list gets food poisoning, except her and the awful best man. The next day with everyone still down for the count her sister convinces them to go on their honeymoon so that it doesn’t go to waste. I love when books have realistic sarcastic humor and not just sappy movie style moments and this had plenty of them. Can’t recommend this one enough! 

Summary: Olive Torres is used to being the unlucky twin: from inexplicable mishaps to a recent layoff, her life seems to be almost comically jinxed. By contrast, her sister Ami is an eternal champion…she even managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a slew of contests. Unfortunately for Olive, the only thing worse than constant bad luck is having to spend the wedding day with the best man (and her nemesis), Ethan Thomas.

Olive braces herself for wedding hell, determined to put on a brave face, but when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. Suddenly there’s a free honeymoon up for grabs, and Olive will be damned if Ethan gets to enjoy paradise solo.

Agreeing to a temporary truce, the pair head for Maui. After all, ten days of bliss is worth having to assume the role of loving newlyweds, right? But the weird thing is…Olive doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, the more she pretends to be the luckiest woman alive, the more it feels like she might be.

Thoughts: This has possibly replaced The Wedding Date series as my favorite romcom book. Shay and Dominic work for a public radio station in Seattle and are thrown into the opportunity to host their own show. The catch is that the show is about dating advice from two ex’s, which they aren’t. They agree to lie about their relationship and host the show anyway to save their jobs. The story is relatable, funny and cliche in all the ways you want from a romcom, run don’t walk to get this! 

Summary: Shay Goldstein has been a producer at her Seattle public radio station for nearly a decade, and she can’t imagine working anywhere else. But lately it’s been a constant clash between her and her newest colleague, Dominic Yun, who’s fresh off a journalism master’s program and convinced he knows everything about public radio. 
 
When the struggling station needs a new concept, Shay proposes a show that her boss green-lights with excitement. On The Ex Talk, two exes will deliver relationship advice live, on air. Their boss decides Shay and Dominic are the perfect co-hosts, given how much they already despise each other. Neither loves the idea of lying to listeners, but it’s this or unemployment. Their audience gets invested fast, and it’s not long before The Ex Talk becomes a must-listen in Seattle and climbs podcast charts.  
 
As the show gets bigger, so does their deception, especially when Shay and Dominic start to fall for each other. In an industry that values truth, getting caught could mean the end of more than just their careers.

Thoughts: I ordered this right after finishing The Switch because people said The Flatshare was even better. I really enjoyed it but disagreed with most that it was the better Beth O’Leary novel. Tiffy needs a new apartment after being broken up with and decides to move in with Leon. Leon works nightshift so they agree to share the apartment (and bed) and set a schedule to not cross paths or meet. 

Summary: Tiffy and Leon share an apartment. Tiffy and Leon have never met.

After a bad breakup, Tiffy Moore needs a place to live. Fast. And cheap. But the apartments in her budget have her wondering if astonishingly colored mold on the walls counts as art.

Desperation makes her open minded, so she answers an ad for a flatshare. Leon, a night shift worker, will take the apartment during the day, and Tiffy can have it nights and weekends. He’ll only ever be there when she’s at the office. In fact, they’ll never even have to meet.

Tiffy and Leon start writing each other notes – first about what day is garbage day, and politely establishing what leftovers are up for grabs, and the evergreen question of whether the toilet seat should stay up or down. Even though they are opposites, they soon become friends. And then maybe more.

But falling in love with your roommate is probably a terrible idea…especially if you’ve never met.

Thoughts: If you’re looking for a fun lighter read I definitely recommend this! It’s a great twist on essentially The Holiday and the townspeople and side characters remind me of Gilmore Girls (which is high praise from me.) This was the ideal book to mix in after reading something heavy and was a lifetime movie in all the right ways without getting too cheesy. 

Summary: When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen’s house for some long-overdue rest.

Eileen is newly single and about to turn eighty. She’d like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn’t offer many eligible gentlemen.

So they decide to try a two-month swap.

Eileen will live in London and look for love. She’ll take Leena’s flat, and learn all about casual dating, swiping right, and city neighbors. Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire: Eileen’s sweet cottage and garden, her idyllic, quiet village, and her little neighborhood projects.