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Twenty in 2020
Love Again
Honey Fontaine has spent much of her adult life dodging her mother's attempts to marry her off, and has had enough. Her mother, having changed her own life by marrying into comfort and means, is determined to find a similar suitable match for her daughter, much to Honey's distress. At her wits end Honey decides to enlist the support of Ashley Elliot, a well-off club owner and determined flirt, who will pretend to be Honey's man. Ashley is not Honey's usual type, but she finds herself increasingly drawn to him and what a relationship with him could be like. When the latest of her mother's picks proves to be unexpectedly attractive to her, Honey finds herself suddenly forced to have to make a choice. Stability or passion, comfort or risk? What will Honey do?
432 pages, Paperback
First published September 24, 2020
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287 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
December 14, 2021
A quick and forgettable read which relies too heavily on over-done tropes. The characters never act their age* -- instead they are one-dimensional caricatures with little development.
*Tell me why a grown ass man is referring to a woman called Natasha as 'Nata-trash'? 'Na-trash-a' was RIGHT THERE! C'mon!
*Tell me why a grown ass man is referring to a woman called Natasha as 'Nata-trash'? 'Na-trash-a' was RIGHT THERE! C'mon!
April 4, 2023
great read!! got me out of my reading slump, it was British, there were some good unlikable characters, it was complex in a well thought out way rather than a coleen hoover way! just great, great characters, great length, great vibes 🤘🏻
December 27, 2020
I am really not sure about this romance, I loved the premise of a mother trying to find a husband for her daughter and the daughter wanting to find love instead, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations.
Honey is living at home at the age of 30, not able to afford her own place and her mother after having a rather difficult life wants the best for her daughter so is trying to set her up with 'suitable' (rich) men.
Honey as a character didn't feel 30 to me, she felt much younger, whether this is because she still lived at home I do not know, but it left me feeling confused about the book in general. I really liked Ashley as a character and his back story, but we jumped forward in time so much that I never really got to feel their relationship develop and Kevin as a character was too overdone and pompous.
The narrative switched between characters with no rhyme or reason so parts needed a reread, but i did enjoy hearing from the other perspectives.
This was a sweet romance, nothing majorly steamy and it was quick to read and I thought the family dynamics were interesting .
Honey is living at home at the age of 30, not able to afford her own place and her mother after having a rather difficult life wants the best for her daughter so is trying to set her up with 'suitable' (rich) men.
Honey as a character didn't feel 30 to me, she felt much younger, whether this is because she still lived at home I do not know, but it left me feeling confused about the book in general. I really liked Ashley as a character and his back story, but we jumped forward in time so much that I never really got to feel their relationship develop and Kevin as a character was too overdone and pompous.
The narrative switched between characters with no rhyme or reason so parts needed a reread, but i did enjoy hearing from the other perspectives.
This was a sweet romance, nothing majorly steamy and it was quick to read and I thought the family dynamics were interesting .
July 25, 2022
I would have DNFed this before the halfway point if I wasn't reading it for a reading challenge. It got better, thankfully, but the rocky start made it less enjoyable for me.
My hackles went up in the very first chapter when the love interest, Ashley, (who, at the time, the MC isn't interested in) offers the MC, Honey, a lift home then proceeds to drive her around the city after she specifically said she wanted to go straight home. Ashley is very pushy, even when Honey has repeatedly said she's not interested - not exactly romantic in my book - but somehow, she says that she trusts him and wants to embark on a fake-dating arrangement with him. There's another scene where Honey is drunk and Ashley tells her he is taking her home to his place - she doesn't protest, but he should have asked for proper consent - and the next morning, Honey is "relieved to find she was still fully clothed" which says a lot.
Ashley's story makes him a more compelling character later on but it didn't remove the bad taste in my mouth from the first few chapters.
The MC's best friend is meant as comic relief but I found her storyline irritating too. For starters, her nickname is Fatty, which would be fine if she was a body-positive kind of person trying to reclaim the word, but it's clear she hates her size and constantly compares her body to her friends' in a way that makes the nickname seem like fatphobic bullying.
Fatty gets offered a job as deputy manager of a restaurant because the manager fancies her, even though she never actually applied for the job and admits to the manager's face that she doesn't have management or restaurant experience (if I had been a member of staff at that restaurant I would have been enraged!)
Her drama with her on-again-off-again cheating boyfriend is badly handled, with the 'other woman' taking the bulk of the best friend's wrath, with slut-shaming thrown in too. There's an interesting dynamic between Fatty and her mum, but this wasn't fully developed so Fatty's mum ended up being more of a collection of stereotypes than a character.
My hackles went up in the very first chapter when the love interest, Ashley, (who, at the time, the MC isn't interested in) offers the MC, Honey, a lift home then proceeds to drive her around the city after she specifically said she wanted to go straight home. Ashley is very pushy, even when Honey has repeatedly said she's not interested - not exactly romantic in my book - but somehow, she says that she trusts him and wants to embark on a fake-dating arrangement with him. There's another scene where Honey is drunk and Ashley tells her he is taking her home to his place - she doesn't protest, but he should have asked for proper consent - and the next morning, Honey is "relieved to find she was still fully clothed" which says a lot.
Ashley's story makes him a more compelling character later on but it didn't remove the bad taste in my mouth from the first few chapters.
The MC's best friend is meant as comic relief but I found her storyline irritating too. For starters, her nickname is Fatty, which would be fine if she was a body-positive kind of person trying to reclaim the word, but it's clear she hates her size and constantly compares her body to her friends' in a way that makes the nickname seem like fatphobic bullying.
Fatty gets offered a job as deputy manager of a restaurant because the manager fancies her, even though she never actually applied for the job and admits to the manager's face that she doesn't have management or restaurant experience (if I had been a member of staff at that restaurant I would have been enraged!)
Her drama with her on-again-off-again cheating boyfriend is badly handled, with the 'other woman' taking the bulk of the best friend's wrath, with slut-shaming thrown in too. There's an interesting dynamic between Fatty and her mum, but this wasn't fully developed so Fatty's mum ended up being more of a collection of stereotypes than a character.
March 13, 2021
DNF at 61%.
A 28 year old who acts like a teenager and can’t stand up to her vapid, emotionally stunted mother and is in turn completely cold herself.
Honey self sabotages and refuses to give
Ash a chance despite claiming to be in love with him. Did he hurt her or do something to make her distrust him? Nope - she’s just a silly arse who has convinced herself he doesn’t like her - despite him literally telling her ALL THE FRICKIN TIME.
Her only virtue is how ‘beautiful’ she is - everyone tells her so and as far as I could see that was all she had going for her.
No doubt it all worked out how it was supposed to but I hated it by the
halfway point and thought she didn’t deserve a happy ending. Worst heroine ever. Urgh.
The only character I did like was London. The city. Just one decent female character would have been enough. They were all dreadful in their ways.
A 28 year old who acts like a teenager and can’t stand up to her vapid, emotionally stunted mother and is in turn completely cold herself.
Honey self sabotages and refuses to give
Ash a chance despite claiming to be in love with him. Did he hurt her or do something to make her distrust him? Nope - she’s just a silly arse who has convinced herself he doesn’t like her - despite him literally telling her ALL THE FRICKIN TIME.
Her only virtue is how ‘beautiful’ she is - everyone tells her so and as far as I could see that was all she had going for her.
No doubt it all worked out how it was supposed to but I hated it by the
halfway point and thought she didn’t deserve a happy ending. Worst heroine ever. Urgh.
The only character I did like was London. The city. Just one decent female character would have been enough. They were all dreadful in their ways.
August 9, 2022
Would not recommend this one, a quick read but very slow and flighty, I felt bored most of the time. The characters infuriated me and I felt myself rolling my eyes and their naivety and immaturity - it felt like I was reading about teenagers tackling adult subject matter, rather than characters who are actually supposed to be older than I am!
March 2, 2024
if I wasn’t on a plane I probably would’ve given up on this, the characters were so unlikeable
October 18, 2020
Flawed premise, some affecting scenes, not a stand-out.
I had very mixed feelings whilst listening to ‘Love Again’. Romances aren’t really something I dabble in much, they really have to capture me with a particularly memorable female or irresistible male. Too often they fit patterns that means they are predictable and just one of a very crowded market.
‘Love Again’ tries to be different. But I can’t say that does it any favours’ at least for me. Honey is 30, living with her mother and step-father still and her mother is trying to find her a husband. This both annoyed me and made the book anachronistic - this plot device would suit something set in a culture or a time where this was common. To bring Ashley into Honey’s life, where she persuades him to pretend to be dating her, to get her mother to desist with her suggestions? It just seemed forced.
Honey actually annoyed me, created to be a strong character but to me she just seemed prickly and slightly condescending. Ashley might not be Mr Darcy, but he’s a perfectly decent man, clearly attracted to her. Her rebuffs weren’t that realistic as the text even gives us multiple clues of her attraction that she too acknowledges.
With a gang of friends that every good rom-com has, Honey’s are outside of the usual mould, and seemed overdone to be as far from what you’d expect as possible, rather eye-opening in their appearance as under-represented groups. There are some stories there that actually caught my interest more than Honey’s.
Ashley had my sympathy. There is another potential love interest, a little too obviously unsuitable and the plot gives Ashley all the advantages, some directions stir emotion in ways that made me feel manipulated. With a few scenes that were affecting, Honey also changes her mind about her plans and every time you see it coming.
Maybe this type of book just isn’t for me, There is only so much you can do within this genre. As audiobooks go, the narrator tries valiantly with the male voices but you can’t ever forget that it’s a woman voicing them and I’m afraid I didn’t like the voicing of the men characters. The young women fared much better, and the structure and narrative style made this a very suitable choice for an audio read. It’s also fairly brief, and pleasant enough.
For me though, I couldn’t help but continually critique. I didnt’t like the idea or how it was carried through, and no one character took it above the average.
With thanks to Nudge Books for providing a sample Audible copy.
I had very mixed feelings whilst listening to ‘Love Again’. Romances aren’t really something I dabble in much, they really have to capture me with a particularly memorable female or irresistible male. Too often they fit patterns that means they are predictable and just one of a very crowded market.
‘Love Again’ tries to be different. But I can’t say that does it any favours’ at least for me. Honey is 30, living with her mother and step-father still and her mother is trying to find her a husband. This both annoyed me and made the book anachronistic - this plot device would suit something set in a culture or a time where this was common. To bring Ashley into Honey’s life, where she persuades him to pretend to be dating her, to get her mother to desist with her suggestions? It just seemed forced.
Honey actually annoyed me, created to be a strong character but to me she just seemed prickly and slightly condescending. Ashley might not be Mr Darcy, but he’s a perfectly decent man, clearly attracted to her. Her rebuffs weren’t that realistic as the text even gives us multiple clues of her attraction that she too acknowledges.
With a gang of friends that every good rom-com has, Honey’s are outside of the usual mould, and seemed overdone to be as far from what you’d expect as possible, rather eye-opening in their appearance as under-represented groups. There are some stories there that actually caught my interest more than Honey’s.
Ashley had my sympathy. There is another potential love interest, a little too obviously unsuitable and the plot gives Ashley all the advantages, some directions stir emotion in ways that made me feel manipulated. With a few scenes that were affecting, Honey also changes her mind about her plans and every time you see it coming.
Maybe this type of book just isn’t for me, There is only so much you can do within this genre. As audiobooks go, the narrator tries valiantly with the male voices but you can’t ever forget that it’s a woman voicing them and I’m afraid I didn’t like the voicing of the men characters. The young women fared much better, and the structure and narrative style made this a very suitable choice for an audio read. It’s also fairly brief, and pleasant enough.
For me though, I couldn’t help but continually critique. I didnt’t like the idea or how it was carried through, and no one character took it above the average.
With thanks to Nudge Books for providing a sample Audible copy.
March 7, 2023
Unfortunately this book was quite disappointing. The story line was extremely unrealistic and very disjointed. There was no coherence, one minute honey is in the cinemas with Ashley then the next minute they are having Christmas dinner together, there was no Segway or build up, literally jump cuts. The story line did not make a lot of sense, honey is a 30 year old who behaves like a teenager- and so do her friends. Natasha got pregnant with honey at 13 years old and remarried roughly around 20 and did not have any more kids (completely understand there may be various reasons for this)…
The writing was a little bit childish (I’m being generous with the ‘little bit’) and the scenes with fatty and her mum were very strange and unrealistic. Some of the outbursts the characters had were very weird and honestly, is not something a normal human being would say when having an outburst. It felt like this was a rough manuscript that was not edited well.
This is a very harsh review and I am a big believer in ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all’ however I do wish I had read a couple of honest reviews before purchasing this book.
Unfortunately I did not finish the book because I just simply did not enjoy it.
The writing was a little bit childish (I’m being generous with the ‘little bit’) and the scenes with fatty and her mum were very strange and unrealistic. Some of the outbursts the characters had were very weird and honestly, is not something a normal human being would say when having an outburst. It felt like this was a rough manuscript that was not edited well.
This is a very harsh review and I am a big believer in ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all’ however I do wish I had read a couple of honest reviews before purchasing this book.
Unfortunately I did not finish the book because I just simply did not enjoy it.
January 11, 2022
I simply could not stand the characters in this book. They are selfish, childish, and superficial. The fake dating trope is hit and miss for me, and in this book it's undoubtedly a miss. I think my dislike for the characters from early on contributed to the lack of enthusiasm for the narrative. While the premise sets the tone for an interesting story with relatable personalities, it doesn't play out this way and drags from start to finish. The dialogue in particular was frustrating, feeling awkward and unrealistic for the age and lifestyle of the characters.
Despite being the protagonist, Honey's story and background were the least entertaining. Ashley was the only character I could take to, but he isn't a voice I'll remember a week from now. As a whole, Love Again is disappointing. The setting is great, the writing is good, and the premise is okay. But the characters are irritating beyond belief, the development is limited, and the pace is too slow to stir up any genuine excitement.
Despite being the protagonist, Honey's story and background were the least entertaining. Ashley was the only character I could take to, but he isn't a voice I'll remember a week from now. As a whole, Love Again is disappointing. The setting is great, the writing is good, and the premise is okay. But the characters are irritating beyond belief, the development is limited, and the pace is too slow to stir up any genuine excitement.
March 6, 2022
I really thought I was going to like this quick romance but it let me down on sooo many levels.
The characters were too caricature and the tropes were overdone. They were very one dimensional & I feel I have read about them before in a hundred other romance stories.
The POV skipped back and forward with no real reason and added nothing to the plot.
A very forgettable read, nothing stood out and I have already mostly forgotten the characters names.
There was potential for relationships to be developed and family dynamics explored but it just….. didn’t happen.
Ashley was a good character - but yet we got very little of him and by the time he came back into the story it was almost over.
Really didn’t like how much fat phobic content there was for no reason??
Just wasn’t for me at all. But someone looking for a really quick romance that doesn’t delete into character development too much might enjoy.
⭐️ ⭐️
The characters were too caricature and the tropes were overdone. They were very one dimensional & I feel I have read about them before in a hundred other romance stories.
The POV skipped back and forward with no real reason and added nothing to the plot.
A very forgettable read, nothing stood out and I have already mostly forgotten the characters names.
There was potential for relationships to be developed and family dynamics explored but it just….. didn’t happen.
Ashley was a good character - but yet we got very little of him and by the time he came back into the story it was almost over.
Really didn’t like how much fat phobic content there was for no reason??
Just wasn’t for me at all. But someone looking for a really quick romance that doesn’t delete into character development too much might enjoy.
⭐️ ⭐️
February 17, 2023
Firstly, I find romantic novels like this very hard to read (not my favourite genre to read). The characters did not feel very authentic to me especially Honey Fontaine. She was actually annoying and whilst she was portrayed as some strong character - this was not conveyed to me very well. She liked the man, and I dislike games such as the one she was playing in this relationship.
Ashley Elliot was a likeable character - his back story and that of Fatty was very interesting and I would have liked these characters to have been developed and read more of their life story.
I do think the books is suitable for the YA section of the library.
Ashley Elliot was a likeable character - his back story and that of Fatty was very interesting and I would have liked these characters to have been developed and read more of their life story.
I do think the books is suitable for the YA section of the library.
December 6, 2024
A very confusing book with a lot of tropes thrown in and an unclear pace. I didn’t enjoy the sudden switching of perspectives and the confusing timeline. Honey’s avoidance frustrated me and despite not being too keen on Ashley to begin with, as his back story became more layered, Honey’s didn’t do the same. Some heavier themes in mental health to be aware of before reading this book, I’d steer clear if you’re especially sensitive but due to the weird pacing and irritating main character, I also probably wouldn’t recommend anyway 😅
May 22, 2023
This was a hard one to read. An even harder on to finish. I kept forgetting the characters were in their late 20s, basically 30s. The characters tropes were basic and childish. I think maybe 13 year old me might have enjoyed this better maybe. But not me of now.
February 25, 2022
So amazing to see positive Black Love!!
July 8, 2022
Was not a fan- not my type of book I don’t think, found it a bit slow and draining to read
July 24, 2022
Stereotypical characters written with little effort.
January 31, 2024
Really did not like this.
Thought it was poorly written & seemed very rushed at many points.
The MC was annoyingly rude and the whole thing seemed extremely unrealistic.
Thought it was poorly written & seemed very rushed at many points.
The MC was annoyingly rude and the whole thing seemed extremely unrealistic.
February 13, 2021
The book had some potential but the characters personalities especially Honey & Fatty seemed really childish to me. I had to quickly read through some pages as the story became boring, long and repetitive chapters.
I felt the author could've developed more on Honey, Fatty's, Ashely's and Honey's mum story a bit more. The love story between Ashely and Honey was very childish, their love could've been developed in a mature way as Ashely and Honey are both in their 30s.
I felt the author could've developed more on Honey, Fatty's, Ashely's and Honey's mum story a bit more. The love story between Ashely and Honey was very childish, their love could've been developed in a mature way as Ashely and Honey are both in their 30s.
September 26, 2022
This was okay! I wish there was more time for us to see the love interests falling for each other because sometimes with the way the author chose to show the passage of time it felt like loads must have happened that we were missing. However, overall I enjoyed this! Properly captured the complexity of relationships AND specifically the way British people date, it felt very real to me. I wish there were some more accurate content warnings attached to this though bc yet again I was faced with a very specific trigger of mine with no warning:(
May 8, 2023
Sadly, almost none of this book landed for me. The characters felt inauthentic, plot developments felt forced, and the prose was awkward. Strip away the cliches and I worry there would be almost nothing left here.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews