Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book! The title and this beautiful cover drew me in and i was excited to read this book! I will be recommending this book to others for readers advisory

I don't usually enjoy love triangles, but Augusta Reilly did a fantastic job with this trope! This book was a great mix between romance and contemporary fiction. I can't wait for this author's next release!

Laura loves her little town of North Powell and would do anything to bring back tourism to compete with the neighboring towns. When the town council hires a marketing firm, Laura falls for David, the head of the project. He's smart, funny, and hot... but he's not allowed to have a relationship with a client so they decide to keep it secret until the project is over. Meanwhile, she's required to spend a lot of time with creative director, Spence. He seems genuinely interested in helping her town. He even helps her apply for a landmark permit for her favorite Victorian home, the Powell house, which she wants to renovate into a museum. They spend hours together fixing up the place, and Laura starts to fall for him too. How will she ever decide which man she wants when she loves them both?
I thought this book was well written and I loved Laura's enthusiasm for saving her small town. The whole time I thought Spence was more suited to her personality, but I hate how wishy-washy she was in her decision.
I received an advance reader copy of this book through NetGalley. This review is given voluntarily.

This rom-com was a very easy and pleasant read. A small town store owner falls in love with two men. That is the premise in a nutshell.

Whew. This book was STEAMY! Definitely was not what I expected coming into a small town Christmas romance. And while Christmas and the festival played a role in the book, it was definitely much more about the characters and their relationships. The love triangle as Laura falls for both Spence and David was entertaining, Given I was looking for a sweet more plot and character development-driven romance, this book wasn't quite for me as a lot of it was really just focused on their sexual encounters, but definitely could be up your alley if you were looking for a steamy read set around the holidays!

Thank you to Rhapsodic Press & NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I am sorry for not reviewing fully but I don’t have the time to read this at the moment. I believe that it wouldn't benefit you as a publisher or your book if I only skimmed it and wrote a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for not fully reviewing!

Rounded down from 3.5 to a 3.

This story was super steamy, super short, and definitely should have some with maybe a few TWs. If you’re looking for a quick, spicy love triangle, and don't mind the sleeping around/unprotected sex vibe, this may be up your alley.

I thought this was a decent debut, I did enjoy the humor and the endearing moments, and found myself laughing out loud at some points. I liked all the characters despite having my qualms with each of them - I do like when a character is flawed. I loved the small town vibes and didn’t have a problem with the steam or the love triangle, but the characters felt a bit underdeveloped and some choices felt, lacking substance or consequence.

Overall, it's not one I'd probably go out of my way to read again, but it wasn't half bad.

I'm normally a rom-com junkie, especially ones centered around the holidays but for some reason this book just didn't mesh well with me. I've tried to pick it up again and again but we're just not enjoying each other's company.

3 stars for the intriguing concept and that it's based around the holidays.

If you could see me right now you would see I'm a mess and it's all thanks to this amazing amazing book. My goodness
So let's talk review. Why i held your hand is a sweet romantic read sure to melt your heart with all it's lovey-ness and witty banters, complete with love triangles because what is a romance book with love triangles, but my favourite aspect of the book is the characters especially our heart melters Laura and Spence. I adored them both and now sad that this book is over.

Laura owns a small business in her small hometown where she lives a small life. While she’s lived in this town her entire life, it just cannot compete with the larger towns and cities around it that bring in more tourists. Then enters a PR firm that will change Laura’s life.

This book focuses on the relationships Laura has with two men, David and Spence, both on the PR team hired to save her town. Will this lead to ruin? Will she be able to choose?

I thought both relationships were well written. I felt like Laura really had a solid connection with both David and Spence, and to be honest, the relationship could have worked itself out either way.

This book reads like a piece of romantic wish fulfillment, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you just want to curl up with an easy read that has exactly the vibe you’re looking for. For me, this was precisely that.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes romance. Generally speaking, I’m not really a huge romance novel fan, but the character development was really well done in this book. I did become invested in Laura’s relationships and really was excited to see where they would go. I would also note that the romantic scenes in this book are handled much better than others that I have read. (I didn’t even cringe at any of them! I sometimes do depending on the description.)

I would encourage anyone who’s curious about this book to pick up a copy and enjoy the ride. It’s a nicely done book that is exactly what you’d expect.

I really enjoyed Why I Held Your Hand. It as a cute, humorous book. I loved all the characters in the book as well. I couldn’t wait to get to the end to find out who Laura chose. I was not disappointed. Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read the book. I would highly recommend it.

DNF-- I had to stop reading this book after a while because it was just too unrealistic for me. The book was moving quickly and some of the conversations just did not seem realistic or natural at all. I was a bit disappointed because the synopsis really jumped out at me and I was excited to read it but I think the execution just wasn't right. Thank you for the opportunity.

This story was thoroughly enjoyable! Loved Maggie and Spence. I'll definitely be watching for more from this author!

I picked up this book knowing it had a love triangle and steamy scenes. I don't have an issue with either so I went in with an open mind, but I didn't like this story. Mainly, I didn't like Laura. She was manipulative, yet somehow had herself convinced that she was a good person stuck in a bad situation. She was just dishonest, with people that cared about her and with herself. And then the steamy scenes just felt contrived and weirdly clinical, they were explicit but used vague terminology; it was a bit jarring. By the end of the book I didn't much care who she ended up with, unless she ended up alone, that I would have understood.

This story grabs the reader in with the first page and the rollicking ride goes on until the end. The author does a good job bringing the perfect love interest to life, that it's hard to imagine that there could be 2 possibilities. Enjoyable read if you don't mind sexy times and can dismiss some implausible outfit choices, namely, a wraparound skirt for gardening and hiking, lingerie for cleaning and not outfitting oneself for safe sex.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.
The writing is fun and interesting. The characters are humorous. Beware of the steamy sex scenes. This one will keep you flipping the pages late at night!

Laura Delaney just wanted to save her small hometown of North Powell. He hired a marketing team to come up with an idea. Little did she know that when that marketing team walked into her life that they would turn it around in more ways than one.

Laura met David Harper the head of the team, who she quickly starts to date on the down-low until the end of the project. She also met Spence Markham, the dreamer and idea man behind on the team that Laura works closely with to set up the festival to save the town. Caught between the two, Laura feels pulled in two different directions her head and her heart.

This was a quick read. I definitely wanted to know what would happen and who Laura would end up with in the end. It is the first book by the author I have read.

This rom com is a fun read. Laura loved the small town that she lived in and is serving a s volunteer Director of Marketing for the town. They have hired a Marketing Firm to help promote the town. She begins a relationship with one of the employees of the marketing firm after meeting him in an unexpected manner before they’re first meeting. He had a very funny sense of humor. She works closely with another member of the firm and and begins to have feelings for him also creating a love triangle. This is fun easy to read rom com with lots of hot scenes.

I initially picked up this romance because an unhappy reviewer screamed “if you want to write porn, just write porn!” Usually, I’m looking for that type of steam level in my romantic plots and Why I Held Your Hand by Augusta Reilly most certainly did not disappoint in that arena. The steamy scenes were very explicit if a little shy about leaning into just how explicit they were (if you’re gonna go into that much detail, the word ‘ejaculate’ feels much too clinical).

This story was interesting and entertaining, yet difficult for me because the style of writing focused entirely on external action to convey everything. There is no showing of emotion, only great revelations of emotion. As the reader, I felt expected to infer every character emotion purely from their actions, unless expressly stated. The imagery was there, but the emotional connection was missing. This was particularly stark during romantic scenes.

I prefer romance to have full emotional character arcs. While, by the last page of the story, I was quite enamored with the love interest, I realized I knew very little about him or his arc (and he may have had the strongest arc of all).

My strongest emotional connection to the story was through that of the main character’s to a specific property in her town - yet, I still craved a lot of this story to come through the pages.

I think I would have liked to have seen more of the emotional development in each character. The “second” love interest may not have even been needed for a compelling story because there was already so much potential without it. The love triangle felt like the forced center of the novel, when I just wanted to gravitate to the beautiful love story actually happening between two potentially complex characters. Overall, interesting components - just missed the mark for me.

Right of the bat Why I Held Your Hand had me grinning with the snarky and witty banter. If anything ever really wins me over in a book, it’s some good banter and sarcastic humor. I was really excited at the instant connection between Laura and David and it was nice to watch their relationship bloom. So, with that said I feel totally blindsided by how the story ended. It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting, the conflict of a love triangle is really difficult to navigate and honestly hard to read because there’s always someone who gets hurt. I did enjoy Laura’s go getter attitude and her goal of attracting more tourists to her Victorian town. It’s ambitious and a worthy endeavor and the whole ambiance of the town sounded wonderful. I was slightly thrown off by the very descriptive foreplay during the steamy scenes, they’re just not my cup of tea. It just felt awkward to read those scenes but it was definitely imaginative. Overall, I can’t go recommending this to everyone even though the town had a wholesome feel but I can’t imagine any romance not finding something to enjoy in this love triangle. Definitely worth a read.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving a free copy.