These last few days I have been unfocused and not really in the reading mood; however, I did listen to this one and was surprised by how emotional it made me. Maybe it was a mix of current events too, but I genuinely felt angry and so sad for Ellie Wasserman.

A young widow to a husband she never truly believed she deserved and living with his parents three year later, she’s stuck in a pattern of feeling like she has to care for people to a debilitating degree to have them care for her in turn. She has her unbelievably self-involved parents to thank for that.

She’s a ghostwriter for cookbooks and she’s assigned hot shot chef Kieran O’Neill who is fresh off a reality cooking show win. He’s brash and playful, disorganized and, in her opinion, thoughtless. She’s frustrated when he doesn’t respond to her emails and when he shuts down while she’s trying to discuss his viewpoint for the book.

This leads to a huge blowup where the publisher sends them off to figure their shit out together and alone. Dear reader, I think you know this forced proximity will make them see each other in a new light. Indeed.

There’s a lot I love about this book and people-pleasing Ellie is the best. I get her on a soul level. I also weirdly love that our Kieran is a knockout short king. I can’t recall one romance novel I’ve read where the MMC is less than 5’11”. Kieran is 5’6”. I mean, he says 5’7”, but we know that means 5’6”. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.

I enjoyed this story and these main characters. Several of the side characters made me want to smash heads.