Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

By Lynn Painter

Considering how much I adored this book, Jack and Hallie will be living rent-free in my head for a long time.

Hallie decides she needs to turn over a new leaf after a one-night stand left her searching for her bra in a stranger’s hotel room. She decides to commit to becoming an actual functioning adult. When she finds said one-night-stand on a dating app, instead of dating, they strike up a friendship…challenging each other to go on dates in search of love, but always at the same restaurant so they can meet for tacos after if it is a disaster. 

Best friends-to-lovers is my favorite of all the romance fiction tropes (see The Cheat Sheet and Lovelight Farms as shining examples) – throw in fake dating and one-bed tropes, and you hit the romance fiction trifecta! What provides The Love Wager with a unique foothold in the space is that we get to see Jack and Hallie become best friends. In most books, the setup is that they are already best friends, with private jokes and traditions explained to us as readers. In this case, we get to come along from the moment they meet to becoming best friends. From nicknames to taco orders, we feel it happening.

So, when they each realize and struggle to decide what to do with their deepening feelings, we get it because we’re invested in the friendship.

This book is sweet, steamy, and laugh-out-loud funny. If this is your first Lynn Painter adult fiction novel, check out Mr. Wrong Number, which is also excellent. If you liked MW#, I think you’ll fall in love with Jack and Hallie as much as I did.