Ship Wrecked
Book 3 in the Spoiler Alert Series
Rating: 3 stars
Thank you to the author/publisher for the ARC given through NetGalley for review. All opinions are my own.


First off I want to say that I really looked forward to reading this book. The premise sounded very interesting in which, like the previous books in the series, we found ourselves immersed in the world of a big production TV series. This book takes off with a very hot and smexy scene between our two leads. It was supposed to be a one night stand but Peter seems to have developed feelings towards Maria as the night ends. Little do they know that they'll end up working together on the same TV show as one of the couples in the story. This is where the story takes off.
I will have to admit that I was enjoying the beginning of it with all their banter and quick come backs, but then as the story slowly progressed I got bored. I kept looking at the corner of my Kindle at the percentage read and I noticed that it was moving too slow.
I feel that nothing much happened in the story to catch my attention. I actually skimmed some chapters towards the end and didn't seem to miss much.
I'm giving it three stars because I enjoyed reading about two people representing body positivity and how much they pined for each other during all those years they filmed together and when they finally get together again...hot!!

I love her books and I was looking forward to read this new addition to her latest series.
Maria and Peter have a one night stand and she leaves before he wakes up. No walk of shame on here but I was sad for Peter because he felt used and I was sure that wasn’t her intention.
Moving forward , they met again competing for an interesting audition. I loved how they both played out in it and to see what comes next in their real relationship. The open discussion was so worth it and something that I am always looking for in romance books because miscommunications are the worst.
They both have a past and lost to share about that said past but I loved how responsive they both are for each other and how their love just blooms with each new scene.
I’m all about the body positivity and I’m hoping to see more about it in other books, not only by a handful of authors.

Romance at its best for me.

📖NetGalley arc

Oh holy, am I in love with Olivia Dade.

I'm not sure how she was recommended to me but I started the Spoiler Alert series to get to SHIP WRECKED and wow, just wow. BIg, beautiful humans, great banter, wonderful plots, I loved the cross-pollentation with the text groups and AO3. Being a big nerd, everything about the cons felt right and GODS OF THE GATES is a show I would totally watch.

MORE PLEASE! (Is Carrah next? What about Summer? Please let it be Carrah.)

I tooted at her on Mastodon that I love her books and that I'm going to head to my library to read more of her stuff. I also have a crush on Peter. is it possible to have a crush on a fictional character? Yes, yes it is.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this novel; all opinions are my own.

I have read other novels by Olivia Dade before and really enjoyed them which is why I just have a few questions on this novel because I DNF'd at 25%:
-Am I supposed to be rooting for Peter?
-At 25% into the novel this man has been the absolute worst and not in a "villain" way but in a "real wold disappointing men" way and I'm supposed to hope he gets better? I'm supposed to want the absolutely fabulous Maria to get with ... Peter? No. I refuse.

I'm not going to finish this novel because while I like the plus size rep, I do not like misogynistic "heros" in novels. I hope Maria, our heroine, gets with someone else I really do.

She was midnight sun, drawing everyone into her orbit. She shone. She brightened everything around her. Including him.”

Olivia Dade just absolutely knows the way to my heart. I was so thrilled to be able to get an ARC of the third book in this series, especially after loving the first two books. And this one does not disappoint.

After a one-night stand, Maria and Peter show up to an audition for Gods of the Gates. Maria left Peter before he woke up, and he’ feeling bitter and used. Once they’re cast and the years go by, it’s clear that Peter and Maria have much deeper feelings than they have allowed themselves to act on. Now that the show is over, they’ll need to figure out how to navigate this new phase of their relationship.

I loved Peter and Maria. They’re both so different on the surface but they’ve both been through so much in their personal lives. Maria is outspoken and outgoing, while Peter is an introvert and slightly socially awkward. But when they’re together, they seem to settles into a routine that’s good for both of them. They feel protected and valued, and it’s clear they’re a team even before they are officially a couple.

It was really beautiful to see them have open, honest conversations with each other that bond them further. Maria talks about her adoption and Peter talks about his strained relationship with his father. What I really loved about this was how they were both unwavering in their support and understanding, and it felt realistic, as if they were two well-adjusted adults who know how to communicate. Of course, it’s not without a bit of drama, but even that doesn’t feel out of place. Everything clicks for both of them at the same time and they’re exactly the couple you want to root for.

Also, we need to give it up for two plus-sized main characters who are proud and unashamed of their bodies. The romance genre continues to shine with body positive characters, and I really hope we keep seeing more and more of it. On top of that, there is an incredible moment where they both stand their ground over what the show runners want Maria’s body to look like, and it’s so moving to see Peter stand by her.

Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade
Rating: 3 stars
Steam: 2 chilis
Pub Date: 11/15

I was SO excited to get a recent approval from NetGalley for Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade. I was drawn in by the beautiful cover and the author’s fantastic reputation, but it didn’t blow me away as I’d hoped.

I haven’t read any of the other books in this series, and that was my first mistake. There are cameos, references, and inside jokes that I absolutely did not understand. That didn’t affect my rating so much as it just annoyed me.

I’m a little torn on this one. On the one hand, I liked the body positivity, the dual POV, the dual pining, the steam, and the behind-the-scenes look at the production of a big TV show. But even with its positive attributes, I still ended up disappointed.

The pacing of this book was way off. It starts off well enough, and then suddenly, weeks have passed, and we don’t know what happens during that time. Then there is a six-year time jump, in the middle of a chapter, with no preamble. Yup, you read that right. It completely disrupts the flow of the story, and I had a hard time catching up.

I also really didn’t like Peter or Maria. Peter is grumpy, and not in a cute way…he’s mostly just a jerk. And Maria is super liberal about certain things and yet conservative and uptight about others. Her self-righteousness and abrasive personality made her hard to connect with, and I just never found a good rhythm with this one.

I will absolutely read other books by Olivia Dade because I have heard such great things! This one just wasn’t for me. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Avon for the gifted copy. Ship Wrecked comes out on 11/15.

I said it before in my reviews for Spoiler Alert and All the Feels - this is the romantic comedy we didn’t know we needed. Sequels are always so tricky because they have so much to live up to, and Olivia Dade completely exceeded even my ridiculously incredibly high hopes and expectations with Ship Wrecked.

All the same sentiments I had with Spoiler Alert and All the Feels still apply - the importance of self-love and acceptance, embracing our differences and faults, and learning that our pasts don’t define our futures. I didn’t think it would be possible but I love Maria and Peter even more than I loved Marcus & April and Alex & Lauren. We first met Maria and Peter in Spoiler Alert back when they were just friends/co-actors in the cast group chat, and we follow them from their first meet at the spa where they have a one-night stand, to their second meet as potential love interests at their auditions and then through the next six years as cast mates. I really appreciate this crossover, which we don’t usually see in sequels. As with all sequels, I love looking back at the first couple and revisiting them, which we do a little bit of her but not as much as I hoped, especially given the timeline - pasts of the book occur before that of the first two and then concurrently with the events in the other two. The focus is firmly on Maria and Peter and the development of their relationship from lovers, to enemies,, to friends and eventually lovers again. In terms of the fandom and fanfic in this one, this falls between Spoiler Alert and All the Feels - Maria and Peter’s characters on the show mimic their real-life relationship, and the fans are pretty rabid for this particular ship and love to speculate on whether they are or not a couple IRL. Like All the Feels, there is more time spent on character development - insight into how Peter got to be the man he is, how Maria came to be his friend and why they seem to be able to connect despite their differences, but also the barriers holding them back.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Avon/Harper for the opportunity to read this amazing book months ahead of its release and saving me the agony of waiting for my preorder to become available!

In Ship-Wrecked, we meet more stars of the TV series Gods of the Gates. This time the main characters are plus size co-stars filming together on a deserted island six years after having a one night stand. He’s pined for her ever since that night, but she refuses to love someone who won’t put her first.

After reading the first two books in the Spoiler Alert series, I was equally excited and apprehensive about starting this one. In Spoiler Alert and All the Feels, the male main character is neurodivergent and his diagnosis becomes his entire personality and character arc. Fortunately, Ship-Wrecked seemed to diverge from that formula. Instead, Peter is given childhood trauma, abandonment issues, and an amusing fear of cows.

Overall, the book was good. The big picture of the romance was sweet. The spice was good. The cameos of the rest of the characters from the Gods of the Gates universe were nice. The timeline was a little choppy and hard to follow at times. The story was told from a third person point of view, but occasionally seemed to switch from Peter’s POV to Maria’s POV without feeling intentional.

I received an e-ARC from NetGalley/Avon.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I absolutely loved Spoiler Alert when I read it a couple of years ago. And then All the Feels was long but good. But Ship Wrecked just felt long...and it is at 400 pages long for a modern romance novel.

In this story we are following Maria, a Swedish actress making her American debut on Gods of the Gates (think fictionalized Game of Thrones but Roman gods), and Peter, her introverted and pessimistic costar who hates cows. The book starts off with an incredibly steamy one-night stand between Peter and Maria (so not a spoiler, because the action starts on the first few pages), and then at some point Peter and Maria realize they will be costars on GOTG. Either I am dense, or the writing style was kind of confusing, but apparently the slow burn of one-night stand to kind of tense coworkers to friends to lovers spans 6 years (AKA the first 200 pages). I didn't realize it was a 6 year timeline until I was at page 150...oops.

There are some good things in this book - plus-sized representation for him and her, introversion representation (is that even a thing -- don't we kind of all know what introverts are by now?), and foster family/adoption.

My biggest issues, besides this being essentially 2 stories in one (the first of their time on set, and the second after the show wrapped - which could have been 2 separate books), is that Maria and Peter fall flat for me as characters, and I got mixed messages about their love for one another. I get that it is supposed to be playful, but her nickname/term of endearment for the man she supposedly loves with all her heart is skitstovel - which means shit-boot. And it's not like he ended up stepping in poo to earn this moniker...nope...she just decides he's a shit boot. Also, Peter is apparently deathly afraid of cows - it's mentioned repeatedly throughout the book, but there's no context or character building of why, just that he is. For some of the things that Dade spends painstaking care to walk through, other parts feel rushed or just thrown in.

I did like the scene where Maria and Peter go to Sweden. And I liked the scene with the two of them at the charity event that Alex (from the previous books) sponsored. But other than that, this felt a bit of a slog to get through, and I didn't understand how Maria and Peter's characters (Cassia and Cyprian) fit into the Gods of the Gates world because they are apparently fictionalized characters in an Irish island while the rest of the show takes place in Rome? I dunno...so much of this just felt disconnected to me. Oh well!

A taste of Wisconsin and Sweden with an adorable romance.

Maria and Peter had a one-night stand. Then the next day they find out they'll be spending the next six years filming on a desolate Irish island together for Gods of the Gates. Peter doesn't want to risk his career or messing up the set, so they decide to try to be friends. But the last night of filming results in them giving into their feelings again. Peter is going back to Hollywood and Maria is returning to Sweden, so how can they possibly end up together?

I have really enjoyed all the books in this series and this one was no exception. Maria is very outspoken and will fight to make sure that no one else can control her body. Peter is just trying to survive in his career, which results in his own difficulties. They both really need someone else to understand them, so it's sweet to see them work on that for each other. Olivia Dade also infuses so much of her experiences in Wisconsin and Sweden into this book which really made those locations come to life. I've never been to Stockholm, but the portrayal of Madison, WI was very accurate!

I think the conflict (third-act breakup) was my least favorite part. Both Maria and Peter were being kind of frustrating and I feel like they went backwards a lot as a couple. I know that this definitely happens, but I wanted to see them keep growing instead! It did work out eventually, which was good, but it was annoying for a bit in there.

Overall, I did enjoy this book. I love seeing stories with positive representations of people of all shapes and sizes without it being the whole point of the story. We also got a peek at the couples of the previous books and it was great to see them again. If you've enjoyed the other books in the series, you should definitely read this one too.

Olivia Dade is one of my favorite authors, so let me tell you I SCREAMED when I got an advanced copy of her latest...Ship Wrecked. Huge thanks to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyage for gifting me this to read ahead of pub day!!

The Spoiler Alert series is so fun, sexy, hilarious, and inclusive and Ship Wrecked is the perfect third book. The Gods of the Gates series has grown, and the two latest castmates are Peter and Maria. Who meet for the second time at their audition. The first time was their one-night stand the night before, of course! And since Maria snuck out in the middle of the night, Peter is less than pleased that they will be filming together, on an island, for the next several years.

This book zigged where I thought it would zag a number of times - it is actually over the course of many years, not just that first season, which is so often not the case in romance. Their relationship felt really earned, as they went through a lot of conflicts that in a lesser book would have been the main hurdle.

Dade does such an excellent job and making her books inclusive, particularly around body image. She doesn't shy away from it, which I think is so important. Unfortunately, it is far too unique, particularly in this genre, to have two fat characters.

Peter is from Wisconsin (!) and you know I LOVED every reference: Culvers! Cheese! Custard! Bestill my little sconnie heart.

This was just fantastic. I couldn't put it down and was texting friends to preorder it. Truly thankful to be able to read this early and cannot wait to see what Dade writes next!

This was a super cute, quick read for me! As I’ve come to expect with Olivia Dade, all the side characters were very endearing and I loved seeing their side stories. I was a little frustrated at times with Maria and Peter’s communication skills but overall I really enjoyed this!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my digital ARC.

Book 3 in an interconnected standalone series (I have only read books 2 and this one- story easy to follow). Good writing, good characters with depth and development.
A few parts got a little wordy (I do think some parts could be trimmed down). Overall easy read with some deep topics. Maria dealing with the show runners trying to control her weight was absolutely AMAZING to read. I love how strong and set in her ways Maria is. I love how Dade portrays her plus sized characters. So many badass women in her books. Good storyline. No crazy climax or resolution, but the story is enjoyable.

Pretty good spicy scenes, multiple scenes, explicit and complete. 18+
Always check content warnings.

Special thanks to Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for this digital ARC.

Thanks to Netgalley and Avon Harper Voyager for the ARC of this!

I am obsessed with this series, and this was such a fun return to some familiar faces. This kept me smiling throughout, just like the previous books. Absolutely adorable, but it didn’t catch me emotionally the same way the other two did. That said Maria was an ICON. Her fat-positive, not willing to shave for the patriarchy attitude was perfection.

Olivia Dade does. not. miss. Another sweet and spicy romance in the Spoiler Alert universe -- every installment is a true delight! Maria and Peter's relationship is high on tension, with perfect payoff. The story felt a bit more disjointed than Spoiler Alert and All the Feels, but the romance was just as compelling.

Olivia Dade really knows how to write characters with chemistry. I really liked how our characters' story began and how it ended, with plenty of misunderstandings and emotional scenes in between, though I think it took a little longer to get there than it needed to. Our main leads, Peter and Maria, feel so much and express those feelings in such different ways but they go together so well! If only they'd just realize it and go for it!

Olivia Dade always has such excellent plus size representation but I was super pleased that in this addition both leads were plus-sized. I really enjoy her writing style and the way she writes characters, I'll always come back for more!

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon/Harper Voyager for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely adored this story. I loved Peter and Maria and watching their story unfold.

Maria was an amazing female lead and really never let anyone walk all over her, she was such a strong person. She never failed to stand up for herself and what she believed was right.

I absolutely adored Maria’s family and how they came together, her family was one of the greatest fictional families ever.

Peter grew a lot over the course of the book and I enjoyed watching him learn from his mistakes and take everything in stride.

I absolutely cannot wait for this to be published so everyone can enjoy it- keep your eyes peeled November 15th!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC! I was excited to continue this series with Peter and Maria’s story.

As a caveat, this series is based on a fantasy television show and fanfic, neither of which are things I’m particularly interested in. But I’ve devoured and enjoyed each book in this series.

All three books in this series are 🌶️, but this one started that way right out of the gate (not mad about it). I strive to have Maria’s self confidence! I appreciate the body diversity in this series, but really enjoyed how in this book, it was barely made any sort of issue. The conflict was based on differing priorities and styles of communication, building trust and unpacking past experiences to understand how they shape us as people - almost too real?? Also, did I mention 🌶️🥵🌶️??? If you liked the previous books in this series, I highly recommend continuing. Hoping we get even more!

This is the last book in the series but my first read by this author. I was able to read this as a standalone.
I really enjoyed the characters in Ship Wrecked. Their dynamic changes a lot throughout the book: lovers, enemies, friends, and then back to lovers. It was quite the roller coaster but made reading about them a lot of fun.
I think the characters were really well developed and were relatable. I particularly liked Maria a lot.
The relationship was paced perfectly. I felt the slow burn was necessary considering how the one-night stand ended plus being co-stars. It added the perfect amount of mutual pining and sexual tension. Dade definitely had me anticipating the spicy scenes!
A very enjoyable romance that I will recommend to romance readers!
I would give this a try if you want to read: fat characters representation, grumpy/sunshine trope, one-night stand, enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, mutual pining, slow burn romance, and steamy romance.

Withholding my review until Harper Collins strike is over. Withholding my review until Harper Collins strike is over. Withholding my review until Harper Collins strike is over. Withholding my review until Harper Collins strike is over.