On the Corner of Love and Hate is a small town, enemies-to-lovers romance featuring childhood friends turned enemies Emma Peroni and Cooper Endicott. Emma's father (outgoing mayor) talks her into being Cooper's campaign manager in an effort to revamp his shady ladies-man image and help him get elected as the next town mayor. Emma reluctantly agrees to it even though she continues to hold a long-time grudge against the man who once broke her heart. As they begin working together, the sarcastic remarks fly . . . and so do the sparks!

One of my favorite tropes in romance is small town and enemies-to-lovers! The author does a great job with setting up a small town scene, including the prevalence of everybody-knows-everything-about-everybody atmosphere . . . a town where it's hard to outrun your past mistakes as you're constantly reminded of them. The town people are authentic, adding a special ambiance to the story. Bocci also excels at writing realistic dialogue with some much needed humorous banter which I enjoyed.

This story unfolds through Emma's point of view which understandably doesn't paint Cooper in a very good light. While I wanted to be sympathetic to Emma's plight, I found her to be so consumed by past betrayals that she continuously took one step forward and then one step back, causing her to appear too stubborn and wishy-washy. Unfortunately, Cooper doesn't fare much better. His in-your-face immature attitude is flaunted a bit too often as are his womanizing, alley-cat ways. He shows growth by the end which is a plus, as does Emma; however, it became a case of too little, too late for me to feel much empathy with either character. The result is a lack of true chemistry between these two main characters, making it hard for me to identify with either.

While I liked the premise of On the Corner of Love and Hate, I think the story would have resonated more with me if it had concentrated more on the romance building between Emma and Cooper and less on their ongoing feud over a broken past. Having said that, there are some great humorous scenes that I enjoyed. Fans of enemies-to-lovers stories should check this one out.

I tried reading this one but I couldn’t get into it. The characters were too immature for my liking.

***2 Stars***

I wanted to love this one, I did. After reading the blurb, I really thought I would, but unfortunately it didn’t hit the mark. The main reason is neither Emma or Cooper did it for me. It’s not that I didn’t like them, because they had their moments of likeability, it’s more that they kinda bored me in the end. Emma is driven and I loved that about her. She gets things done, but man could she be mean. Cooper, on the other hand, WANTS to be mayor but just coasts along and not taking the bull by the horns and I just didn’t see him as a true leader, more like a puppet to someone else. And then there is their “relationship”. The utter lack of communication, even being friends/enemies/something in between (?) was absolutely frustrating and even when they FINALLY talked about what caused the ‘rift’ between them, it just feel flat for me.

This one had a lot of potential and there were glimmers of it being more, but in the end, it just wasn’t my cuppa tea.

There is something about enemy to lovers tropes that makes me weak in the knees, and On the Corner of Love and Hate definitely did not disappoint.

Emmanuelle ‘Emma’ Peroni is the daughter of the Mayor of Hope Town. She herself works in the local government since making sure that Hope Town thrives is something that is near and dear to her. She works in the same office as Cooper Endicott, who was once her childhood best friend but now turned enemy after the his betrayal.

Emma and Cooper have a professional working relationship since she can usually ignore him for the most part. However, Emma is thrown a curve ball when her father asks her to be the campaign manager for Cooper’s run for Mayor in order to change his bad boy image. To make matters worse, Cooper’s mother, the Governor, is incredibly excited for Emma to work alongside Cooper. The only one not excited? Emma, of course.

It is evident from the very beginning that the chemistry between Emma and Cooper is palpable. Their snarky banter is constant. One thing that does become evident during their banter sessions is that Cooper always has a look of defeat whenever Emma accuses Cooper of being a wild playboy who is incapable of controlling himself around women. It constantly makes you wonder if Emma truly knows Cooper’s dating life or if she’s convinced herself that he is a playboy to keep herself guarded from him. As the two spend more time together during the course of the campaign, all of their preconceived notions about each other slowly starts to peel away, which I couldn’t get enough of.

I loved all of the side characters in this story. One of the important aspects in this story is the BFF quartet, which consisted of Nick, Henry, Cooper, and Emma. I would definitely say that Henry is my favorite. He’s the listener and the least macho. He’s also a self proclaimed sex camel, which still cracks me up. Nick definitely had that immature humor that constantly makes you eye roll, but every group needs that one friend.

Overall, if you’re looking for a contemporary romance that will pull at your heartstrings one minute and have you laughing the next then you definitely need to check out On the Corner of Love and Hate. I can’t wait to see what’s next for Nina Bocci.

Thank you to Gallery Book and NetGalley for the eARC. This did not influence my review. All opinions are my own.

Ahh yes! The drama of unrequited turned spurned. Nothing says I hate you like I loved you and you didn't love me back! It also makes the juiciest stories! On The Corner of Love and Hate is one such story. Best friends and bad choices with a bitter misunderstanding and an exorbitant amount of things not said culminated into this story.

On the Corner of Love and Hate is feisty. Too much miscommunication leads to dialogue dripping with sarcasm (which was my second official language!) Get ready for rocky emotions, tense situations, and blatant denial. I feel like poor Emma isn't just chilling On the Corner, she's actually in The Frogger tournament of her life. She's going back and forth without a break trying to avoid the traffic until she realizes she is the biggest meanest car in her way.

This sweet second chance at their friendship story is just what you need especially if you're a romantic like me. Hope is just what they didn't realize they needed. Hope Lake is their town. It's their safe place. It's the perfect place to settle down. Now if only Henry were interested....

DNF @ 18%

Sadly I couldn't really get into On the Corner of Love and Hate. I had difficulty connecting to the characters or really feeling the push-pull they were supposed to have. I expected a delicious amount of tension with the main characters having been close in the past and were now more in the hate-to-want category, and it didn't deliver for me. However, the bones of the story were good and I'm sure many others will find enjoyment in it.

Couldn't get past the start of the book. The main male character was a Jerk! (Would use a different description but trying to keep it PG). I couldn't imagine liking him later in the book. The scene with him in a restaurant and his "date" basically giving him a lap dance was just too much for me to even try and continue.

I love enemies-to-lovers, it's one of my favorite tropes because it usually comes with lots of banter and tons of chemistry between the main characters and this all can be said about Emma and Cooper.

He ignited every emotion in me, from love to hate.

Cooper is running a mayoral campaign in his small town of Hope Lake and thus is spread thin and not performing at work as he should. Childhood friend Emma gets to pick up the slack and as you can imagine isn't very happy about it. This is where ON THE CORNER OF LOVE AND HATE starts and with Cooper being a major player I thought he'd be a jerk, using his candidacy as an excuse to get his rocks off. Thankfully this turned out to be untrue and I found out later that he was a really good guy who sometimes made questionable choices. There is so much more to this man than the player he seems to be but we don't really have a chance to get to know him because we only have Emma's point of view.

“I don’t know anything. You don’t tell me anything. I just have to guess. All the time, because Emma keeps everything inside.”

It's hard to pull off this trope without the male POV, so for a long time we see Emma hurting over something that isn't explained until much later, and while we know that she has deep feelings for Cooper we don't know for the majority of the story whether Cooper reciprocates. There are glimpses that will make you suspect though. That part wasn't winning me over completely because Cooper's campaign was pretty much front and center and took away from the romance. Adding to that was some serious lack of communication, mostly Emma not wanting to talk. I wasn't crazy about her, if I'm being honest. She comes across judgmental, bitchy and unforgiving.

But Emma wasn't all bad, I feel I need to clarify. She had a kind side about her, one that wanted to help Cooper and sometimes gave him the benefit of doubt and that was what made me warm up to her eventually.

Anytime I was alone with him, which was why I actively avoided it, I was transported back to that eleven-year-old girl who realized that the belly flutters she got when he walked in wasn’t a lactose allergy but her first full-blown crush.

One thing I can say without a doubt - Nina Bocci has a beautiful writing voice and talent for weaving a riveting story to boot and I fell in love with her vivid descriptions of Hope Lake. Small town romance never fails to charm me with the meddling, gossipy neighbors. Supporting Cooper and Emma are a bunch of friends I'd like to know more about. While ON THE CORNER OF LOVE AND HATE didn't win me over 100% I still enjoyed most of it and I wouldn't mind going back to Hope Lake to read about Henry or Nick's stories.

I picked this book because it was said to be "fun bit of fluffy entertainment" and had great banter. The banter was good in spots but I never got invested in either Cooper or Emma. The politics part of the book overshadowed any romance. Cooper's character seemed all over the place and I never got a true feel of how he really was. I did like how Emma had her "thoughts". Overall the book was not for me and seemed to really drag over the political parts.

This was so much fun to read! Emma and Cooper have been friends since childhood until they weren't any longer and feelings were strained. However, living in a small town and working together keep them in each other's pockets and along with their other two friends. Cooper is now running foe Mayor and needs Emma's help for his campaign but will they be able to spend the time together needed without real feelings coming out? I laughed and cursed my way through this one and may have even teared up at one point. Definitely recommend!

**Received this ARC for review from the publisher via NetGalley**

The ending definitely made all the crazy worth it! Emma and Cooper have denied their feelings for each other for so long, it’s almost like they don’t really like each other. It takes a race for mayor, a secret campaign manager and a fake girlfriend for them to bring everything to the front. But it might all be too much.
The back and forth between Emma and Cooper almost gave me whiplash. And I was really hoping Emma would stick it to Whitney. I don’t know how she and Cooper were friends with the way she treated Emma.
I give it 5 stars! I was riveted!

I didn’t love this one. I never really felt invested in the characters and found myself skimming sections to move along the slow pace (especially in the beginning). I know the author mentions being inspired by enemies to lovers stories like Christina Lauren’s, but this lacked the depth of characterization of Dating You/Hating You (and Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game). Overall it’s not terrible but just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Notwithstanding the above, thank you to Gallery Books for providing an ARC for review!

I’m going to have to pass on this book. I’m at 15% and just can’t seem to find much interest in the plot to keep me turning the pages. Maybe another time but right now I’m not finding it very captivating. In respect of the author I did not put a star rating for the book and will post a release post on my Facebook blog page.

This story is billed as a hate-to-love story but I think it's a bit more subtle than that. The two main characters have been [best] friends from childhood and they are now working together. The entire story is told from Emmanuelle's story and even though she's saying certain things, the reader can still see beneath her conversation to see the slow build and the residual feelings here. Even though we don't read Cooper's perspective, we can also tell that he cares for her and there's likely more there from Cooper's side, too. The story builds slowly and there are parts where Emma feels a bit too hysterical for me but on the whole this was pleasurable and interesting the whole time and I stayed up two hours past my bedtime because I didn't want to stop reading. I was rooting for the characters the whole time and really enjoyed when they finally came together.

This is not a super-steamy romance, it's more sweet than it is steamy and if politics is interesting to you, that's a bonus fun layer to the story.

thank you to netgalley and gallery books for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

I struggled with this one and found that I wasn’t excited to eager to pick it up in my free time. I don’t love politics and all the political talk so I think that’s part of why this one didn’t totally work for me. I can appreciate enemies to lovers as it’s one of my favorite tropes but I do like it to come to a head sooner so you have a glimpse into their actual relationship. I think some of these things won’t bother other readers so this may be the book for you.

While I've known Nina Bocci for years as a member of the book world, this is the first time I've read her words, and I am so glad I took a chance on her! On the Corner of Love and Hate is sort of an enemies to lovers story, except the hate is fueled by love. Cooper and Emma have been best friends their entire lives, but lately, can't seem to be in the same room as each other. When Cooper's bid for mayor needs some help, who better to come aboard than his best friend who knows him better than anyone?

The banter between Cooper and Emma was spectacular. You could really feel the heat between the two of them, even if they couldn't. This was a slow-burn love story, but there were times I wish the fire could have taken off quicker. For two people nearing and in their thirties, the maturity level was hovering in the red zone. So many of their problems could have been solved if Emma stopped huffing and running out of rooms. I understood her unwillingness to accept what was coming to the surface of her relationship with Cooper, but there were too many times I wanted to shake some sense into her.

For someone running for mayor, Cooper sure struggled to get out a complete sentence any time he spoke to Emma when he wasn't arguing. But when he was on top of his game, he was a force to be reckoned with. He was so charming, he had me swooning. My biggest issue with Cooper wasn’t his “relationship” with Whitney, thought that was a strange storyline. Man, did she irk me, and I do think we could have done without the b**chy cliché. I hit my eye roll limit with her. But his biggest problem was I don’t really feel like he was redeemed. Did I like Cooper? Yes. Did I like Copper with Emma? The jury is still out on that.

The supporting cast in this story was the real star for me. I loved Nick and Henry and their friendships with Cooper and Emma. What a fantastic quartet they made. I would love to see more from them, especially sweet Henry. In fact, I want more from the entire town of Hope Lake. Bocci did an exceptional job of creating this world and these characters that you want to spend all of your time with.

3.5 STARS

On the Corner of Love and Hate is an enemies/frenemies to lovers type of story and follows Emma and Cooper. These two were once childhood friends that eventually grew apart after some heartbreak turned enemies. This is a trope that I can completely get on board with and I always love the tension that comes from stories like this. Unfortunately in this book that tension was a little too much and it never seemed to end.

Emma is a workaholic that's left running around like a mad woman picking up after Cooper as he ignores his work duties in order to focus on his Mayoral campaign. As well as focusing on all the ladies in his life. That's our introduction to these characters, Cooper not seeming to care about anyone but himself even as Emma is clearly struggling to handle the work. It made it hard for me to connect to, or even like, Cooper's character. Especially since this story was told completely in Emma's POV so I never got a real chance to see Cooper's motives behind those actions or if he really did care and it just wasn't shown through Emma.

The big problem I had with this book, however, was the lack of romance. The majority of the book focused on Cooper's campaign, Emma being a slave to work, despising Cooper, and their little quips back and forth. It was a struggle to see where the romance came in during the entire first 70 or 80% of the story. So then when the ending came it was hard to believe that after all of that, that these two actually had a love story.

But I did like the overall story, and as much as wished there would have been less of the enemies part of the enemies-to-lovers trope I did like those parts of the story. The dialogue between Cooper and Emma was well written and engaging. It had me wanting to find out more about each other them, as well as wishing we got to see them together. Overall, I had problems with the book but I do recommend it and think that it will have many fans.

4 Star Review of On The Corner Of Love and Hate (Hopeless Romantics #1) by Nina Bocci

This is the first solo book I have read from this author and as this was the first book in a new series, I jumped at the chance to read and review.

I liked the characters of Emmanuelle (Emma)Peroni and Cooper Endicott, although the book was a little slow at times and it took me a while to get invested in the story. However once I was hooked I found myself enjoying the story and her style of writing.

Emma and Cooper have been friends for ages and when the current mayor of her town (her father) asks her to help Cooper revamp his image she does so despite her reservations. They have a checkered past and things are only going to become more complicated now that she is helping him.

Cooper wants to be the new mayor, but at what personal cost? There are so many people trying to dig up dirt and he is juggling so much he has no idea where to turn next.

Will Emma be able to help or will unresolved feelings get in the way? What happens when lines are crossed and attraction becomes to intense to ignore?

There was humour, intrigue and I loved the banter and camaraderie between families and friends that you find in a small town.

This was a good story and I am looking forward to reading more in this series.

I received a copy through the publisher via Netgalley

Nina Bocci s a new author to me but after reading On the Corner of Love and Hate I will certainly be checking out her other works. As the title suggests this is a Enemies to Lovers and it really is all about the fine line between Love and Hate so if this is a troupe you love you should one click this great read you won’t be disappointed.
Emma and Cooper work together but Emma feels she is forever picking up the slack because Cooper is more interested in running for Mayor than doing his daytime job, it doesn’t help that Emma’s father is the present Mayor and he is endorsing and backing Cooper in everything and that means Emma really needs to help Cooper even though she is really not comfortable with the situation.
Emma may have the hots for Cooper but does he feel the same ......
I think this author did a great job with this slow burn romance, I loved her style of writing and as I said earlier I will be checking out her other books as well as her future books. This book has characters who share lots of witty banter and the story and the banter flows naturally. If you adore romantic comedy as well as enemies to lovers you will love this entertaining read.

Hello, hello! In case I haven’t made it absolutely obvious (lol jokes), I adore a good hate-to-love romance. I know, I know. It’s shocking! So! Color me thrilled when I had the opportunity to review an ARC of this.

To be 100% honest, I was (and am) still a little shaky on Emma and Cooper’s initial relationship. Like, they don’t seem to necessarily hate each other, but they’re not best friends like they were. So they’re friendly….ish? Regardless, I give Emma props for working with him every day because being old friends in the midst of whatever they have going on? Yeah, that might be worse than being enemies in my opinion.


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I had to stop highlighting parts that had me LOLing because the entire book would have been a mess of color. But the first one that had me sit up in my chair and take notice that this is a book that will be fun?

Dating is like shopping the clearance racks: you sift through a lot of pretty yet questionable items in the hope of lucking out and finding that one perfect outfit. The same could be said about the men I’d been with lately.
Oh, girl.

And that pretty much sets up the hilarious character voice that is Emma. From that moment, I was waiting to see what truth she would spill next.

This book was such a fun contemporary romance! If you enjoy hate-to-love stories, romance in general, or books by Christina Lauren, you should put this on your TBR list. It was an overall satisfying read that I enjoyed a lot.

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster for an advanced copy of this book. Nina Bocci’s On the Corner of Love and Hate releases on August 20, 2019, and is available for pre-order here. All thoughts and opinions are my own.