Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Audiobook: 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Spice: 🌶️

by Laura Hankin (June 18, 2024) Many thanks to @berkleyromance and @prhaudio for the gifted digital and audio copies of this very fun enemies to lovers book. Below is my honest review.

Natalie, a free-spirited aspiring author, and Rob, a straight-laced academic, meet when their best friends (Gabby and Angus) get engaged. They had a great conversation and were intrigued by each other, developing a fun best man/maid-of-honor banter via text over the two years leading up to the wedding. But at the wedding, Rob’s demeanor is different. Then she discovers that he is the person who just posted a scathing one-star review of her new book. Now she has to make it through the ceremony, speeches, and reception with that a##hole – with hopes of never seeing him again. But life doesn’t work that way. From vacations to christenings to holiday parties, Natalie and Rob spend the better part of the next decade in each other’s orbits, hating each other, being incredibly attracted to each other, and living complex, messy lives of their own. 

I love romances where the slow burn is years in the making, and Hankin takes Natalie and Rob through so many years where they independently grow as people and begin to discover what drives them. They each go through some tough things, and I enjoyed that we got to check in on them throughout so many important moments over the years. At the core of this story, however, is friendship, Natalie’s love for Gabby and Rob’s for Angus, and how these four people show up for each other. I think you’ll love this one if you like slow-burn, opposites attract, and enemies to lovers!

The audiobook, narrated by the author, is so fun! Hankin does a fantastic job, and I loved knowing that every sarcastic aside, cutting remark, and breathless confession was spoken precisely how she intended it.

What is your favorite trope? Not a romance reader, what’s your favorite genre?