Lucas is trying to live his dream by being a writer in the big city, but as a fact checker, he's not getting as much done as he would like. A seemingly harmless one-night stand leads him down a path that he never thought he would be on, from getting called "Mr. Nice Guy" by the magazine's top sex columnist as an insult to attending some of the hottest parties where his editor also spends his time.

I would start off by saying that this book is well written. I like that it includes the actual columns from both Lucas and Carmen which could have easily been skipped over, but adds an extra flair to the overall story. Beyond that, I didn't like the story. More than half of Luca and Carmen's story is dominated by using sex as a weapon or simply a means to get ahead in a stalled career, things that are just no fun reading about. Add on top of that Lucas is dealing with the fact that his first real relationship blew up in his face throughout the whole book, making him look sappy and pretty pathetic, even by the very end.

The point of Lucas being Mr. Nice Guy is presented as both sides of the same coin--no woman wants a Mr. Nice Guy until she's had her fill of adventures with all the bad boys. It's a bit cliché, just like many other points of this book. It's not a serious book, but it doesn't have to be to still entertain in some fashion.

Things I could have lived without: a 400 page pity party for a so-called Nice Guy.

Where do I even begin? If you're going to give me a 400 page romance novel with one hell of an incredible premise, then DELIVER. Suffice it to say this didn't even come close.

I expected some kind of dual POV The Hating Game-esque kind of novel. Instead, 80% is from the point of view of Lucas, a completely self-centred and whining "Nice Guy." He wasn't likeable at all with how selfish he was and the oh woe is me act. And whenever we got Carmen, she wasn't much better. Then again, we barely got to sink our teeth into her. The narration was all over the place. We'd get one Carmen chapter for every five of Lucas's. Then we finally get a Carmen chapter, and mid sentence it shifts into Lucas or both of them.

From there we go on to the fact they have almost zero chemistry. Again, going into the premise, you expect something steamy. Anything to make you desperate to keep reading. I wanted saucy and instead I got week old gravy. Any time it got remotely intriguing, it would be glossed over or the chapter would end with Lucas "diving in." That's where you choose to be classy?? Not to mention you can kind of figure out which parts were written by the male half of this author duo.

And then the plot. Yikes, that was slow. It didn't get actually interesting until about 80%, and by then it was too late for me to care. The ending, while realistic, was unbelievably unsatisfying. Know your audience, guys. I don't know about you, but I don't pick up romances to be disappointed. They're guaranteed happy endings, and I didn't get that here.

It was good. There was something about it that was missing that could’ve made it better.. I just can’t put my finger on it. Overall I liked it. Characters were ok and the storyline was good. Just missing that little bit of oomph for me. Took me a bit to get into it. Thank you for the advanced copy!

This book reminded me very much of Sex and the city.
It was an overall entertaining read, but also lacked a little something for me. It was missing that spark and took a while for me to get invested.

Mr. Nice Guy is an entertaining read. I would alike this to a very sexual rom com. The book overall was entertaining and fun. I think it was fine and will only be for a certain demographic.

Unfortunately this story fell a little flat for me as I found the hero and heroine to have zero chemistry despite a good storyline.

So... I thought this book would be dual pov because of being written by 2 people, but it's only single pov. And that pov is the lead dude. I could really tell which chapters were written by the woman and which ones were written by the dude. Some chapters all he focused on was boobs and such.

The lead dude was also just boring and one of those ones that complains about being "friend zoned" (which isn't even a thing??) and how because he's a "nice guy" things should be handed to him and stuff. So, he's not actually a nice guy.

Thank you for the ARC. Unfortunately, I had to stop reading at 19%. I thought it was really awful. Found the lead character Lucas completely unlikable, unrealistic, ignorant, and sexist. His situation and the main plot also seemed farfetched and contrived. The narration/pov did not flow well. The blurb made this sound good, but I feel like I was baited and switched. Didn't work for me.

I finally got to reading this and it didn't interesting me. I read it all but it was an effort to finish it. The characters felt a little flat to me and the story I felt was kinda boring. I won't give up on this author but this was not for me!

Hot Pursuit by Rebecca Freeborn was an adventure with suspense and fun. A quick read about a love story. Hot Pursuit was well written and I loved it.

Lucas has recently moved to New York City to pursue a writing career. After one night of celebrating with some co-workers, he goes home with a beautiful woman. He thinks it went great. That is until he reads about his one night stand in a magazine! Refusing to let her have the last word, he pens a rebuttal and actually gets it published. The banter between the two of them goes so well, the magazine wants more. So, here begins the journey of Lucas and Carmen.

From the first 10% of the novel I was terribly bored. There was nothing drawing me in. The main characters were boring, the side characters were just confusing and the whole time I'm reading I'm questioning what I've gotten myself into!

I hate not finishing a book. I would rather force myself to read something awful, then not finish at all. But, I just couldn't do it with this one! I forced myself to keep reading after Carmen's article was published because it was actually entertaining and I wanted to read what Lucas had to say back to her. However, I couldn't bring myself to continue reading after this line:

"Carmen, for all her faults, would not worry about things like farting. Carmen was a pro. She could probably hold a fart for hours."


DNF @ 23%
Rated 1/5

Man, was this a terrible book. Based on the synopsis and cover, I thought I'd love it. But there were so, so many issues.

The first was that I was expecting a romance. This is not a romance. There is no HEA.

The characters in this are beyond unlikable. Maybe that's supposed to be a personality trait for people who live in New York? I don't know. What I do know is that every character in this book is a Grade A Jerk, including the hero and heroine. I don't get why he's called Nice Guy by anyone, or why that's the title. This should have been called Mr. A******. Because that's what Lucas is. To everyone. All the time. He's completely self-centered, obsessed with fame and celebrity and treats the heroine so badly at the climax of the book that it's actually shocking in this day and age of #MeToo that we're okay with a man talking to a woman that way and treating her the way that he did. Especially since the terms of their employment were that they have sex with one another. I mean, WT actual F is that?

Carmen doesn't come off much better. She's not a character you care about or root for or want to invest in.

This book moves SO SLOW. I remember at one point glancing down at the percentage read on my Kindle and was shocked to see that I was only 32% of the way in. Because it felt like I should almost be done. Nothing much happens plot-wise until the very end of the book. So you spend most of the book hanging out in New York at parties with a bunch of jerks. Maybe that's real life for some people, but I certainly don't want to spend my fiction time with that kind of crowd.

I'm sort of shocked this book got published. It is so bad and slow and boring and pretentious and I honestly can't even think of anything good to say about it.

I can't imagine ever reading either one of these "authors" ever again. Do yourself a favor and PASS.

So, the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the title of this book was the Alice Cooper song. I had this song running through my head the entire time I was reading the book. Too bad I didn’t like the book as much as I liked the song. Which was sad because I wanted to like this book.

I wanted to like Mr. Nice Guy. I thought the blurb was fantastic and described the book well. I was excited to read it. My excitement waned after the first chapter and was gone by the middle of the book. By the time I finished the book, I gave myself a mental high-five for getting through a book that was boring, unrelatable and unrealistic.

Mr. Nice Guy had a good plotline. Lucas is trying to make it big in NYC. Working as a fact checker in a popular magazine, he aspires to be a famous journalist one day. He needs his big break. One night, he picks up a gorgeous woman in a bar. Thinking it was an unremarkable one night stand, Lucas soon sees an article written by a sex columnist that describes their one night stand. Boring and inexperienced were the nicest thing that she wrote. That columnist is Carmen Kelly and she works at the same magazine as him. Lucas writes up a rebuttal signed Mr. Nice Guy and watches as it goes viral. Soon, Carmen and Lucas (who is still known as Mr. Nice Guy) are writing a dueling column. Once a week, they get together, have sex and then write about it. Nothing could go wrong, right?

When the book started off, I felt bad for Lucas. He was working his butt off checking facts but was getting nowhere. While enchanted with the City, he feels that he is getting nowhere. Then he meets and sleeps with Carmen. The article and his rebuttal launches his career into the stratosphere. Then I started seeing a side of Lucas that I didn’t like. He was selfish and self-centered. He gave little thought to his actions and how they would affect people. All he wanted to fame. And when he got it, he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Carmen tried to warn him but he didn’t listen to her. Towards the end of the book, my dislike turned to apathy. All his “good deeds” were done to ease his conscience. To be frank: Lucas was a huge jerk and I couldn’t stand him.

Not that Carmen was any better. She was bitter and it came across in her writing. She wanted to be so much more than a sex columnist and was frustrated that she wasn’t taken seriously. I thought her article slamming Lucas was awful. I did start to like her the more I read about her. She did care about Lucas, as much as she denied it the first few weeks they were doing the article. It was her interactions with Mira, her grandmother, that I saw a different side of her. A side that I liked. Towards the end of the book, I felt bad for her. She got the short end of the stick with what Lucas did. It cost her everything but she found her true calling.

I wouldn’t classify this book as a romance. To have a romance, you need chemistry. I saw none of that in this book. They had zero chemistry together. Zero. The lack of chemistry figured hugely in my review.

Going with the lack of chemistry, I thought the sex was bland and unoriginal. I also thought that them having sex for a magazine article was a mood killer for me. I like it when my characters spontaneous, unexpected sex. Not scheduled sex that was dissected in a magazine article. What also made me go “Eh” was that Lucas slept with two other women while sleeping with Carmen. One being a call girl and there was no mention of condoms being used. As soon as I realized this was happening while he was having sex with Carmen, all I could think of was “I hope he’s getting tested for STD’s” and “I hope Carmen is getting tested“. That wasn’t sexy or a turn on. It skeeved me out.

The secondary plotline with Lucas’s friend Nicolas was weird. I felt that it had no bearing on the story at all until the end. Nicholas was a rich friend who came in and out of Lucas’s life. Then, he started to figure more into it. Also, the same thing went for the storyline with Jays. Which tied into the storyline with Nicholas. It didn’t belong in the book and felt out-of-place.

The end of Mr. Nice Guy was meh. While I understood what happened, I was hoping, praying that there would be more. Instead, it was a lukewarm ending that halfheartedly wrapped up all the secondary storylines. While I understand not every book can have a happy ending, I was hoping for more of a resolution with Lucas and Carmen’s storyline.

What I liked about Mr. Nice Guy:

The storyline. It has potential
Carmen towards the end of the book
That’s it
What I disliked about Mr. Nice Guy:

Lucas. I didn’t like him
Carmen the beginning of the book
Lack of chemistry and sexual tension
I gave Mr. Nice Guy a 2-star rating. While I thought the storyline was interesting, I couldn’t get into the story. I didn’t like the main characters and couldn’t connect with them. I felt that there were zero chemistry and sexual attraction in the book. Also, Lucas having multiple sex partners at the same time didn’t do it for me. I was left feeling unfulfilled by the ending.

I would give Mr. Nice Guy an Adult rating. There is sex. There is language. There is some mild violence. I would suggest that no one under the age of 21 read this book.

I will not reread Mr. Nice Guy. I also will not recommend it to family and friends.

I would like to thank St. Martin’s Griffin, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review Mr. Nice Guy.

All opinions stated in this review of Mr. Nice Guy are mine.

**I chose to leave this review after reading an advance reader copy**

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Cute book with a likable male character which is a change from your usual romantic read. I thought the book was a cute, and easy fun read.

I really, REALLY wanted to like this book. The blurb sounded intriguing, the premise sounded right down my alley. I started reading and all of a sudden, I felt like I was trapped in a Tolkien-type pace. Tolkien got away with this pace because... he is Tolkien. When you are writing about the nitty-gritty of the media world, I am going to need you to move a little faster. I am not even mad about the ending.. I am mad about the pace. This felt like a grind, like a book assignment that I needed to finish. It literally sucked the life out of me. I think if you cut down the more unnecessary details, this book can be a real gem. As it is, I am glad I am done with it. Now I need a drink.

I honestly think ''Mr. Nice Guy”' is that kind of book anyone would enjoy – wonderfully written in a very entertaining way, griping from the very beginning and perfect.
Overall it was a funny, sweet, adorable romance and I'm crying because it filled me with so much joy, and hope and love my body can barely contain!

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. I have to say, the synopsis for this book really grabbed my attention, I thought the cover looked great and everything seemed right up my alley. As soon as I began reading however, something just didn't engage me with the story. I struggled with the tense, Lucas, and getting into the story. I persevered with the first few chapters but I found myself skipping to the end.

I enjoy romance, but only when the main male love interest is a likable character. I felt like he judged women way too much, and it turned me off from the romance. I don't feel like books need to be body positive all the time, but I'd hate to think that men judge women's bodies right off the bat.

All in all, cute premise, but not for me.

Mr. Nice Guy is a fun, easy read. That's just how I like my books. It's a good escape from real life when you just want to relax and not think too much. You can relate to the characters, we all know what it feels like to start our lives, Mr. Nice Guy does it alone, in a new city. He has to learn who he can trust, how to maneuver this new world, and how to take advantage of circumstances, instead of being taken advantage of. Keeps your attention and you cannot wait to find out how his mistakes and triumphs end.

Unfortunately I DNF'd Mr. Nice Guy.

I don’t like any of the characters and I’m a little confused about the plot and the sub plot and what’s going on there. I'm also bored and wished the story moved faster, 135 pages in and I feel like I'm in the same place in the story.

Thank you for the opportunity to review Mr. Nice Guy.