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A review by morgankreads
Talk Flirty to Me by Livy Hart
5.0
“The second time’s a charm, for us. I can’t do life without you, Piper Bellini. I’m tired of trying to.”
Absolute 5/5⭐️
I am so obsessed with this book! It’s the most perfect book ever for me, it has absolutely everything I want in a romance novel:
✔️ Brother’s best friend
✔️ Second chance romance
✔️ Childhood friends to lovers
✔️ Small town romance
✔️ Only one bed
✔️ Dual POV
✔️ Smart/nerdy (and HOT) MMC
✔️ Perfect smut-to-plot ratio
✔️ Perfect pacing: lots of buildup and tension but no abrupt ending
Premise: Talk Flirty to Me is a brother’s best friend, second chance romance featuring high school sweethearts Piper Bellini and Sam O’Shea. The childhood friends dated for most of high school, but a horrible miscommunication led to their breakup shortly before Sam left for college, also ruining Sam’s friendship with Piper’s older brother, Caleb. Now, seven years later, Caleb and Sam have been back in touch for the last year, so when Piper comes back home to help with the family while her mom is pregnant with her 11th (yes, 11TH!) child, Piper and Sam are thrust back into each other’s lives, whether they like it or not. When Piper’s dream audiobook narration gig requires her to have a male partner to audition and later record with, Sam offers to help her in exchange for her help securing her town-council-member-mother’s endorsement of his mayoral campaign. But working so closely together in her studio (aka her closet) to record their very steamy lines for the erotic audiobook soon has old feelings resurfacing and forces them to confront their past and what went wrong the first time.
Tropes (these are all the tropes featured that I can think of): brother’s best friend, second chance romance, high school sweethearts, childhood friends to lovers, small town romance, only one bed, forced proximity, work romance, professional quid pro quo
CW: high risk pregnancy complication (side character) but everything ends up okay
Some minor spoilers below, but nothing big and the detailed stuff is mostly all revealed in the first few chapters
Characters:
Piper Bellini is the only daughter and the second oldest child in the huge Bellini family. She has been struggling to break into voice acting, which is her dream. More than anything, Piper is incredibly devoted to her family. She does a lot to take care of all her younger brothers, and she is selfless to a fault. While I don’t have a strong family connection so I can't relate to her that way, she is still is very relatable and likable character. I can completely understand where most of her insecurities and doubts in herself and their relationship come from.
Sam O’Shea might just be my new favorite book boyfriend. He’s a sexy firefighter who women in town lust so much that he sold out the Merryfield County Firefighters calendar (hello, Mr. February), but he’s also a sweet nerd who did debate team and model UN in high school and college. He’s a very ambitious overachiever who is running for mayor at only 26, doing all the work himself while still working full time as a fireman, recording the audiobook with Piper, and dealing with the pressure and expectations from his fire-chief-father. He’s very protective and there are multiple moments where he shows up to take care of and help Piper and her family. He’s just the right balance between being confident and bashful, and he has some wonderful little jealous and possessive moments that don’t go too far to be obnoxious but still show he cares. This isn’t to say he’s perfect; he’s got some issues communicating and a tendency to take on more than he can handle, but he’s so sweet and shows great growth with their relationship.
The Romance:
I already am generally a bit of a sucker for a second chance romance, but it’s definitely the kind of trope that has to be just right for it to work. This? This was just right.
It’s not super explicitly established, but it sounds like Piper and Sam were each other’s first kiss when they were around 14/16-ish, and they then dated for the majority of high school. During their 2 year teenage relationship, despite the bliss, they never got to the point where they actually had sex (though they certainly did everything but) or said ‘I love you’ to each other (despite both admitting they felt it). Then came the very unfortunate misunderstanding about whether they were taking a break or breaking up (yes, cue the Friends reference). Very Ross and Rachel style, Piper told Sam that they should take a break, but miscommunications between them (and their friends because it’s high school) made Sam think that she actually meant for them to break up. Devastated about the apparent break up, Sam ends up kissing a mutual friend of theirs, which Piper sees but thinks went farther than just kissing (which had to have hurt so much worse considering they seemingly had been waiting on their first times together and she would have thought that he not only cheated, but cheated by having his first time with someone else, which they clearly viewed as a big enough deal to be waiting for so long). While I generally am really annoyed by a miscommunication trope for a breakup, that being the reason for their high school breakup works perfectly. Ultimately, they were teenagers, 16 and 18ish, so their breakup being because they were simply young and stupid rather than either of them really doing anything wrong works well for a second chance romance.
When the two first start spending time together again, their past hurt leads to fantastic banter and tension. The couple has palpable chemistry and you can’t help but root for them with how clear their love and desire for each other are. When they finally have a chance to talk about what happened when they were teenagers and they get to hear each other’s side of the story, Sam feels horrible for his mistake and he apologizes and owns up to his part in what happened. Still, they both try to fight their feelings, scared of getting hurt again. But the forced proximity of working together and the added tension of recording the smutty audiobook together, hearing each other say things they wish they could say and do to each other for real, gets to be too much and when they end up stuck in a storm and sharing a bed, they finally give in. (More on those scenes in a moment.) It was really nice to see them genuinely try to figure out how to fix what went wrong the first time around and work through their problems. You get to see them both get advice from their friends and her family and it felt very real watching them try to figure out how to balance their budding relationship with all their career and family drama.
The Spice: The spice is a solid 3/5
Absolute 5/5⭐️
I am so obsessed with this book! It’s the most perfect book ever for me, it has absolutely everything I want in a romance novel:
✔️ Brother’s best friend
✔️ Second chance romance
✔️ Childhood friends to lovers
✔️ Small town romance
✔️ Only one bed
✔️ Dual POV
✔️ Smart/nerdy (and HOT) MMC
✔️ Perfect smut-to-plot ratio
✔️ Perfect pacing: lots of buildup and tension but no abrupt ending
Premise: Talk Flirty to Me is a brother’s best friend, second chance romance featuring high school sweethearts Piper Bellini and Sam O’Shea. The childhood friends dated for most of high school, but a horrible miscommunication led to their breakup shortly before Sam left for college, also ruining Sam’s friendship with Piper’s older brother, Caleb. Now, seven years later, Caleb and Sam have been back in touch for the last year, so when Piper comes back home to help with the family while her mom is pregnant with her 11th (yes, 11TH!) child, Piper and Sam are thrust back into each other’s lives, whether they like it or not. When Piper’s dream audiobook narration gig requires her to have a male partner to audition and later record with, Sam offers to help her in exchange for her help securing her town-council-member-mother’s endorsement of his mayoral campaign. But working so closely together in her studio (aka her closet) to record their very steamy lines for the erotic audiobook soon has old feelings resurfacing and forces them to confront their past and what went wrong the first time.
Tropes (these are all the tropes featured that I can think of): brother’s best friend, second chance romance, high school sweethearts, childhood friends to lovers, small town romance, only one bed, forced proximity, work romance, professional quid pro quo
CW: high risk pregnancy complication (side character) but everything ends up okay
Some minor spoilers below, but nothing big and the detailed stuff is mostly all revealed in the first few chapters
Characters:
Piper Bellini is the only daughter and the second oldest child in the huge Bellini family. She has been struggling to break into voice acting, which is her dream. More than anything, Piper is incredibly devoted to her family. She does a lot to take care of all her younger brothers, and she is selfless to a fault. While I don’t have a strong family connection so I can't relate to her that way, she is still is very relatable and likable character. I can completely understand where most of her insecurities and doubts in herself and their relationship come from.
Sam O’Shea might just be my new favorite book boyfriend. He’s a sexy firefighter who women in town lust so much that he sold out the Merryfield County Firefighters calendar (hello, Mr. February), but he’s also a sweet nerd who did debate team and model UN in high school and college. He’s a very ambitious overachiever who is running for mayor at only 26, doing all the work himself while still working full time as a fireman, recording the audiobook with Piper, and dealing with the pressure and expectations from his fire-chief-father. He’s very protective and there are multiple moments where he shows up to take care of and help Piper and her family. He’s just the right balance between being confident and bashful, and he has some wonderful little jealous and possessive moments that don’t go too far to be obnoxious but still show he cares. This isn’t to say he’s perfect; he’s got some issues communicating and a tendency to take on more than he can handle, but he’s so sweet and shows great growth with their relationship.
The Romance:
I already am generally a bit of a sucker for a second chance romance, but it’s definitely the kind of trope that has to be just right for it to work. This? This was just right.
It’s not super explicitly established, but it sounds like Piper and Sam were each other’s first kiss when they were around 14/16-ish, and they then dated for the majority of high school. During their 2 year teenage relationship, despite the bliss, they never got to the point where they actually had sex (though they certainly did everything but) or said ‘I love you’ to each other (despite both admitting they felt it). Then came the very unfortunate misunderstanding about whether they were taking a break or breaking up (yes, cue the Friends reference). Very Ross and Rachel style, Piper told Sam that they should take a break, but miscommunications between them (and their friends because it’s high school) made Sam think that she actually meant for them to break up. Devastated about the apparent break up, Sam ends up kissing a mutual friend of theirs, which Piper sees but thinks went farther than just kissing (which had to have hurt so much worse considering they seemingly had been waiting on their first times together and she would have thought that he not only cheated, but cheated by having his first time with someone else, which they clearly viewed as a big enough deal to be waiting for so long). While I generally am really annoyed by a miscommunication trope for a breakup, that being the reason for their high school breakup works perfectly. Ultimately, they were teenagers, 16 and 18ish, so their breakup being because they were simply young and stupid rather than either of them really doing anything wrong works well for a second chance romance.
When the two first start spending time together again, their past hurt leads to fantastic banter and tension. The couple has palpable chemistry and you can’t help but root for them with how clear their love and desire for each other are. When they finally have a chance to talk about what happened when they were teenagers and they get to hear each other’s side of the story, Sam feels horrible for his mistake and he apologizes and owns up to his part in what happened. Still, they both try to fight their feelings, scared of getting hurt again. But the forced proximity of working together and the added tension of recording the smutty audiobook together, hearing each other say things they wish they could say and do to each other for real, gets to be too much and when they end up stuck in a storm and sharing a bed, they finally give in. (More on those scenes in a moment.) It was really nice to see them genuinely try to figure out how to fix what went wrong the first time around and work through their problems. You get to see them both get advice from their friends and her family and it felt very real watching them try to figure out how to balance their budding relationship with all their career and family drama.
The Spice: The spice is a solid 3/5