An excellent book I couldn't put down: great cast of characters and storyline. It's highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

After the success of her 2019 summer rom-com ‘Our Stop’, Laura Jane Williams is back again with “The Love Square”. Her previous book, which I devoured last summer, gave me unlikely expectations of meeting the love of my life on the tube (still sad it hasn’t happened yet) and I was was so glad that this book follows in its footsteps - smart, sincere and special. Though it does give me hope that I could be like Penny who was single for five years, and then within the space of six months has three romantic relations to choose from.

Penny Bridge is unlucky in love, and like us all has had a series of dates and flings that never really end in the all-encompassing full true love forever and ever experience. The story begins with her saying goodbye to Francesco, a hot Italian chef, and then works backwards in timeline to fill in the blanks before moving forward to introduce the other men in her love square - that’s right, a square - don’t you know that love triangles are so last season? So you have Francisco - hot Italian chef - as bachelor number one, Thomas who is tour manager for Lizzo with a strict “no monogamy” rule as bachelor number two and Priyesh, wine merchant and sexual deviant as number three. The tag line doesn’t lie, four involved in love is complicated. All the men have different qualities - self respect, curiosity, humour, emotional depth - so you can see why Penny struggles to choose between them.

Don’t be put off by a rom-com label though as this has a lot more depth and poignancy than you might anticipate. There’s a real honesty and tenderness and authenticity to the relationships we see between everyone. As Laura sums up in her acknowledgement, this is a story about love, but it’s also a story about humanness. Humourous, romantic and with moments of sadness, a perfect light-hearted summer read. The subject of infertility and being a cancer survivor is handled delicately and with tact, and the side effects experienced and the options available to women in Penny’s position are discussed and treated with the respect they deserve.

I loved that it was inclusive - with long term LGBTQ+ relationships and a non binary character - and also that friendships were explored in addition to romantic relations. There’s a real sense of inclusivity in the characters that make up the ensemble without feeling forced or at any time “token”. I adored the humorous aspects - one line talked about getting a fringe cut after a romantic devastation because that’s a hard relate for me after my breakup last summer.

To summarise, on the surface, this is a story about love and connections. At its core, it’s a story of forming a healthy relationship with yourself before others. It’s about owning your power to construct your own life whether that’s thriving in business, stepping up for your family, and making decisions that will make you happy.

it was taking me too long to read but then decided to just wait until it's out to see the final version instead.

Light and nice read.

Penny is a chef and owns a café in London. She loves her work and one could say she has her life kind of sorted out, but it's far from that... Besides all the love she gets from her sister, her uncle, and friends, she still feels unloved. The reason: men. It seems like she can't find the right one. After her former boyfriend broke up with her, she's been dating, but without finding someone who would like a serious relationship. Therefore, she can't help wondering if there's something wrong with her, until Francesco appears. He seems so perfect... and she feels truly loved. Unfortunately, she must go to her childhood village, to be in charge of her uncle's restaurant, and she doesn't dare to ask Francesco to go with her.

Penny's life has changed drastically in very little time. After all those years of feeling unliked by men, now she needs more free time to spend it with the ones who find her quite interesting and try to know her better. So now Penny is not in a "love triangle", but a "love square", as her friend and workmate says to her.

Thanks to Avon Books UK and NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for myhonest review.

Thank you Avon Books UK and Netgalley for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had high hopes for this book but, sadly, it did not reach my expectations. I've read a third of the book and I still could not connect with any of the characters.

One of the main reasons I could not connect is due to the scenes not being engaging at all. There are some parts where Penny and Francesco could have grown closer and deeper in love but then, the scene skips to a few days or weeks later and the moment disappears.

I had to DNF it but I'm leaving 3 stars because I did not give it the chance to improve.

A fun light read, loved reading this on a long car trip. kept me focused enough to keep from getting carsick, which is no easy feat. Strong heroine, and a cast of characters who are well rounded without being over the top.

It was a bit slow in the beginning. Easy read with pop culture references. Unfortunately it wa slow and predictable. It's a light read as I mentioned first and I did root for for the protagonist, but the book didn't work for me. What I liked about it was the LGBTQIA+ representation, people of different religious beliefs and people of colour. The inclusivity was great. So were the restaurant parts. Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for an early review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley, Avon Books & Laura Jane Williams for my arc of The Love Square in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: Penny Bridge has always been unlucky in love, so she can't believe it when she meets a remarkable new man, then another, then another. Penny has to choose between the three but is any of them the one?

Ok, so I think my main reason for not enjoying this book was because it wasn't exactly what I expected. Judging a book by its cover and all that but also from the synopsis i was thinking it would be the fun, flirty, easy read I needed to get me out of a bit of a reading slump. A super fun summer read it was not.

It started off well up until about halfway through it was exactly what I was expecting. Penny, always unlucky in love meets a hot new guy and they hit it off, it seemed like the typical will they won't they sort of thing and then it fell apart.

For me this book tried way to hard to be inclusive. Obviously I want there to be more diversity in this book but this book just had so much it felt forced. There was immediately a point that the main character Penny had dated a guy from every single race, culture and religion. Fair enough not saying this wouldn't happen it just felt like it was in there to 'tell' inclusivity rather than show it.
Then we have no sign of any LGBTQ+ reps other than Penny's uncle who is gay, all of a sudden we add in Charlie who is a NB character, great! Except that's all there is to them, Charlie does add some humour but mainly feels like they're there just to tick another box. The list goes on, we have a surrogacy, eggs fertilised by donor sperm frozen away, a 20 year age gap, a polygamous Guy, sex outdoors, indoors always in outlandish places and outlandish ways. It just felt like the story got lost some where behind all these attempts at including everyone and everything.

Also the POV was just all over the place it was mostly from Penny's point of view with other people's random thoughts thrown in willy nilly which made it confusing. Penny also came across as very self centred and full of herself despite being written to appear as an unlucky in love type.

Overall it gains an extra star for the first part of the book which I enjoyed otherwise I would have rated it 1*.

This had so much promise but didn't deliver. The book is described as "it will have you laughing, crying and cheering Penny on in this funny and feel-good exploration of hope, romance and the trust it takes to finally fall in love". Well I didn't get many laughs and I wasn't cheering Penny on in fact near the end she was annoying me. I was hoping for a feel good Rom Com which I didn't get. I loved the idea of Penny being caught between 3 men it wasn't something I'd touch upon in a story before. I thought that the subjects of cancer, death and infertility were handled really well and not just blown over. I just found Penny really irritating and by the end very hypocritical. The writing didn't flow well for me either. In a few places we had Pennys pov then without warning it changed to someone else and I had to keep going back over bits to track who said what or on what day we were on. I didn't get to see any real romance blossom between any of the men penny was with it was just a bit wham bam thank you mam and I found I wasnt bothered who she ended up with. I am glad I saw it through to the end as even though it was a very predictable end (as alot of romance books are) it was a very nice feel good ending.

I’ve read some great books recently and ‘The Love Square’ by Laura Jane Williams is another one I’d recommend! It has some heart breaking moment but it was such a wholesome, lovely read that I got stuck into very quickly. There was something about Penny getting caught up in life and losing track of what you really want I found relatable as a twenty something. I quickly fell in love with Francesco myself but found myself wanting the best for Penny with Thomas and Priyesh too. I think this is because all three characters seemed really well rounded.

Thank you #netgalley and Avon Books UK for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

****ARC provided by Netgalley for free review*** I’ve heard of a love triangle but Penny has found herself in a love square! Penny is a smart, independent and respected chef. She loves her family, friends and work! She has it all, except love. This book had more emotional depth to it than I was expecting, but in a good way! Penny’s story will have you cheering, laughing and crying! The supporting characters are all lovable and relatable. I really enjoyed this read! Quick paced, current and fun! How will Penny navigate through her love triangle? Is one of them Mr. Right? Does she take a stand and realize she’s come to terms with being alone? You won’t be disappointed in this book!

Penny Bridge is no longer focusing on her love life, she has a cafe she loves and a family she would do anything for... Then she meets Francesco, and all that flies out of the window.

However life throws a curveball and she has to relocate to Darbyshire to run her uncle’s restaurant, leaving Francesco behind. Here she meets two other men, each very different, and with Francesco in the mix suddenly Penny finds herself in the middle of a massive dilemma.

I love that Penny had flaws, and wasn’t a perfect character. She was well rounded, she had her selfish bitchy moments, but don’t we all? I also love the inclusion of LGBTQI characters, which I felt were not just plopped into the book as a statement, they just were who they were.

Oh help me; how & where do I begin to start with this book?

I was really looking forward to reading a contemporary romance, as it is not often that I dive into them. For me, it is a real treat. But unfortunately, it was no treat, it was an awful trick.

Penny Bridge has so far had it bad. She has had cancer, her boyfriend bailed on her, her mum died when she was young, causing her father to also bail on her and her sister Clementine, and basically sucks at dating.


One of my main issues with the book was that the first romance took up nearly 30% of the first part of the story. Not to mention that it felt very 'insta-romancey', causing me to constantly cringe. Francesco is our first love interest. I did not like him at all. This just generally made it difficult to enjoy and get into the story.


Closer to the end of the book, it is very clear that he is not a nice person. He basically just slut-shames Penny; I was not here for it.


The other "love interests" felt super forced into the narrative. It didn't work for me. Neither of them had any real depth; to be honest they could have all been the same person.


I had a real big issue with Penny. She comes across as a strong independent woman, who "doesn't need no man" but throughout the story, SHE JUST MOANS AND WHINES. That is just her in a nutshell. There isn't anything else to her. The contrasts just didn't blend well together and it felt like she was two different people. I feel the writer could have written this a lot better.


My other issue with her was how she treated her friends and families. It never once seemed that she cared about their issues or problems. It constantly felt that is was "Penny this, Penny that." Boring much? It made me question whether she actually gave a damn about other people.

I would have one good point about this book but it quickly changed into a negative. There is a representation of LGBTQ+ characters in the book, which is great! Her sister is a lesbian, her uncle is gay and her friend is non-binary. Wonderful!


But it is never explored. It felt like a tick in the box. The writer spends so much time with Penny that we never get to learn about these, interesting and diverse characters. One thing that also bothered me is Charlie, who refers to themselves as they/them, is momentarily forgotten that they are non-binary and the writer writes "....SHE said." Just made me think that this author really doesn't care.


The pacing of the book felt overwhelmingly jumpy and annoyed the hell out of me.


And....to top it all off. The unbelievable celebrity references. OH GOOD LORD. I have never cringed so hard in my life. It was terrible. I know books are not meant to be totally realistic but this just took the cake. It was an absolute joke.


I never want to think about this book ever again. It was the absolute worse.

It took a while for me to get into this one, and overall, I never really felt like I got to know the main character, Penny, enough to feel invested in her love life and sexcapades with three different men (some overlapping, even). It had charming moments, but mostly, it felt like a Hallmark movie set in the UK, with a underdeveloped main character. I did appreciate that she was a woman who had battled breast cancer (and won) and desired to be a mother (although it would need to be through surrogacy), but I wanted to know much more about Penny to really be able to root for her.

This ended up being an average read for me. I liked the characters alright. I don't feel like we got any actual substance from anyone other than the main character (and I liked her less as the story went on). The plot was more predictable than I expected given how much time we sent with certain characters. I enjoyed the restaurant aspect of the story line. It was engaging and fresh. The actual character driven moments unfortunately didn't really work for me. There was also a few uber specific pop culture references that took me out of the story. Overall, it was a quick and easy read, pretty much what I expected.

I wasn’t a huge fan of this one. I felt like all the characters ran together and so many parts felt really repetitive. I do love me a story with diversity and representation, so I appreciated the author adding LGBTQ+ characters but it almost felt like it was more “token” character adding in a sense. There wasn’t a lot of depth and it just fell flat for me in a lot of ways.

An entertaining, fast-paced, feel-good, swoony, cute read that makes you smile and gives you positive energy.

God, this book was boring. It was so slow moving. The plot was kind of weak and the romance was so dang predictable. I didn't like any of the love interests and there's three of them. One I didn't mind that much but it was obvious he was never a serious option. There's actually two of those. Two out of three were so obviously not an option to me, just there for sex and no meaningful relationship. Which is fine but towards the end they tried to play one of them of as something serious. Then the actual love interest I didn't like that much. I don't know. He was kind of bland and towards the end unnececarily a dick. The main character was kind of nice and I liked the growth she went through. I just don't like that the narrative ended up punishing her for not taking relationships serious for a little bit. I'm not for that. Also she kept saying "I'm a bad feminist" when talking about things like falling in love and wanting to have kids. How does either of those things have to do with being a good feminist. For the rest I also just don't think any of the three relationships was really developed and I didn't care for them. That might be because I liked none of them but oh well. It did have some great family and friend dynamics but they were pushed so much to the background it was a shame. In conclusion, I was expecting quite a bit from this book but I ended up being bored and dissapointed as fuck.

REVIEW | The Love Square by Laura Jane Williams

“Life is about how you handle being thrown off course, not discounting yourself from the race because you were thrown off in the first place”

Synopsis (from Goodreads)

"She’s single. But that doesn’t mean it’s not complicated…
Penny Bridge has, historically, been very unlucky in love. She’s pledged to focus on other things - her friends, her career - making the most of what busy London life has to offer. But when difficult circumstances mean that Penny’s uncle must has over the kitchen of his beloved restaurant in Derbyshire, she finds herself stepping into a new life in a new town. And as luck would have it, she’s suddenly confronted with one remarkable man who wants to date her, followed by another. And then another…so begins a hilarious love-square with Penny firmly in the middle."

My thoughts
Love triangles are so 2000s, love squares is where it’s at.

I read Our Stop a few weeks ago - which I really enjoyed because of its modern take on romance. I read the Love Square before Our Stop though and would argue it is even better!

What I liked
- I loved the idea of a love square - the book celebrates the idea that women can have no-strings attached sex, just like men;

- The Love Square tosses the idea of The One out of the window and focuses on the idea that we should figure out our own life priorities first before committing to a relationship;

- As with Our Stop, the Love Square has plenty of LGBTQ+ representation. Penny’s sister and uncle are both in loving same-sex relationships. Penny’s colleague, Charlie, identifies as non-binary and the story also features POC and people of different religions.

- The ways in which the book focused on love in all its shapes and forms: romantic love, familial love, platonic love, sexual love and self-love.

I would recommend this book to anyone who’s looking for a dose of smart-storytelling, modern romance and complex, diverse and relatable characters.

Thank you @netgalley and Avon Books UK for my free copy of The Love Square in exchange for an honest review.

This book did take me longer to get into than I expected, although having said that I’m pleased I persevered as it’s a lovely light summer read. Thank you to Netgalley and the author for the advance preview.