Tag: lynn painter

Cait’s Greats 2023: Contemporary Romance

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I’m actually surprised by how many I loved this year from this genre. I’m notoriously cranky about reading them. BUT HEY. That means that these truly are top notch. I hope you find a book for your TBR next year.

Scroll down to see which books are open, closed or sweet romances!

Note: I didn’t count any rereads on this list.

adult Romance

Open Door:

  • Whispers of You
  • The Love Wager
  • Final Offer
  • Wing and a Miss
  • Echoes of You
  • Finding Gene Kelly
  • If Only You
  • Pier Pressure
  • The Seven Year Slip
  • A Little Magic
  • Things We Left Behind
  • Shadows of You
  • The Right Move
  • A World Without You
  • The Takedown
  • Last Call at the Local
  • The Catch

Closed Door

/Fade to Black:

  • Speechless
  • Desire or Defense
  • Practice Makes Perfect
  • The Blonde Identity
  • Flirtation or Faceoff
  • I Got You
  • The Last Love Note

Sweet:

  • Eloise and the Grump Next Door
  • Merritt and Her Childhood Crush
  • First to Fall
  • Royal Gone Rogue
  • Betting on the Boy Next Door
  • Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder
  • Kissing for Keeps
  • A Class of Her Own
  • How to Kiss Your Enemy
  • Hello Stranger
  • One Last Play
  • American Gauntlet
  • The Pocket Pair
  • The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley
  • Upping the Ante
  • How to Kiss a Movie Star
  • Just Don’t Fall
  • But He’s My Grumpy Neighbor
  • Can’t Help Falling
  • Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind
  • Absolutely Not in Love
  • Cabin Crush
  • Emergency Contact
  • The One with the Kiss Cam
  • The Christmas Letters
  • The Duet
  • The Golden Goal

young adult/new adult Romance

Open Door:

  • The Deal

Closed Door/Fade to Black:

  • Tilly in Technicolor
  • Check & Mate
  • Even if it Breaks Your Heart

Sweet:

  • Running Barefoot
  • Safe Harbor
  • All Alone With You
  • The Getaway List

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ARC Book Review: Betting on You by Lynn Painter

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: YA Contemporary Romance
Length: 432 pages
Author: Lynn Painter
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: November 28th, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Better than the Movies, this swoon-worthy rom-com in the vein of She’s All That and 10 Things I Hate About You follows a teen girl who unwittingly finds herself at the center of a bet while working at a waterpark.

When seventeen-year-old Bailey starts a new job at a hotel waterpark, she is less than thrilled to see an old acquaintance is one of her coworkers. Bailey met Charlie a year ago on the long flight to Omaha, where she moved after her parents’ divorce. Charlie’s cynicism didn’t mix well with Bailey’s carefully well-behaved temperament, and his endless commentary was the irritating cherry on top of an already emotionally fraught trip.

Now, Bailey and Charlie are still polar opposites, but instead of everything about him rubbing Bailey the wrong way, she starts to look forward to hanging out and gossiping about the waterpark guests and their coworkers—particularly two who keep flirting with each other. Bailey and Charlie make a bet on whether or not the cozy pair will actually get together. Charlie insists that members of the opposite sex can’t just be friends, and Bailey is determined to prove him wrong.

Bailey and Charlie keep close track of the romantic progress of others while Charlie works to deflect the growing feelings he’s developed for Bailey. Terrified to lose her if his crush becomes known, what doesn’t help his agenda is Bailey and Charlie “fake dating” in order to disrupt the annoying pleasantries between Bailey’s mom and her mom’s new boyfriend. Soon, what Charlie was hoping to avoid becomes a reality as Bailey starts to see him as not only a friend she can rely on in the midst of family drama—but someone who makes her hands shake and heart race. But Charlie has a secret—a secret that involves Bailey and another bet Charlie may have made. Can the two make a real go of things…or has Charlie’s secret doomed them before they could start?

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC.

THE BANTER.

I absolutely think that Lynn Painter writes some of the best banter I have ever read in rom-coms. I LOVED the way Bailey and Charlie brought the slowly building tension through well placed snark and sarcasm with a hint of some real feelings.

The strangers to friends to lovers was super cute. I loved the friendship and how it took up a lot of the book. The slow burn was fantastic and I really felt the chemistry between them.

I connected deeply to the themes surrounding divorced parents, seeing parents in new relationships and that struggle to watch things move on around you and not knowing where you land. It’s a big sucker punch that I could understand the way Bailey and Charlie were working through their situations.

As a YA book I do think there was a bit too much language, otherwise nothing else bugged me. I think if I could have had a little bit longer chapters from Charlie I would have known him even better. There was something slightly missing from that angle.

But honestly, another great read from one of my favorite romance authors. I love her books. I love how easy they are to binge and just ENJOY. And this ending was real stinkin’ cute and I loved Bailey and Charlie.

Overall audience notes:

  • YA Contemporary Romance
  • Language: strong and high
  • Romance: make-outs
  • Violence: low
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: strained parent relationships, cheating (side characters), theme surrounding being a child of divorce

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ARC Book Review: The Love Wager (Mr. Wrong Number #2) by Lynn Painter

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Rating: ★★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 320 pages
Author: Lynn Painter
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: March 14th, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Two people make a wager on who can find love first, not realizing what they should be betting on is each other, in this new romantic comedy by Lynn Painter, author of Mr. Wrong Number.

Hallie Piper is turning over a new leaf. After belly-crawling out of a hotel room (hello, rock bottom), she decides it’s time to become a full-on adult. She gets a new apartment, a new haircut, and a new wardrobe, but when she logs onto the dating app that she has determined will find her new love, she sees none other than Jack, the guy whose room she snuck out of.

After the joint agreement that they are absolutely not interested in each other, Jack and Hallie become partners in their respective searches for The One. They text each other about their dates, often scheduling them at the same restaurant so that if things don’t go well, the two of them can get tacos afterward.

Spoiler: they get a lot of tacos together.

Discouraged by the lack of prospects, Jack and Hallie make a wager to see who can find true love first, but when they agree to be fake dates for a weekend wedding, all bets are off. As they pretend to be a couple, lines become blurred and they each struggle to remember why the other was a bad idea to begin with.

Thank you to Berkley Romance for the eARC.

ON FIRE.

That’s how this book made me feel. The banter was immaculate perfection and every single interaction made me giddy and weak in the knees. While I was initially hesitant from the one night stand starting point, I LOVE the way Lynn Painter turned this. One of the best strangers to friends to lovers book I have read to date.

Hallie is my favorite type of contemporary main character. A little rough around the edges but wholly understanding of who she is and being that person always. She was pure fun and light, while maintaining that sense of realness. JACK, stop right now, he was the swooniest and sweetest guy EVER. I loved how he just there. The texts, phone calls, showing up to help, traveling, you name it, Jack made an effort to be apart of Hallie’s life. I thought they had fantastic chemistry and I could feel the tension from miles away. The slow burn will absolutely put you in a chokehold. Everything was ramped up in harmony waiting for that final breaking point and ohhhh how I loved it.

There’s a small dash of miscommunication that surprisingly didn’t bug me all that much. It’s moved through pretty quickly and is overall reasonably dealt with. I actually thought it made those last few scenes even more rom-com magnificent.

THIS BOOK WAS JUST SO GOOD. READ IT.

Overall audience notes:

  • Contemporary Romance
  • Language: strong throughout
  • Romance: light innuendo; 2-3 brief scenes (low-medium explicit)
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: brief mentions of a loss of a loved one

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ARC Book Review: The Do-Over by Lynn Painter

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: YA Contemporary Romance
Length: 304 pages
Author: Lynn Painter
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release Date: November 15th, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

In this riotous young adult romp for fans of Recommended for You and A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, a teen girl has the worst Valentine’s Day ever—only to relive it over and over again.

After living through a dumpster fire of a Valentine’s Day, Emilie Hornby escapes to her grandmother’s house for some comfort and a consolation pint of Ben & Jerry’s. She passes out on the couch, but when she wakes up, she’s back home in her own bed—and it’s Valentine’s Day all over again. And the next day? Another nightmare V-Day.

Emilie is stuck in some sort of time loop nightmare that she can’t wake up from as she re-watches her boyfriend, Josh, cheat on her day after day. In addition to Josh’s recurring infidelity, Emilie can’t get away from the enigmatic Nick, who she keeps running into—sometimes literally—in unfortunate ways.

How many days can one girl passively watch her life go up in flames? And when something good starts to come out of these terrible days, what happens when the universe stops doling out do-overs?

Thank you to Simon Pulse and Netgalley for an eARC.

THIS WAS FUN.

Painter really does a great job with young adult contemporaries. They have the right vibe I love and the book is filled with some seriousness but also a lot of light and fun that brings a smile to my face.

“I fell in love with you on Valentine’s Day, Emilie, but I need more than just seven minutes.”

Groundhog day plots can go multiple directions for me. This one was super fast paced so before I got bogged down in repetitiveness the story moved on to the next day and the fallout arose. I was overly amused noticing all of the little Taylor Swift lyrics thrown in here. And there were a bunch of Ferris Beuller-esque antics that I enjoyed.

Emilie took her life by the steering wheel of the car she couldn’t stop crashing into Nick with and was able to really exhibit some good character growth. I liked that she found the strength to stand-up to her parents and speak her mind about changes she wasn’t fully in control of. Being a child of divorce I felt a lot of these sentiments.

It was a gorgeous story and the romance was SO GOOD. I adored Nick from the get-go. He was kind and a cinnamon roll. Totally obsessed with them. Totally obsessed with Painter’s books. This is easily another one to love on y’all!

Overall audience notes:

  • YA Contemporary Romance
  • Language: strong
  • Romance: make-outs
  • Violence: low
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: car wreck (nobody is injured), death of a sibling (off page prior to book, recounted), depictions of grief, divorced parents

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