I did not connect with this book at all. I did not enjoy the writing as a whole and it was a boring slow burn for me. I wanted to enjoy it, but no.

With Neighbors Like This is Tracy Goodwin’s latest romantic comedy featuring a single mom battling a homeowner’s association over a garden gnome. Amelia Marsh’s husband abandoned her and their two children for his mistress. When she relocated to a suburb of Houston, her children requested that they put their handpainted garden gnome in their front yard garden to make their new house feel homey. Unfortunately Carla, the HOA representative, is overzealous in enforcing all of the HOA rules. The HOA President, Kyle Sanders, is a good guy and confirmed bachelor. Amelia and Kyle are romantically interested in each other against their will, but they have the HOA battle between them.

The premise of this book is good but there are issues with the writing. The story is told in alternating POV by Amelia and Kyle in third person. This needs to be changed to first person, to be more readable. Additionally the verb tenses alternate between present and past tense. This book needs significant editing prior to its release.

I received an advance review copy (ARC) from NetGalley for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book makes me think of stereotype. I just wasn't interested. DNF


*********I received an ARC for my honest opinion from NetGalley ******

DNF at 78%.

Amelia Marsh's husband left her for another woman and ghosted her and their two children. She has made a new start and moved to her hometown of Houston, closer to her friends. Unfortunately they have barely moved in before she falls foul of the Home-Owner's Association representative Carla, who objects to the family garden gnome being in the front garden. Little does Carla know that Amelia's children lovingly painted that gnome for her for mother's day and it was their only request when relocating to Houston that the gnome took pride of place in the garden. Unfortunately Carla takes great joy in throwing her weight around and issuing violation notices like confetti, but she's picked on the wrong mom this time! So far, so good, I especially liked Amelia's tactics of killing Carla with kindness and 'bless your heart'ing her to oblivion. True Southern woman revenge.

All this takes place at the community Easter Egg hunt, when Amelia's children have their photo taken with the Easter bunny, Amelia forms a bond with the guy wearing the bunny costume. He's devastatingly handsome and charming with a wicked sense of humour, unfortunately he also turns out to be the HOA President, Kyle Sanders. Amelia isn't going to let a pesky thing like animal attraction detract her from winning her battle with the HOA and bringing down Carla. Moreover, after a humiliating and messy divorce she doesn't want to bring anyone into her children's lives who might break their hearts again.

Kyle is madly attracted to his sassy new neighbour, even if she is threatening to challenge the HOA rules and make his life harder, but he vowed not to get involved with women with children so they will have to remain friends, or at least frenemies.

See, all this sounds great, a bit of enemies to lovers, a viciously polite war with the HOA, sassy dialogue and I'm all-in. Unfortunately, that all seemed to die out pretty quickly. Amelia was that impossible paragon of motherhood who can hold down a full-time job, bring up two small children single-handedly, and organise Easter Egg hunts for her friends' children whilst also creating an adults Easter hunt together with hand-made gift baskets for her friends (I think I threw-up in my mouth a little bit). Similarly, Kyle runs his own construction business yet also acts as President of the HOA, dresses up as the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas, kills wasps nests in the children's playground, etc, etc. But of course they are both too committed to their high-falutin' ideals to give in to their feelings, so they keep almost kissing, then friendzoning each other. The dastardly plans to confound Carla deteriorate and I just got bored. So, even though I was so close to the end, I couldn't bring myself to invest another 45 minutes in this book. If anyone finishes it and tells me that there is a brilliant scene where Carla is totally humiliated and gets the takedown she deserves then I might force myself to read the rest but at the moment it feels like it's all going to be a bit of a damp squib.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This is the story of a recently divorced Mum of 2 who moves to a new community and begins her new life here. It is an engaging and entertaining story although it does tackle some deeper topics such as divorce, bullying and the loss of a spouse. I enjoyed Amelia's relationships with her friends and with love interest Kyle. The HOA storyline is amusing and engaging. It is a predictable, light hearted read with some rather corny moments however I enjoyed the characters and the plot.

I love slow-burn romances, and this was my first Tracy Goodwin novel!

Amelia March moves her two children to the suburbs, where she accidentally gets in a little war with the HOA patrol. This sparks a friendship with the HOA president, Kyle.

I love Amelia, Kyle, and Amelia's two children so much. While many say this is enemies-to-lovers, I'd say it's more of a somewhat friends, to friends to lovers instead.

I'm looking forward to reading more by this author.

Reading With Neighbors Like This made me doubly glad to live in the country, far away from HOAs and people like Carla. Newly divorced Amelia moves into a new neighborhood with her two lovely kids, and almost instantly starts a war with the HOA (mainly with the community representative Carla) over a garden gnome. Luckily, she has the support of her two best friends, and that of the sexy president of the HOA, Kyle. I enjoyed this sweet contemporary romance, which was largely a story about the importance of family.

great romance between 2 neighbors who fall in love and deal with the HOA and person who watches all thing that happens in this area. loved her friends and romance and the kids.

Didn’t connect with this one. I did chuckle because HOA but the POV was weird to me. Sad because I was excited!

Thank you for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

Fun romcom about a divorced mom and an attractive HOA president. Very realistic storyline, though the writing did take me out a little. Overall nice read.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own

A recently divorced mom and her kids move to a new community and she just wants to put the garden gnome her kids made for her in the yard- a little touch of home for them. But the management company rep, the evil Carla, and the HOA say she can’t! Rather than fold and remove the statue she decides to fight. Oh yeah, did I mention the HOA president is a hunk? Wonder how that’s going to work out?

This is a great premise for a book- a heroic battle against an HOA, an extraordinary mother trying to be everything to her children whose dad has deserted them, a romance with a hunk. And that is all there. But I simply could not get over the really odd and awkward POV and tense. I felt it put a distance between the characters and me. I admired Amelia and Kyle. But that awkward POV/tense just ruined the book experience. I would not recommend this book.

I received this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Have to admit this is my typical rom com. But I have to stay a rom com set in the suburbs complete with a HOA was spot on to my experience of HOAs in real life. This book kept me laughing and I think it would make a pretty clue romantic comedy movie. I look forward to other books by this author.

With Neighbors Like These
Tracy Goodwin

Genre: Romance
Published: 2022
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 / 5
Recommended: Yes


I found myself really liking the main character of this story even though I typically do not read books with divorced characters (I usually find them too angsty!)

This was a very wholesome and easy read. It focused on found family over all, and also on prioritizing your own wellness because you can’t pour from an empty glass. Some of the writing (specifically relating to the kids) felt a little forced/cheesy, like a kid from a cartoon rather than a kid in real life. Overall a nice palate cleansing read!

Amelia had to move back to her hometown with her two children after her divorce. Her kids are understandably not happy about having to start over. Amelia promises her kids that she’ll put the gnome they made for her on their front yard, hoping that it’ll make their new house feel like home, anything to make her children happy. Except the HOA has extremely strict rules. When Amelia is told she cannot have a gnome on her yard, she decides to do whatever she can to keep the gnome on her yard. Even if that means going against the very attractive HOA president Kyle Sanders.

This was a nice read! I did feel that it dragged on a bit but I still enjoyed reading the relationship between Kyle and Amelia throughout the book.

I originally wanted to read this because I, too, have (in the past) suffered under a painfully horrible HOA (the main incident I’m reminded of was when my husband and children were standing in our cul-de-sac, playing badminton, politely - no yelling). Someone actually took a photo and emailed it to the HOA and we got a letter and really, when an HOA member tells you in all earnestness that you can’t even enjoy your neighborhood while being somewhat active - let me just say, f*ck HOA’s).

I’m not really certain why this one is being hyped as an enemies-to-lovers because there’s nothing of the sort here (enemies to lovers isn’t usually my genre, as I’ve never found an enemies-to-lovers novel that I’ve enjoyed as much as Pride and Prejudice). He’s the unwilling president of the HOA, enforcing their rules; the real enemy here, of course, is the HOA, not its president.

This one was a cute and easy read.

A cute, sweet book about a recently divorced mom who moves back to her Texas hometown and find herself embroiled in a massive row with a controlling HOA manager and a hot, single HOA President. Very sweet story but didn't ever really pull me in,

Overall it was a fun story of a single mom taking on the PTA. While there is romance, it isn't the main factor which was kind of nice and it felt genuine. However sometimes it being in present tense did make it feel a little bit awkward. At times it felt like there was an abundance of pop culture nods.

It was cute and fun

I've never read a Tracy Goodwin novel before, so perhaps someone can tell me whether this is her norm or not, but I really disliked the way this novel was formatted. I don't mean the formatting of the page, but of the prose--it sounded like there was some kind of third party narrator for every chapter rather than being told from the third person perspective of the actual characters, and I was *not* a fan. What this wound up doing was making everything "tell" and not "show"--I didn't get to learn about the characters or the kids' personalities through the actions of the book, I knew it because the narration told me right away that "so-and-so is a charmer at ten and already knows it", etc. Maybe some people enjoy books that just tell them everything from the beginning, but not this reader.

I can see how people will enjoy aspects of this book, the interactions between Amelia and Kyle, and the light-hearted nature of the book, but tagging it as enemies to lovers isn't really accurate. Because. Once again. There are *no stakes*.

Low 3/5.

With Neighbors Like This by Tracy Goodwin
A sweet romantic comedy about a newly-divorced single mom who moves into an HOA-controlled neighborhood with her two young children, With Neighbors Like This features engaging characters, a slow-burn love story, strong female friendships, and a villain you love to hate.
Amelia loves her new neighborhood and hopes that the move will be a fresh start for herself and her kids, Jacob and Chloe. She loves most of her new neighbors, too. Too bad that the community’s management company representative, Carla, appears to be out to get her and that her new friend and crush turns out to be the president of the HOA. Also too bad that Amelia seems to be infringing one rule after another, at least according to Carla, who doesn’t let up on her constant surveillance of Amelia, her kids, and her property.
Amelia struggles with the disinterest her former husband shows towards his kids and the problems her kids are having in their new school. Her close friends Lily and Bridget have her back, as does Kyle, who turns out to be a good guy who helps Amelia to turn the tables on Carla.
The narrative flows well for the most part, with the only exception being that the author tends to dot the i’s and cross the t’s when it comes to her characters. The old adage for writers, “show, don’t tell,” applies here, though to be fair, it’s more like “if you are showing, you don’t need to tell as well.” For example, the writer does a great job of showing through Amelia’s actions that she is organized, thorough, and doggedly determined to pursue what she feels is the right path. But then we read, “This is why Amelia’s ex said she should have been an attorney. Because she is relentless and fights for what’s right.” This sort of omniscient narrator editorial commenting occurs a few times in the story. I found it somewhat intrusive.
Aside from that minor objection, and the fact that Amelia’s children are articulate and mature far beyond their ages, (we are also told this explicitly, but as a former teacher I found it somewhat unrealistic) I really enjoyed the story. It has heart and humor, and the characters are fun to root for (or against). With Neighbors Like This is an appealing Hallmark movie-style story.