Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Behind the Scenes

Rose Josten has a busy life between her job, her sisters, her pugs, and her secret life as a sexy ASME voice. When she is contacted to help a movie director named Ash with a movie pitch, her life is upended. Ash is a beautiful, if broken, woman Rose falls head over heels in love with. Can their love handle the trauma of their respective pasts and the hurdles they must jump together?

This was a cute little rom-com with some serious topics including sexual dysfunction due to trauma and fear stemming from a parent's death. I enjoy a story where the characters don't have perfect lives, although it may seem they do. The attraction the characters feel is real and they are so sweet to each other. Their best interactions are when they are sitting down with some food and just getting to know each other. The love scenes are well-done and just getting to know each other. The love scenes are well done and add just the right amount of space. I would love to read more by this author with her charming storytelling.

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legalplanner's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

First of all, yay older main characters who are starting to feel the pressure of that age even if society isn't actually pushing us at all. Second of all, this had amazing trauma representation. Third, this was a great slow burn.

I found our characters to be fun to read as they were total opposites. We had the buttoned-up executive and the free-spirited director. Despite or in spite of their differences they begin to realize that their attraction is major and cannot be ignored which was the whole slow burn in this. I was 70% through the book and even though it was a "romance" I wasn't missing anything, but I did want them to say how they were feeling to one another better. But seriously, I haven't read a slow burn that burned like incents and still made me turn page after page even if nothing happened.

The trauma in this book was amazingly well done, it wasn't a quick oh this happened and I'm over it and yay happy! Instead, we saw the real version of trauma and heartbreak through Ash who allowed us to see that it actually can be very difficult to get over things and it is not linear.

Age, can we talk about how almost every romance feels like 20 somethings or elder adults like 50? To find that nice in between where we're all starting to freak out about getting old and not being where we want to be, but wanting to be in a secure job is seriously what made me fall for these characters more than I did.

I was very impressed by this read as it wouldn't be something I normally went for (slow burns take me forever to read).

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meaghancook's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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sylsbookcorner's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was so stinking cute, I couldn’t put it down! The way we see Ash and Rose work through and process their individual traumas for the sake of their relationship is so beautiful and genuine, and the quips especially from the sisters had me rolling. Seeing the couple from Satisfaction Guaranteed was a lovely touch, which was a cherry on top of a gem of a story.

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brittttbee's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

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mollysbooklist's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

Loved this book!

It’s equal parts funny and emotional but not overly done.

The narrator was great too. Lori Prince was great with her timing.

Thanks to Forever Publishing for the physical arc in exchange for my honest review. I was enjoying the book so much I bought the audiobook so I could keep going while I did chores today.

Trigger warnings: airplane phobia, parent loss, car accident, female sexual dysfunction, and ablism by side character in the past

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kbweis's review against another edition

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emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

just like an extremely average sapphic romance for me. i appreciate the fact that we’re in a place where i can say that i just thought this was kind of boring and that we can have boring sapphic romances. i just didn’t feel particularly attached to either of the romantic leads and i didn’t feel that much chemistry between them either. maybe this is a me problem. i also read satisfaction guaranteed from the same author and thought that was also pretty middle of the road, so maybe stetz-waters just isn’t for me :/

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