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Lift Off to Love: A NASA Second Chance Romance
- GenresRomance
253 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 29, 2026
About the author
Gina Giambalvo-Glockler
2 books1 followerGina Giambalvo-Glockler is a debut novelist with a love of romance, hockey, Taylor Swift, and shoes that are probably impractical but absolutely worth it. A proud Italian American, she writes warm, funny stories about second chances, blended families, and the kind of love that proves it's never too late for a great adventure. When she's not writing she can be found researching Italian designers, developing skincare products, watching the Philadelphia Flyers, and spending time with her rock star husband, drummer Nigel Glockler of the British heavy metal band, Saxon. Lift Off to Love is her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 26, 2026
Lift Off To Love will make you smile till your cheeks hurt.
Lift Off To Love follows Bella Genovese- a single mother, widow, and business woman- as her skin care company is picked by NASA to develop a cream for an upcoming mission. Bella expected a challenge, she got Jack Calloway. Jack is the sexy head commander, a single father, a widower, and a dog dad. He’s also her polar opposite. Is there just too many differences between them, or will they both get a second chance at happiness?
I know you can’t judge a book by its cover, but I’m gonna be honest and say that the cover was the first thing that attracted me to the book. Then I read the synopsis on NetGalley and I was sold. I love a good opposites attract love story, so I was really excited for this book. Before I say anything negative, I want to emphasize that this book was a lot of fun and I enjoyed reading it. However, there’s too much writing that feels like page filler. We spend too much time talking about Bella’s whole day with nothing noteworthy happening. I do not need Bella’s outfit explained every single time we see her, even though she’s a fashionista. I get it, I really do, but it honestly was a bit of a turn off for me.
Additionally, as much as Bella and Jack are opposites, they feel a little like the same character at times. They love all the same things, they’ve both lost a spouse, they both have two daughters. There comes a point where I was wondering, “are they even opposites? I think it’s just their outsides that are different.” But despite all of that, I still had a lot of fun with this book. Bella and Jack are cute, I like them together, and I really thought the ending was very wholesome. There’s a lot to like about this book, but if the author wants to improve in her next book, I feel she has her work cut out for her.
I rate it three out of five stars.
Lift Off To Love follows Bella Genovese- a single mother, widow, and business woman- as her skin care company is picked by NASA to develop a cream for an upcoming mission. Bella expected a challenge, she got Jack Calloway. Jack is the sexy head commander, a single father, a widower, and a dog dad. He’s also her polar opposite. Is there just too many differences between them, or will they both get a second chance at happiness?
I know you can’t judge a book by its cover, but I’m gonna be honest and say that the cover was the first thing that attracted me to the book. Then I read the synopsis on NetGalley and I was sold. I love a good opposites attract love story, so I was really excited for this book. Before I say anything negative, I want to emphasize that this book was a lot of fun and I enjoyed reading it. However, there’s too much writing that feels like page filler. We spend too much time talking about Bella’s whole day with nothing noteworthy happening. I do not need Bella’s outfit explained every single time we see her, even though she’s a fashionista. I get it, I really do, but it honestly was a bit of a turn off for me.
Additionally, as much as Bella and Jack are opposites, they feel a little like the same character at times. They love all the same things, they’ve both lost a spouse, they both have two daughters. There comes a point where I was wondering, “are they even opposites? I think it’s just their outsides that are different.” But despite all of that, I still had a lot of fun with this book. Bella and Jack are cute, I like them together, and I really thought the ending was very wholesome. There’s a lot to like about this book, but if the author wants to improve in her next book, I feel she has her work cut out for her.
I rate it three out of five stars.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I am very thankful to have received an ARC copy of this book via NetGalley from BookBuzz!
I had a fun time with this book! ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The idea of the plot was very creative and original. I absolutely loved the idea of the plot. I had read a lot of books, and I have not come across anything similar to this plot line.
I liked the ending of the book. It was a heartwarming ending that tied the whole book together.
I did think that far too much of the book was what I would call “fluff writing”. For example, there is a giant portion of the book where the author spends a lot of time describing the outfits and name dropping designer brands. It’s great to have that on occasion, but every time the FMC puts on a new outfit is a bit excessive. Also, I would be fine with the author saying something like “a flowy floral dress with red tennis shoes.” I don’t need the constant “a designer floral Gucci dress with red Prada tennis shoes.” (That is just an example that I came up with and not a direct quote).
To go along with the “fluff writing”, I feel like there was far too much of the day to day and nothing ever happening. For instance, she goes to work, then goes home. She talks to Carrie. She goes to Jacks house. That is all good stuff to have, I just felt like it was the whole book and nothing ever actually happened.
I also thought there was too much pop culture reference and new age talk / slang. For example, I think it is wonderful that the author loves Taylor Swift, but I don’t need it to be a giant part of the book. The infusion of the younger generations slang into the book did not really work for me. It just made me go “What in the world are they saying?”
I thought the characters were a good starting point, but I felt like they were underdeveloped. There was no real depth to them. Their backstories didn’t really tie in well to who the characters are. They did not show how they have made the characters grow into who they are at the start of the book. I didn’t get any real emotional connection with the characters. There was no depth there and there was also no character growth over the course of the book. The best way I can think to describe the characters is two dimensional, cardboard cutouts. The concept of the characters is great, but they are not fully flushed out.
I loved the idea of the romance between Bella and Jack. It could have been an epic romance. I was missing the tension and the chemistry though. Bella and Jack were almost the exact same character. They loved the same things, they both had two daughters, they were both widowers. There was no where they disagreed. There was no tension or strife to help bring in that feeling of chemistry. They were instantly attracted to each other and then were together immediately. Bella didn’t have to try and win Jack over. Jack never had to chase after Bella. There was no cat and mouse game to build up anticipation. I needed a tension to be created so that when they finally did get together, it was a much needed release. A breath of fresh air.
Along the lines of my no tension comment, there was no third act conflict. There was not problem / fight / argument that drew the characters apart to make them realize how badly they want to be together. I think Jack going into space was probably trying to be the third act conflict, but it didn’t really work. Maybe there could have been a spaceship malfunction to make you wonder if Jack will make it back. To show Bella’s reaction and how she truly does love him. When Jack arrives safely home, it would be the resolution to the conflict and you would be left with a sense of relief. Bella would run into his arms and they would confess their undying love for each other. That would have left a lasting impression on the reader.
For the writing style of this book, I feel like the author needs to develop what their writing style is more. It was hard to connect with the book and it just didn’t really flow well. I wanted it to be like rolling ocean waves and instead it was like an empty cardboard box.
There were quite a lot of grammatical errors and sentence structure errors. This book could really have used another couple rounds of editing. I had to re-read quite a few things because they were clunky and hard to understand. Also the use of things like “ha ha ha” were really detracting from the book. Instead of putting that in there, put something like “…Bella said with a laugh in her tone.” The inner dialogue that the characters had all the time throughout the book did not really work for me either. If the amount of inner dialogue was cut down a bit it would have been better, but as it stands, it was too much. Also, the way that we jumped back and forth between Bella and Jack’s perspectives was confusing. There was no break or indication that we were switching perspectives. It was one paragraph was Bella and the very next was Jack. It got confusing and I wanted some differentiation.
My last thought is that most of the chapters all started out the same. Bella is at home thinking of Jack. Jack is off at training doing the exact same things. They haven’t gotten to see each other or spend much time together. When a good portion of the chapters all start out with almost the same dialogue / verbiage, it gets incredibly repetitive and makes me loose interest a bit.
Overall, I did like this book. I did have a fun time with it. The idea of this book is going to stick with me because it was such a great idea. I’m not sure if this is the authors first book, but if it is, this is a good starting point. Also, I loved the cover art. It was great. It was flashy and drew people in. It was romantic and fun. I am hoping that the next book will be about Carrie and Mike. I would be interested in seeing their story. I did enjoy this book and am happy to have gotten the chance to read it!
I had a fun time with this book! ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The idea of the plot was very creative and original. I absolutely loved the idea of the plot. I had read a lot of books, and I have not come across anything similar to this plot line.
I liked the ending of the book. It was a heartwarming ending that tied the whole book together.
I did think that far too much of the book was what I would call “fluff writing”. For example, there is a giant portion of the book where the author spends a lot of time describing the outfits and name dropping designer brands. It’s great to have that on occasion, but every time the FMC puts on a new outfit is a bit excessive. Also, I would be fine with the author saying something like “a flowy floral dress with red tennis shoes.” I don’t need the constant “a designer floral Gucci dress with red Prada tennis shoes.” (That is just an example that I came up with and not a direct quote).
To go along with the “fluff writing”, I feel like there was far too much of the day to day and nothing ever happening. For instance, she goes to work, then goes home. She talks to Carrie. She goes to Jacks house. That is all good stuff to have, I just felt like it was the whole book and nothing ever actually happened.
I also thought there was too much pop culture reference and new age talk / slang. For example, I think it is wonderful that the author loves Taylor Swift, but I don’t need it to be a giant part of the book. The infusion of the younger generations slang into the book did not really work for me. It just made me go “What in the world are they saying?”
I thought the characters were a good starting point, but I felt like they were underdeveloped. There was no real depth to them. Their backstories didn’t really tie in well to who the characters are. They did not show how they have made the characters grow into who they are at the start of the book. I didn’t get any real emotional connection with the characters. There was no depth there and there was also no character growth over the course of the book. The best way I can think to describe the characters is two dimensional, cardboard cutouts. The concept of the characters is great, but they are not fully flushed out.
I loved the idea of the romance between Bella and Jack. It could have been an epic romance. I was missing the tension and the chemistry though. Bella and Jack were almost the exact same character. They loved the same things, they both had two daughters, they were both widowers. There was no where they disagreed. There was no tension or strife to help bring in that feeling of chemistry. They were instantly attracted to each other and then were together immediately. Bella didn’t have to try and win Jack over. Jack never had to chase after Bella. There was no cat and mouse game to build up anticipation. I needed a tension to be created so that when they finally did get together, it was a much needed release. A breath of fresh air.
Along the lines of my no tension comment, there was no third act conflict. There was not problem / fight / argument that drew the characters apart to make them realize how badly they want to be together. I think Jack going into space was probably trying to be the third act conflict, but it didn’t really work. Maybe there could have been a spaceship malfunction to make you wonder if Jack will make it back. To show Bella’s reaction and how she truly does love him. When Jack arrives safely home, it would be the resolution to the conflict and you would be left with a sense of relief. Bella would run into his arms and they would confess their undying love for each other. That would have left a lasting impression on the reader.
For the writing style of this book, I feel like the author needs to develop what their writing style is more. It was hard to connect with the book and it just didn’t really flow well. I wanted it to be like rolling ocean waves and instead it was like an empty cardboard box.
There were quite a lot of grammatical errors and sentence structure errors. This book could really have used another couple rounds of editing. I had to re-read quite a few things because they were clunky and hard to understand. Also the use of things like “ha ha ha” were really detracting from the book. Instead of putting that in there, put something like “…Bella said with a laugh in her tone.” The inner dialogue that the characters had all the time throughout the book did not really work for me either. If the amount of inner dialogue was cut down a bit it would have been better, but as it stands, it was too much. Also, the way that we jumped back and forth between Bella and Jack’s perspectives was confusing. There was no break or indication that we were switching perspectives. It was one paragraph was Bella and the very next was Jack. It got confusing and I wanted some differentiation.
My last thought is that most of the chapters all started out the same. Bella is at home thinking of Jack. Jack is off at training doing the exact same things. They haven’t gotten to see each other or spend much time together. When a good portion of the chapters all start out with almost the same dialogue / verbiage, it gets incredibly repetitive and makes me loose interest a bit.
Overall, I did like this book. I did have a fun time with it. The idea of this book is going to stick with me because it was such a great idea. I’m not sure if this is the authors first book, but if it is, this is a good starting point. Also, I loved the cover art. It was great. It was flashy and drew people in. It was romantic and fun. I am hoping that the next book will be about Carrie and Mike. I would be interested in seeing their story. I did enjoy this book and am happy to have gotten the chance to read it!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
✨Thank you to Netgalley and BookBuzz for a free e-copy in exchange for a review!✨
I absolutely loved the premise and plot line of this book which is what instantly drew me into reading it. I’m also a huge dog fan so knowing there were corgi’s definitely helped.
Unfortunately, I really did struggle with the writing style and I feel that there could be improvements there. It was quite chunky in places, a lot of grammatical errors, as well as repeating sentences and phrases which made it hard to stick with the story. I also struggled with staying in touch when it came to the descriptions of clothing, it read like a fanfiction which would be great, however, that’s not the goal of this book. As well as the clothing description, the anthropomorphism of the dogs also read quite young and like something out of Wattpad or AO3.
I really really wish I could’ve loved this book more, it had great promise.
I absolutely loved the premise and plot line of this book which is what instantly drew me into reading it. I’m also a huge dog fan so knowing there were corgi’s definitely helped.
Unfortunately, I really did struggle with the writing style and I feel that there could be improvements there. It was quite chunky in places, a lot of grammatical errors, as well as repeating sentences and phrases which made it hard to stick with the story. I also struggled with staying in touch when it came to the descriptions of clothing, it read like a fanfiction which would be great, however, that’s not the goal of this book. As well as the clothing description, the anthropomorphism of the dogs also read quite young and like something out of Wattpad or AO3.
I really really wish I could’ve loved this book more, it had great promise.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an arc
I unfortunately had to DNF this one.
After the Artemis mission I was really excited to read an astronaut romance but I just could not get into this. I think the writing made it really hard to be invested, there were many times there were repeated phrases or words, like "she was meticulous and meticulous in her work". This was so hard for me to overlook after the first few times. I also found the descriptions of every minute detail and the clothing made it hard to get invested. I can tell the author is a Taylor Swift fan but I also found that to be mentioned a few too many times. I thought the similarities between Jack and a real life astronaut on the Artemis mission was also overly much for me and made it read more like a fan fiction, but not in a way I enjoyed.
I unfortunately had to DNF this one.
After the Artemis mission I was really excited to read an astronaut romance but I just could not get into this. I think the writing made it really hard to be invested, there were many times there were repeated phrases or words, like "she was meticulous and meticulous in her work". This was so hard for me to overlook after the first few times. I also found the descriptions of every minute detail and the clothing made it hard to get invested. I can tell the author is a Taylor Swift fan but I also found that to be mentioned a few too many times. I thought the similarities between Jack and a real life astronaut on the Artemis mission was also overly much for me and made it read more like a fan fiction, but not in a way I enjoyed.
July 24, 2026
Lift Off To Love by Gina Giambalvo-Glockler is a heartwarming debut romance that blends emotional depth, humor, and a unique NASA backdrop into a story that feels both refreshing and deeply comforting. In this novel, we are introduced to the FMC Bella Genovese, a successful skincare entrepreneur whose business unexpectedly lands her at NASA, where she meets astronaut and mission commander the MMC Jack Calloway. One of the things that I loved about this novel was is its NASA setting. This provided an exciting and original backdrop without overshadowing the romance. Overall, Lift Off To Love was a delightful start to The Bella Pelle Series that delivered a romance I adored reading.
I received an ARC copy from NetGalley. Thank you for giving me the chance to read this novel and share my honest review of the novel!
I received an ARC copy from NetGalley. Thank you for giving me the chance to read this novel and share my honest review of the novel!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I picked up Lift Off to Love expecting a fun romance and ended up completely invested in Bella and Jack's story. The NASA setting gives the book a fresh twist, but it's the little details that make it shine: two widowed parents trying to rebuild their lives, daughters who keep them grounded, and two Corgis who practically deserve their own fan club. Bella and Jack have the kind of chemistry that sneaks up on you, and their conversations feel natural, funny, and genuine. It's the kind of book that leaves you smiling long after you've finished the last page and reminds you that life can still surprise you when you least expect it.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This was such a delightful surprise. The NASA backdrop immediately caught my attention, but Bella and Jack kept me turning the pages. Both characters are at a stage in life where they believed their biggest love stories were already behind them, which makes their growing connection especially rewarding. The supporting cast adds warmth and personality, while the details surrounding the moon mission give the story a unique identity. Funny, sweet, and filled with memorable moments, this is a romance that proves new beginnings can arrive when they're least expected.
June 27, 2026
It all started when Bella’s company was asked to design a skincare to help with the harsh climate in the space craft for NASA. She didn’t expect to fall for the skeptical captain Jack nor he her after losing their spouses. It isn’t long before their daughters and corgis get onboard with their relationship. It was interesting reading about the science behind cosmetics. This was a fade to black older couple romance.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital ARC!
This book reads like fanfiction, and not even really good fanfiction. I haven't even met the male main character, but I don't even want to.
Anyway, I got 10% in and had enough. That's not even talking about Bella's fellow employee, a rather unsubtly named Carrie B Shaw (we get it).
This book reads like fanfiction, and not even really good fanfiction. I haven't even met the male main character, but I don't even want to.
Anyway, I got 10% in and had enough. That's not even talking about Bella's fellow employee, a rather unsubtly named Carrie B Shaw (we get it).
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I only gave this book 4 stars because of the Corgis in it 😍🐶. But, overall the story felt like a cozy read for me and some parts of the writing had me questioning on whether this book would be a DNF or maybe rating. It’s not my favorite book. I just like how the author involved Corgis into the story.
July 6, 2026
Interesting and different than what I’ve read before. It was cute and while it started a little slow I really liked the payoff.
I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.
July 15, 2026
Loved reading the amazing and awesome story. When Bella and her company is asked by NASA to help with skincare, she is thrilled, and meets a handsome astronaut, Jack. Read the highly recommended and wonderfully written romance story.
July 11, 2026
Entretenido.
Me hubiera gustado más capítulo de los dos, después de que él regreso de su viaje espacial.
Me hubiera gustado más capítulo de los dos, después de que él regreso de su viaje espacial.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews