The House Swap by Jo Lovett

I requested this on netgalley as soon as I saw the author! I read Jo Lovett’s book The First Time We Met last year and it was such a lovely story that I was confident I’d like this one, and I was right!

I really love how realistic her characters are and how the main issue they face at the end is not some annoying misunderstanding but an actual real life problem to overcome.

House Swap is about Cassie and James, who end up staying in each other’s homes in a swap airbnb sort of situation. After disliking dealing with each other at first and getting over their opposing personalities, they develop a friendship. I loved these characters (and all their neighbours and friends). They were charming and fun. Cassie and James had amazing chemistry and I was really rooting for them from the very first pages.

Thank you @netgalley and @bookouture for my advanced copy! This book comes out on April 19th.

TW: miscarriage

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I absolutely loved this authors previous book so I was looking forward to reading this one and it certainly didn’t disappoint. This was a fun light hearted read and was perfect escapism in the current times. It was a lovely feel good read and the perfect pick me up. The characters were relatable and the story line was lovely and made me want to go on a swap bnb break right this minute and escape to sunnier and beautiful climes as the setting for the book sounded gorgeous and a perfect escape. I think this book would make a lovely film.

James finds it difficult to avoid his deranged ex-girlfriend, its upsetting his normally ordered life so a friend suggests doing a house swop. Cassie needs to move from her idyllic island life for 6 months to get background details for her latest book. So James and Cassie find themselves agreeing to the move. James just wants a quiet ordered life and can't understand why its necessary for Cassie to get so personally involved. On the other hand Cassie is amazed that James doesn't know his neighbours and doesn't seem to want to get involved in island life.
I totally loved this book, all the quirky details, watching James' & Cassie's growing friendship and unearthing their pasts made the book unputdownable.

Trigger warning: This book deals a lot with pregnancy loss, IVF, alcoholism, etc....

I loved this book, though I do wish I had more of a heads up that this book had such strong themes of pregnancy loss. While most of the book is light, romantic, and hilarious, there is a lot of underlying pain that the characters work through. Even though it isn't a light or always easy read, it is certainly a well-written book that is an overall great read!

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

I ended up DNFing this book at about 40% of the way through the book.

I was expecting this book to be similar to The Switch By Beth O'Leary but I found this book to be lacking of the sparkle that the Switch had.

I didn't really feel the the chemistry between the two main characters and I couldn't get invested in the romance at all and considering its a romance book its a pretty big deal. From what I read I will say that I enjoyed the character of James a lot more than Cassie.

I feel like there could be other readers who might enjoy it but for me it was a bit disappointing.

Cassie and James are both looking to take some time away from where they currently live and end up looking on a house swap website. Soon, James is living in Cassie’s beachside cottage, and Cassie’s living in James’s London apartment. They are both out of their comfort zones with the living arrangements and need to adjust fast.
The more Cassie and James talk, the more the tension between them mounts but along with it sparks begin to fly.
But when Cassie makes a surprising discovery, the pair are forced to confront their feelings and decide what kind of life they really want.

This book at first really reminded me of The Switch or even The Flat Share both by Beth O Leary. It had those vibes. These characters at times though got on my nerves and it really showed the power in miscommunication. The story was sweet although kinda cheesy at times. It did seem to drag a little bit towards the end but I loved how the story finally ended. I also enjoyed that there was some serious issues too involved with the basic rom com storyline.

#gifted E-arc received from Netgalley and Bookouture with no obligation to review.

This was such a gorgeous, uplifting read.

Cassie and James are both at a turning point in their life. Neither of them are happy with their current circumstances, and both take a leap of faith and swap locations with each other for six months. Cassie moves to take in the lights of the big city in London, and James moves to an island in Maine to befriend the locals and a few Alpacas along the way! Little do they know that they will come to appreciate things they aren’t accustomed to, and that their lives will change as a result.

This reminded me of the film the Holiday, but had a lovely story of its own.

I loved this, it was so warm, the characters were charming, and, it was a warm hug of a book! I also really appreciated the honesty with which the author tackled fertility struggles. I am really looking forward to trying another Jo Lovett book.

A light, easy comfort read that centers around the familiar trope of swapping lives. A solid romance with good pacing and relatable characters. Predictable but in the best way. A fun summer read for me.

The House Swap starts with our two characters, James and Cassie, in not particularly good circumstances. She’s in turmoil trying to come up with the plot for her next book and he’s struggling when a relationship ends rather acrimoniously. In desperation, they each decide to try a house swap and end up paired.
Basic premise of so many movies/books. They swap lives, don’t particularly hit it off at first and appear quite different. Deep down, though, we sense a spark...and the book uncovers it, throwing them into different scenarios so we sense their compatibility and hope they eventually catch up.
There’s nothing really unexpected here. It’s emotional in places, and you have a pretty good idea where this will end up. Solid good fun, and a bit of light relief that will throw a little light into your life when you need it.
Thanks to NetGalley for granting me access to this in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Trigger Warning: Pregnancy & Miscarriage

This was a very cute romance with some fun plot lines and comedy in between. Even though it was predictable I enjoyed the main characters chemistry and their witty banter.

Thanks to Bookotoure and NetGalley for a copy to honestly review.

3.5 rounded up

This gave me diet ‘The Holiday’ vibes.
A cute premise of course, a house swap, lives intertwining, strangers finding someone from afar. I just didn’t get that emotional click, even when visited with some hard topics in the pages.
The super slow build up that leads to a racing finish, the romance between the characters, none of it sold to me that this couple was one made of everlasting true love stuff.
A good one time, but I won’t be revisiting.

This book is sweet, funny, and so heartfelt. At the beginning I disliked James, he was so damn rude, and such a horrible man, but then once you get to know him you start to really love him. I pretty much did what Cassie did and judged a book by its cover (she did the same thing when she met James.)

Ok let me sum up this amazing romance novel, Cassie has a new book deal, she has to travel to London for it, but she's finding it hard trying to find a place to stay and also something that wont be permanent. James wants to get away himself, then one of his friends told me him about SwapBNB, and this was exactly what he needed.

I was wondering how these two people are going to fall in love if they are swapping in different parts of the country. Anyway they make it work and their happy ending is so special, loved it.

Thank you netgalley for approving me to read this gem of a book. This book reminded me a lot of the movie The Holiday where Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz swap houses for the holiday season to escape their lives and wind up meeting Jack Black and Jude Law respectively. On the surface House Swap is very similar in overall premise, except with our house swappers we have a sort of enemies to friends to lovers story that manages to also pack in a bunch of personal growth, development and somehow also stays light and fun at the same time. I had a hard time putting this one down, both characters were relatable in some way and I loved reading how their house swap experiences helped them tackle various personal demons, grow as people and build their friendship.

I did think this whole story was rather lovely. I received an ARC via netgalley. I loved the setting ( between Maine and London). The beginning was a bit slow but it picks up quickly. I did like the love story but it went very quick from them getting together to the I love you part. Overall It was good. Needs some editing to tie it all together better. All opinions are my own.

The beginning of this book was kind of slow, but I ended up loving the story. My only hesitation is that I wanted the story to go more in depth in certain areas. It felt like it skipped around a lot. That being said, I loved the characters and their arc, both individually and together. Overall it was a good book! 3.75 stars!

Thank you to the author, Bookouture and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a quick and easy read, and altogether charming. Two individuals, each with a history that has given them a clear "no" to relationships, swap houses and of course also get involved in the life of the other. Yes, it's predictable, but the characters are well-defined, there's humor and great dialogue, and the story is well-written. Not to mention a slow-burn romance - what's not to like?

2 stars

I honestly wish I had better things to say about this book. I mean, it has so many tropes that I love - house swapping, one of the settings is British, we have a female writer trying to find herself.

*sigh* None of that added up to me enjoying this.

First of all, this book suffers from a surplus of telling and not showing. We never really get a build to anything - our main characters are painted as being immensely inconsiderate and in some cases, downright rude with only the thinnest of backstory for context. In fact, the hero is portrayed as such a jerk that I found his complete 180 completely jarring. When the romance eventually starts to develop, it feels so forced because again we get so little growth. The feelings practically come out of nowhere - we literally get an "I love you" almost immediately after a fade to black on their second kiss.

On top of all of that, the big plot twist to make sure that the characters eventually get their happily ever was a surprise baby that eventually made the hero realize that despite saying emphatically several times that he never wanted kids, he actually did want them if they were with the heroine. I normally don't hate this trope, but the way it was handled in this book felt so one-sided. Our hero has to change his entire worldview to be with the heroine while she is portrayed as not having to do any work on herself to be with him. To me, that's not a real partnership.

I'm sure there are people out there who will thoroughly enjoy this and I wish that I could have been one of them. Unfortunately, this just did not do it for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Thank you to Netgalley, Bookouture and Jo Lovett for gifting me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

“He needs an escape. She needs an adventure.
So why not swap lives?”

You may think you’ve read books about house swaps before but this one is definitely different. Through their house swap James and Cassie (two very opposite people) are forced to become enveloped into each others lives and through their relationship they are able to tackle their past demons to make way for their futures. I liked how this book tackled deeper topics like child loss, miscarriage, sibling loss, addiction and the influences those events can have on a persons life. I do have to admit though that I didn’t love the main character James - he’s a bit of a jerk from the start and although he evolves throughout the story (a bit too easily if Im being honest)… I’m still not head over heels for him. I also did not find the chemistry between the two main characters that intense or believable. Apparently they fell in love with each other in the book but I wasn’t feeling it between them at all. I was excited to read this romance but in the end this book fell a bit flat for me.

Reading this book was an unfortunate case of ‘it’s me and not you’ I was expecting a light, easy, flirty romance that gave me that breezy escape but it wasn’t what I was expecting. That’s not to say that it didn’t have its charms but I was hoping for a story to sweep my reading time up in another direction. Overall it was well written and thought out well but it wasn’t for me this time around. Sad but true.

4.5 stars!

This book is about two strangers who swap houses for a few months. James is from London and Cassie is from an island off the coast of Maine.

I loved this book! I really enjoyed Cassie and James’s characters. I loved seeing how they grew during the course of the book, especially James. It was fun reading about the island and Cassie’s animals. I really liked several of the side characters as well. There were many light, funny moments throughout the book that had me chuckling out loud. Overall I thought this was a really cute, fun book!