A review by lezreadalot
Paper Love by Jae

4.0

“You can cook, and you can ink up a fountain pen. You might be—” She stopped herself before she could say, The perfect woman for me.

3.5 stars. I haven't read a Jae book in a while, and it felt so good coming back to this style of writing, with a good, character-driven, emotion-focused slow burn romance between two people who think they have nothing in common, but soon find out how untrue that it. It isn't quite enemies to lovers, but right off the bat. Susanne and Anja don't see eye to eye (literally; I love that Susanne is so much taller than her). Susanne moves to her uncle's small town to help out with his failing stationery store, and Anja is his loyal, long-time employee. The author really excelled at writing all those early parts of their relationship, when they're unsure and distrustful of each other, and then we see how those feelings slowly morph. They're both interesting mixes of traditionalist and modern, and it ended up working. Every new layer of mutual understanding, compromise and eventual attraction was really good. There were so many little moments that I was really smitten with, and I love when a subtle brush of hands or accidental touch can set me to grinning and blushing. I loved the friendship that they eventually cultivated, how it was written at every stage, and the smooth turn to romance. The stationery store aspect as a unique one, but very interesting, and while I couldn't connect with a lot about it, the characters' passion was well conveyed. There's also a really cute, bossy cat, and a fun side-relationship. I loved the small town setting and all the nuggets of German food and culture. I will say that nothing about the writing ever really struck me deeply, but I was still moved by the relationship, and their lovely chemistry.

Listened to the audiobook as read by Abby Craden; wonderfully performed as always. I can't critique her delivery of the German words, but they sounded pretty great to me. This was just so cute, and has me itching to read more of Jae's backlist.