Can this sunny PA melt the heart of her grumpy director before the last take?
Landing a production assistant job on a Hollywood film is a dream come true for me. But this isn’t just any film—this is Adam Thorne’s film—grumpy director, king of sarcasm, thinks I’m an idiot extraordinaire.
My sunny demeanour clashes wildly with his perpetual resting bitch face, especially when I make dumb mistakes. We’re polar opposites, but no biggie; I’m here for one reason only—to see my name in the credits and prove to my parents dropping out of medicine wasn’t a huge mistake.
He can scrunch his face at me all he wants, but I know he secretly likes my Gandalf impressions. I know I saw a tiny smile under that broody facial hair... Add a rival PA intent on making me look bad and a leading actor who keeps undressing me with his eyes and I have my work cut out for me. But I am Evie Miller, and NOTHING will break my motivation.
But the more time I spend with Adam… the more I can’t stop looking at his stubble and those deep brown eyes…
And now we're on a location scout together and I'm seeing a different side to him... especially when the tropical cocktails start flowing. Maybe this guy isn’t as bad as they made him out to be?
Or maybe I’m about to mess up my big break in more ways than one.
The Last Take is a steamy, opposites attract rom-com with a Grumpy Hero and Sunshine Heroine that will make you laugh and swoon, with the sweetest HEA. It's Book #1 in the Hollywood Heartthrobs series, but can be read as a standalone.
Tabitha Bree is an author, crafter, and sometimes yoga instructor based in Melbourne, Australia. A long-time fan of chick lit and romantic comedies, she is happiest (and most neurotic) when creating worlds for her fictional lovers to frolic in.
Rules of a Breakup is Tabitha’s fourth (and longest!) book in her catalogue, and a standalone. Check out the Seeking Series if you’re interested in a rom-com trilogy.
Visit tabithabree.com to receive a free short story and hear the latest books news!
I liked the concept but the execution unfortunately didn't live up to my expectations. I would say it's for a bit younger readers, who are more into fluff without a bigger connection, there is one sex scene if I'm not mistaken. A few parts felt forced and awkward when they shouldn't be (these weren't weird situations they were just written awkwardly). I think if those scenes were edited a bit more, maybe even rewritten a bit my rating could have gone up one star. Dee was my favorite character and I would love to read her story but her book is probably written similarly so I will let it go for now and maybe come back to this series if I feel like it some other time.
2.5 ⭐️ My thoughts on this book are extensive and range from “what the fuck? NO” to “oh my god this is awesome”. We’ll start with the former. So…let’s not with the infantilization please, it’s really not cute when the main character is described child-like, it’s actually really really weird. Real life Jessica Day? Absolutely not. The version that got downloaded onto my phone (not the goodreads one) had a legitimate child pictured on the front. Idk who failed at the artwork but they did. Miserably. Moving on to the good stuff, Adam’s mannerisms and internal monologue reminded me so much of my own it was kinda spooky. I very much vibed with him and the spice was decent I suppose. Didn’t really get as into the story as I would have liked, but the antagonist(s?) were written well (Fuck u Kylie and Damon)
P.S. Hi Alicia, it’s Olivia writing a review at 2 am, I hope you enjoyed it
I really enjoyed this book. It's a pretty slow romance between a young, enthusiastic PA with her first job on an action movie set and the successful (but damaged) director. The reader gets to read dual povs. The story has some minor sub plots about both of the characters' families, and there are a few sex scenes. The information about movie making was very entertaining and other characters including a competitive PA, Evie's family, other workers on the movie and a homeless man added interest. This book has a nicely satisfying HEA. I'm hooked on this series and will definitely read more from this author !
Not a bad book, the writing style was easy to read and I enjoyed the secondary characters. I felt that there was something missing for me but I couldn't place my finger on what. I liked the vulnerability shown by Adam in the end and Evie's character got much better. I'm happy to have a kind, happy and quirky main character but that doesn't mean she has to be made to seem childish by adding unicorn doodles, glitter and pink pages to everything she does. I feel like once that was less focused on as the story progressed I liked the character better and could focus on her as a real person.
It was okay. 🤷 The tropes were there but there was just no relationship building, Evie was the bubbly version of a manic-pixie-dream-girl, and every story line felt half hearted. It felt like the beginning of every arc was told and then suddenly we were moving on. I think it could have been really good with some beefing up and proper editing. Partial DNF - I skimmed through the last quarter of the book.
Sadly, I don’t think this was the book for me. As I was reading it I just couldn’t get myself to connect with the characters or really see the chemistry between them either. There was some grammatical and language mistakes (British English and American English). I saw my way through the book and I will continue with the series. The second book is about the character I did enjoy the most from this one so I am looking forward to it. But I just couldn’t click with this one.
The story was fine, cute tropes and the premise would usually be right up my street.
However, did anybody proof read this book?! ‘Anecdote’ instead of ‘antidote’, ‘affective’ instead of ‘effective’ and the worst of all by a country mile is using an ableist slur mere pages from the end. Completely unacceptable.
Hola! Hoy os traigo la primera reseña de 2025, "The Last Take" de la autora Tabitha Bree. Tenia altas expectativas de este libro y la verdad es que me ha decepcionado un poco. No me malinterpretéis, está bien, es divertido, pero no tiene suficiente agarre. Me ha costado un poco seguir con el, a pesar de no llegar a las 300 páginas, pero bueno. No ha estado mal.
This was disappointing. The premise sounded cute but the execution was lacking. When the author compared Evie to Jessica Day, she set a high bar for witty banter that she was not able to deliver on. On top of that, Adam was a total dud. DNF
I really loved this book. Evie is such a dynamic character full of life and sunshine. I loved that I was transported into this book. I enjoyed seeing Evie and Adam's growth through the story both professionally and personally. A lot of laughs too!
It was all right. I wanted to DNF it after reading 90pages but then I realised it needed a second chance and after that I actually vibed with it. Such a quick read not even 3 hours. Easy to read and easy to like. 3.5star, even tho I wasn’t in my romcom moments I liked it. Xoxo
The book was a little slow starting you will never know it was a romance for about the first half but it was funny in areas and well written I enjoyed it
I liked this until the “break-up”, which was totally unnecessary and stupid. The end was also very imprecise and I didn’t like that they didn’t even think about their future together.
I liked it a lot but sometimes it felt too much, too forced and too rushed. It made me cringe so bad when they confessed their love, it didn't feel natural.
Easy romance read. Sometimes found main character a bit grating. Love s grumpy-sunshine trope but this sunshine felt a bit too manic-pixie girl sometimes that it was a bit tiresome.