Wanted to love it but it was such a dreary story to get through, only really enjoyed the last 10% of the book. I didn't even like how the book concluded so that was frustrating. Yet another book where the female lead is made to apologise for working hard and having to justify her career even to her love interest.

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Audrey is a workaholic who dreams of only one thing: becoming a partner in the law firm; and Jake is the child of a workaholic lawyer who refuses to date anyone married to their work. 

As a career woman myself, it was nice to see a character portrayed that emphasizes the importance of her career and the fact that she can and will balance what matters to her. Often we see women that drop everything for love; and honestly, that is sometimes a deal breaker for me with romance novels. While the plot was predictable, it didn't bother me. 

Also, can we have more romances that focus on women in their thirties?! I loved that!

I was given an ARC of this story to read; but thoughts and opinions are all my own. Thank you to NetGalley, Strawbundle Publishing, and Kathy Strobos for the chance to read this book!

I really enjoyed this book. It was fun and engaging to read whilst addressing the career and work/life decisions women often face. The main character, Audrey, was very likeable and funny and the witty dialogues between her and the other main characters were brilliant. Loved this.

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.

Opposites attract and a friends to lovers book? This is an adorable rom-com book that will give you second hand feelings for both characters.

Oh, this was such an enjoyable and fun read. I do love a romance with a strong, female lead who could stand her ground.

This story follows Audrey, a lawyer who is working hard to become a partner at her law firm. There is only one spot and she is determined to get it no matter how many hours she has to put in. Audrey has six months to show her bosses that she is the right candidate for the role. However, what she didn’t account for was Jake, her new neighbour. Jake is the complete opposite of Audrey. He is carefree and lives his life to the fullest. Jake also doesn’t care for workaholics as he’s had to grow up with a dad who has sacrificed family time for work. Sparks began flying between these two despite their differences. How will Audrey juggle between her career and her love life? Can Jake tolerate Audrey’s career and love her for who she is?

I love Audrey’s determination to succeed. She knows what she wants and she plays fair to get it. Unfortunately, all these comes at the expense of her social life. She spent all her time at work and in a lawyer’s world, the more hours you put in, the higher your chances at success are. But I love that Audrey still tries to have fun when she can. She wants the best of both worlds and you really feel for her when she has to make a choice between fun and work.

I also love the how the romance started for Audrey and Jake. It’s subtle and happened very naturally. They are absolutely the cutest and I don’t say that very much in romance novels. Amidst the romance, this story also gave me an insight into a lawyers’ world and how toxic a workplace can be. I love how level-headed Audrey was and never gave up on finding a win-win solution for her and her colleagues.

Thank you Netgalley and Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) for the arc.

This book took me a while to get into but I really liked the characters so I pushed through and started to enjoy it more. As a lawyer, there were parts that felt very realistic and others that felt pretty off. The romance was kind of so so for me mostly because the start of the relationship felt a bit off. Mostly, I couldn't really buy these complete strangers interacting the way they were in the start. Once I was able to get past that and once the relationship progressed to a point that the way the were talking seemed a bit more normal, I was able to get on board.

Partner Pursuit was a funny and realistic rom com with a refreshing heroine who struggles to maintain a balance between her personal and professional life. I really enjoyed Kathy Strobos' debut novel, and found myself laughing out loud in several situations (the blind dates in this book are hysterical). I always appreciate reading about a strong, career oriented woman at the center of our romances, and I was disappointed by this book!

Audrey had been working extremely hard for years to accomplish her goal: becoming a partner at a prestigious law firm in New York. This made her a complete workaholic that barely spent time with her friends, Eve and Max. Of course, it had also affected her love life, even when her coworker Tim had been her crush for a couple of years. When she met her new neighbour Jake, a music marketing executive, the chemistry between them kept growing, so Audrey had to try to balance her work life and personal life, which proved to be very challenging.

What I liked: This book was fun to read. My favorite thing about it is how the author developed the storyline about Audrey and Colette, and how important it is to work together as women. This was a powerful idea throughout the story, but it wasn't idealized as something easy and nice, which was great. I mean, the author acknowledges how hard it can be, but also shows that it is necessary to take the time and effort to build this kind of alliance. It was also nice how many smart women appeared in the book, it actually made me feel that the story was more realistic. And, I really liked that the author explored many aspects of Audrey's job. It was tremendously relatable because having a balanced and healthy work-life is a great challenge nowadays.

What I didn't like: During the first chapters, the author repeated way too many times that Audrey wanted to be a partner and that she was struggling with her time management and her love life. I think it wasn't necessary to emphasize it so much, as it was pretty clear already. Also, I liked Jake at first, but something happened at a certain point that was a major red flag for me. I don't understand why the author included that part, especially because Audrey and her friends act as if it wasn't a big deal. For that reason, I didn't enjoy the love story as much.

This book is so good. As someone who has family members who work 24/7, I relate to Jake. I also like that neither character is seen as the villian. One character isn't right and the other wrong, they both have things to learn. I loved that this book focused on a women whose career is an important part of her life. Many books and people expect that women to give up their job for love as though their job isn't as important because they are women. As this is becoming more of a reality for women to have to decide between work in love, it was a nice way to think about it. I like how you see growth in the characters. This book was funny and sweet and heartwarming. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a strong badass woman falling in love in a sweet heartwarming story.

This was a quick read that kept my attention and my interests peaked for the most part. But it fell flat in so many places that I was just left wanting more in every way possible.

The book really was split in two parts. Lawyer life and relationship pursuit. At times the story just felt bogged down with the minutia of Audrey’s lawyer duties. While I love that this female mc is highly career driven it just didn’t flow well. It took quite awhile for the characters to start to become more authentic. Starting out too forced and full of exposition. Like they were all cardboard cutouts playing at real life. It slowly started to become more realistic and fun watching them go about their lives. The banter between Audrey and Jake became more realistic, playful and flirty, as Audrey learns to balance her life pursuits. But it felt like it was too little too late.

What I felt was really missing was Audrey actually having a talk with her Mom in person. There’s a lot of backstory and reasons for Audrey’s “be nice” attitude and her desire to put career above all else. There was no big cathartic moment where her and her Mom to hash out their painful feelings and I feel like that’s such a huge missed opportunity.

A fun read that moves along at a quirky pace. Not a genre I pick up, but I am glad I chose it when I got the e-mail. Life can be stressful, reading doesn’t have to be!

Audrey is a hard working lawyer obsessed with becoming a partner at a stuffy New York law firm.

When rumor has it that only one female will make partner, she has to watch her back and stay laser focused. Her mother keeps pushing her and, honestly, Audrey never considers that there is another option for her life. With her goal so close, she cannot afford any distractions. Not after all the time she has put in, all the sacrifices she has made.

Hunky new neighbor Jake is a hard working, fun loving, music marketing exec who lives spontaneously and is a tempting distraction for Audrey. He is interested, but his father was a lawyer who missed too many milestones in his family’s life. There is no way that he is going to waste his time pursuing someone whose job comes first.

Are they going to let the sparks fizzle? Or is somebody going to give in?
Hop on, its a fun ride!

Thank You to
@kathystroboswriter and @netgalley for the opportunity to review this book
#bookstagram #bookreview #partnerpursuit
#kindleeditition #ebook

This book had really cute banter between the two main characters however, is very focused on their careers as lawyers (as indicated in the title).

Audrey is a shrewd lawyer and a workaholic. But she has a motive, and that is to be made a partner in the Law Firm.
However she's been thrown a curve ball when she finds out there is just one spot left and she's determined to get it! I loved this book

This was such a cute read! It was funny, heartwarming, and quite inspirational.

The book tells the story of Audrey, a lawyer and kind of a workaholic, singleminded in her mission to be made a partner at her law firm. Her career aspirations come at the detriment of her social life…and love life! “Work/life balance” isn’t a term Audrey understands!

Enter Jake, her handsome neighbour. Jake throws a bit of a spanner in the works! With her hectic work schedule, can Audrey actually make time for love?

I really liked Audrey, she was a strong character and she’s very relatable in terms of the struggles of being a woman in the workplace. I also swooned over Jake an enjoyed their dynamic.

I’d definitely recommend this as a cute, uplifting rom-com read!

e-ARC acquired via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Partner Pursuit by Kathy Strobos is a romance that looms around a storyline of a workaholic lawyer and a laidback, chill music marketing executive. The story especially draws the line between being productive and being busy, and how when the line between the two blurs, it can cost you a lot.

This specific idea was the first thing that intrigued me to request this book in the first place, since I’m very anti-hustle culture. People often forget the difference between being a human being and a human doing, and it irritates the hell out of me and so, it was lovely to read a book surrounding a theme similar to that.

Anyway, lets stick to the topic.

This book revolves around Audrey, a lawyer who is looking for an opportunity to make partner in a law firm and for anyone who is a lawyer would know that making partner is a very important event of any lawyer’s career. She has known her entire life that she has to keep her eyes on the prize and not let her doubts deter her. Things go out of her way when she meets her new neighbour, Jake- a sexy, laidback music marketing executive who believes in the fact that work should be fun, not a prison. As a matter of fact, Jake has a special dislike towards lawyers because he knows how busy they get. He just doesn’t want to live a life with someone who doesn’t have time for anything else other than work.

If you like a coming of age, opposites-attract, workaholic meets chill romance then you’re in for a treat.

Okay, so when I was reading this book, I could see a lot of myself in Audrey because at one point in my life I was a workaholic like her. Like working 24 hours without breaks. That was me. I still kind of am but I have improved a lot. It’s a work in progress but anyway, I felt connected to the main character of the story pretty immediately.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the first half of the story as I read it. It was one of those moments when I kept thinking about the book even when I wasn’t reading it. It was all over my mind.

There were a lot of lawyer related topics that I had no clue about, so I skimmed through some of those because reading them made no sense to me, like most of it went right over my head so I skipped a few things when it came to the lawyer work related things so I knew enough to know what was happening in Audrey’s life but still not too much in detail.

In my personal opinion, I just feel that the author went way too much in detail about the cases the main character had to deal with without much context because honestly, they did not contribute anything to the story. Maybe just a brief mention of her work status would have sufficed the overall story. Including so many details made it boring for a layman like me who had no idea about lawyer things. But that’s just my personal opinion.

Another thing that troubled me a little was the lack of tension. I loved the first half of the book but the moment the two lovebirds get together in a relationship, the tension died. Also, the relationship thing happened very quickly. Or maybe I’m just old school who likes things slow when it comes to romance.

Anyway, this lack of tension bored me a little and I no longer felt inclined or drawn to pick up the book again. Thanks to my persistence and my ideology of never leaving a book half read that I picked the book again soon and finally, the tension was rebuilt when Audrey’s workaholism started affecting everything else around her.

The ending was good, although it did feel a little rushed but given that the story had no loose ends by that point, I let that slide.

Now onto writing, the prose was fun and easy to understand. 10/10 for writing!

What I loved about this book was how the author managed to pull off one of the most nicely done love triangle between Tim, Audrey and Jake. I couldn’t stop laughing when the three of them were in the same room and the boys were acting like literal children, grabbing for Audrey’s attention, claiming that they know her better! That was the best. I loved this effort because not a lot of people pull of love triangles that well. But it was done nicely in this book.

Overall I guess I would give this book a 4 out of 5 stars. I loved the story and the characters and I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a lawyer or a workaholic.

I would also like to thank Netgalley and the author, Kathy Strobos for giving me the opportunity to read this amazingly written book in return of an honest opinion.

Thank you so much for reading! 💜

This pleasantly surprised me. I must admit, I started this book with low expectations, and if I'm honest my interest stemmed from the fact it was set in New York. But this was a really enjoyable read. It wasn't boring at all, and it had a decent plot line. I learnt a lot about the life of a lawyer- and have most definitely been put off 😂. I found it incredibly insightful to see the conflict in law firms, especially between women, and I genuinely blame society for this, because we are constantly pitted against each other. I liked the love interest too, and seeing that slowly formulate was nice. I also really liked Jake as a character, his acceptance of Audrey was warming. I like how Collette softens to Audrey. I didn't like a lot of the men in this book, I felt like some were extremely entitled. All in all, this was a good book, and I'd definitely recommend it as a light hearted read.

A really wonderful read that I devoured in one sitting. My main gripe with romances is when the romance isn't believable, I did not have this problem here.

Loved the characters and loved the storyline, I would 100% recommend it to my friends.

Leading lady Audrey knows what she wants, has fought to get there and doesn't let anything get in her way. Dating can wait. That is until she meets jake. I couldn't put this book down and I got hooked on the story between Audrey and jake. I personally would have loved jake to ask Audrey to marry him at the end of the book but that's just me. If your a fan of authors like Sophie kinsella, Jill Mansel etc you will not be disappointed in this book. I cant recommend this book enough!!!

For me this book fell a little flat. The potential was there but the characters didn’t jump out at me in any spectacular way and I found the plot a little repetitive and I felt like there was so much emphasis on her job and not much else.