Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed Blame it on the Brontës! The concept was really clever. I found the chemistry between Athena and Thorne captivating, and the plot moved at a pace I liked.

Thank-you NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing), Forever for the chance to review this ARC!

4/5

If you're a fan of the Brontë sisters this is for ya!

Annie Sereno wrote such a great story here I couldn't put it down!
I loved Athena and Thorne, the nature of their relationship was so interesting worthy of a Bronte novel!
Thorne has some cute moments and I really enjoyed that!

Overall, this was a fun read and I can't wait to read more of Sereno's work.

This book sits on a throne of lies. Literally everyone in this book is lying to each other or telling half truths. If I was Athena and found out that this many people were lying to me I would not be uprooting my life in San Francisco to move back to my hometown. I definitely would not be dating a man whose lies messed with my career. I really wanted to like this book. It was full of literary references that were fun, but the story just did nothing for me. The romance between Athena and Thorne felt forced. Their relationship was a mix of coldness, issues from the past that were never fully explained or explored, and lust that somehow wasn't steamy. The big reveal was so obvious from the get go that I was really hoping there would be more to it, but there wasn't There were a few side characters that I liked but they could not save this book for me.

Let's be honest, this book had ALOT going on. Between being back around her ex, trying to figure out who this mystery author is, and all the other retellings, it becomes very hard to keep track of.

I'll always have love for any book that has a "bookish" theme, but this one wasn't it for me unfortunately!

I’m automatically interested in any book with bookish themes,

In this one Athena goes back home and is thrust into a close proximity to the man who broke her heart, Thorne.

We have witty banter, second chance love, and small town charm.

Athena is attempting to uncover the identity of C.L. Garland an unknown writer writing scandalous versions of classics when she’s thrust back into contact with Thorne who is now her boss… cue the drama!

Recommend for those who love small town romance, miscommunication tropes, and the Brontes!

Full review to come!

Thank you to the publisher for my review copy. All opinions are my own.

At 21% I have decided to put this title down. I do not have a strong dislike or a deal breaker in this DNF....it just seems this title is not holding my interest AT ALL. I have no desire to keep moving forward and sadly....have decided to not finish.

I think this title would work well for others....just me at this time. It's a no.

This book was much more cavalier with sex than I was expecting. If you read between the lines you can tell that the mysterious author C.L. Garland is writing erotic versions of classic literature, but I was not reading between the lines. Besides that, which is not my cup of tea, I liked the character and their obvious magnetism to each other.

Blame It on the Brontёs tries to accomplish a lot, and, in attempting so much, it fails to do very much at all. The elements at play here, distilled to their most simple tagline, are not wildly offensive, and, indeed, what attracted me to pick it up in the first place. However, in execution, and combined with each other, I found the novel a tepid read with shockingly low stakes and shockingly low investment on my behalf.
We can begin with the title–I am a Brontё enthusiast, and any sort of contemporary romance novel vaguely nodding to classic literature is one I am likely to pick up. However, the Brontёs have virtually no significance in the novel in any capacity beyond frequent, incongruent references. Next: our main character is an English professor with a PhD and all the appropriate qualifications–this is a character type I am inclined toward, indeed. However, the primary tension in the novel, an ever-looming deadline for a career saving book, is so wildly unacademic and silly I struggle to believe the author understands what it is English professors do. There’s also a mysterious author our protagonist is looking to suss out the identity of–a mystery author of undetermined identity writes Brontё inspired eroticism (!!!). However, this objectively interesting subplot is rendered dull and tedious when the reader is immediately able to guess the “mysterious” author (despite characters outwardly lying, which is one of the mystery genre’s greatest faux pas, in my eyes). We are also completely robbed of any Brontё eroticism, which is a great crime indeed.
Center is a romance (see also: the novel’s genre) and here I stumble upon my greeted grievance. Again, we see Sereno attempt too much, and achieve little. It’s a sort of unclear second chance story, and, while the characters have declared upon sexual tension from the first interaction, the loopdeloop nature of the book’s plot means any opportunity to build on that tension is squashed. Again–Sereno tries to cram too many tropes into the one story arc, so that by the time the auction-bought-date trope comes along, it doesn’t make much sense in terms of where the characters are in their courtship. There’s matching costumes, and the good old bidding on dates situation, and the he’s-dating-someone-else fakeout. There’s quite a lot going on–and yet not Brontё erotica.
Ultimately, I restate: the idea was not bad. It is perhaps those kernels of goodness that make the sum of parts so disappointing–I wanted more and I closed the book unsatisfied. For readers inclined towards picking this one up, I would instead point them to Northanger Abbey, or mayhap a nice Agatha Christie, for the actual mystery factor. While I will remain drawn to literary inspired romance, they do perhaps set my expectations a little high.
Thank you to Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and Netgalley for the ARC, gifted in exchange for my honest review.

This book was hard to get into for me at first but it was absolutely worth it when I did! The spin on classic novelists with a soon to be classic character in this novel was amazing and fun!

This is a cute second chance romance,I really liked the premise but I found I couldn’t get into it. I put it down and picked it up again but it didn’t change my perspective. It just wasn’t for me I guess.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This book was a fun treat! I loved it! It was a good reset after I read a heavier book. It kept me flipping pages well past my bedtime!!

This was so well written. I was engrossed from the first page and it ticked all the boxes of my expectations . I would definitely recommend to others.

This book was a very solid 3 for me. There wasn’t anything that made it particularly horrible, nothing that caused me to consider not finishing it, but, it did leave something to be desired. While I liked the main character of Athena, I felt that all of the other characters were an afterthought. The romance of this story was lukewarm and the leading man was in moments likeable, but most often his character lacked anything that made him interesting. Without the passion and characters to help it, this book moved slowly. What I did appreciate was the motif of mental health awareness that percolated throughout the book. Thank you to NetGalley and Forever Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this eARC.

I was interested in this book because I wanted to see how the author incorporated classic literature into the plot, but sadly the references to classics were the only things that I found really enjoyable. I was not a fan of the relationship between Athena and Thorne because of how on-again-off-again it was for seemingly no concrete reasons, and I thought that they never really got the resolution or closure that they each needed in order to have their relationship finally succeed. I also thought that the plot did not really have a driving force behind it, and there was a lot that was left unexplained for no reason such as the character of Athena’s dad; the story beats did not work for me, and I was left confused about backstory things even when I was reading a section from the character’s point of view (which should have made it clearer). I also thought that the balance was off in this book, as we do not get nearly enough passages with Thorne’s POV to make it a dual-perspective book, but we get too many to consider it a single-perspective book. What I did enjoy I this book was Athena’s mother’s story arc, the way Thorne created his passwords for his laptop, and the setting of the café. All in all, I thought this book was okay, but I would not read it again due to the structural problems I had with it.

Athena Murphy is a literature professor, who has not published anything. She takes a sabbatical to come home, and write. Her goal to find the identity of C.L. Garland, who does reimagining’s of classic novels with a ‘twist”, and is said to be residing in her home town. When she returns home she finds her ex-boyfriend now lives and owns the bakery that she is supposed to be working at.

There is nothing fresh in this contemporary romance. The author does a great job bringing in themes and quotes from the Brontë sister’s novels, but other than that there was really no sizzle. Even the twists were predictable, and I figured it out within a few chapters.

This is a good beach read or if you want a light read. We all need these types of books in our lives and this one does the job perfectly.

Thank you NetGalley and Forever for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Cute, but extremely predicable second-chance romance. Blame It on the Brontes by Annie Sereno is about a woman who returns home to uncover the identity of an author who takes historical classics and turns them into highly-rated smut novels. I’ll be honest, I was intrigued by the premise of this story, however the execution fell through. The book opens on Athena Murphy finding herself back in her hometown after a harebrained idea became the only way to save her job as an English professor. Her goal while there is to write a story about the famed C.L. Garland who reportedly lives in her hometown. However what she finds instead may be everything she ever wanted.

I can’t decide if I like Athena or not, even after finishing the book. She’s supposed to be this well-read English professor up for tenure. However she reads like a fresh out of college twenty-something. In other words, she’s quite immature. I guess I noticed it more since she is supposed to be about my own age. I found myself disliking her rather than empathizing with her. I was indifferent to her plight and truly wasn’t interested in her keeping her job.

Thorne Kent recently made the little town of Laurel his home, buying a small cafe and leaving his job as a lawyer behind. I like Thorne, more than I like Athena. However his choices are questionable. The reason behind leaving Athena behind had more to do with his own pride than trusting her. It was hard to follow his reasoning.

The romance and chemistry between Thorne and Athena is the book’s saving grace. The banter is high quality, fun and flirty. I really enjoyed all of their interactions, even the ones that were slightly painful. This is truly a second (maybe third chance) romance. Overall, this one was ok. I enjoyed it enough to finish. I was curious about the mystery surround Garland and how Athena would react to Thorne’s secrets. If you enjoy contemporary romance, you may enjoy this one.

This was a solid read for me. I read it relatively quickly. It's a second chance love for Athena and Thorne, who were together during college but then broke up under not-immediately-revealed circumstances.

My problems with this book were twofold.
1. It was clear that Thorne was the mystery author. Like really?
2. Their breakup/miscommunication was forced so the fact that it took so long to get back together seemed forced. I like a good breakup if it seems even moderately sensible but this was not.

This was an early DNF for me, unfortunately. I picked this up because the blurb seemed exactly my jam, but the writing was clunky and the characters were explaining their whole back story in their dialogue in a way that was so clearly exposition that it took me out of the story immediately. I kept telling myself I’d give it another chance but if the writing isn’t my style, plot developments were unlikely to change my feelings about it. As always, your mileage may vary!

Thanks to Forever Publishing for the free book.
This book was fun. Athena was such a memorable character - I loved her voice and wit. Also, her interactions with the patrons she served were so heartwarming. This is the part of small town life that I can get behind. Also being a St. Louisan, I could easily picture the setting, as I go into small Illinois towns across the river frequently. The book did feel too long for me. I felt the middle dragged a bit. I'm also not a fan of conflict/reveals in the last 5% of a book, I need more time devoted to the resolution. This book is a homage to the Brontes, and I think if you're a fan of their work, then this book is for you. I'm sure I would've understood the references had I read more than Jane Eyre, though now I want to go get some classics off my shelf and give them a go.

This was a delightful read. I will admit it the beginning I was a bit frustrated that I didn't know what the history was that caused Athena and Thorne to break up since they seemed so perfect, but I'm glad that author let it slow burn. I loved all of the reference to the literary classics throughout the book. Especially Jane Eyre since that is a favorite of mine. I hope that the LitWit series gets published as a follow up because I would love to read them.