💒 The Plus One 💒
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

This book was an absolute delight. Indira and Jude are my new favorite couple. They are just so sweet and so human. Mental health is addressed in such a great and real way in this book. And the 🌶 is 😘! If you like romance at all, please pick up this book! It comes out April 4!!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC!

Format: 📱

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫 (3.5)
Steam Level: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 (several, highly explicit scenes)
Trigger Warning: cheating (side character), PTSD, brief mentions of parental abandonment

After walking in on her boyfriend cheating, Indira Papadakis is forced to move in with her brother and his fiance. Little does she know, her brother's best friend Jude Bailey is also living with them while on leave from his job providing medical services in war torn countries. Jude and Indira always drove each other crazy growing up, but they soon find comfort in each other as Jude realizes that Indira is the only one who can help him with the PTSD he suffers due to his job. And when they decide to fake date leading up to Indira's brother's wedding, they quickly realize their romantic feelings aren't so fake after all. Can these two help each other move on from past hurts and find love?

After reading Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake, I was so excited to get an ARC for this book. Unfortunately, I struggled to connect with Jude and Indira. They never really embodied the enemies to lovers vibe that was promised, and even the fake dating was not what I hoped for going in. That being said, there were still many things I liked about their story. The mental health journey they went on was the real star of the show and was done very well. I've never read about a character with PTSD, and I appreciated how the author addressed it in Jude's storyline. Seeing Indira able to comfort Jude, encourage him to get therapy, and even reconsider his job was extremely heartwarming. And the communication between these two was excellent in the moments when Jude wanted to just give up. While the romance didn't quite win me over, I highly recommend this to anyone who wants a great story about addressing mental health struggles. And I think fans of the series as a whole will feel extremely satisfied with the sweet epilogue!

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The Plus One by Mazey Eddings

Indira is at a crossroads with her current relationship she finds her boyfriend with another women in their home. She runs to her brother's house who is in the process of getting married. As she arrives to her brother's house she finds her brothers high school best friend Jude who is staying there. Indira and Jude end up supporting each other even though they did not like each other growing up.

This is book 3 in A Brush with Love series. This one pulls at your heart with the discussion of PTSD from Jude who worked overseas with a medical unit that works in poor countries or dire situation countries who may be fighting in war. Jude feels broken and thinks life will never be right for him again he is on a seven-week break. Indira is also dealing with a break-up and feeling not capable of doing her job as a therapist.

It was funny at times where I laughed out loud and other times it was serious talking about trauma and PTSD. This story was done right in how these topics where discussed which made the story more engaging and it helps the reader become invested in caring about the characters.

I have enjoyed the series so far and only need to read book one which will be read real soon. Narrated by Imani Jade Powers and Joe Arden who did such a good job putting emotion into the story and bringing life to the characters. This was a five-star read for me and I recommend this romance to anyone who loves romance there are some tropes in this one, but the story flowed really well which made for a quick read.

Thank you to Netgally and MacMillan Audio as well as St. Martin's Press for a free copy of The Plus One for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

DNF AT 36%.

I tried really hard to keep going, but couldn’t. I didn’t love A Brush with Love, but really enjoyed Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake. Seeing that The Plus One was a brothers best friend and enemies to lovers romance (my two favorite tropes) I was sure I would love this.

However, I just couldn’t connect with the characters and wasn’t a fan of the writing. Although each chapter indicated who’s POV it was, I never felt like I was actually reading that characters POV. I didn’t feel this was written well in the third person and at times it felt more like a narration.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

I’m a big fan of all of Mazey Edding’s books so far and this one was no different. I think Lizzie’s story was my favorite of the bunch, but Indira and Jude were lovely to read about.

It was refreshing to see a story so focused on mental health and helping people/family/friends. It’s one of the few times I think I enjoyed the first half of the story best. The banter between Dira and Jude was great.

Another good one from the author! Would definitely recommend.

The Plus One is definitely my favorite in the series! I loved that both Indira and Jude were written to show how anxiety and depression can affect people differently. The past of each character was well explained, and the relationship between the two characters felt real. The chemistry was easy and natural, and the friendship of the other women from previous stories was reflected on so we still got flashbacks of past characters.

I received an advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.

Oh, my heart! I feel like I say this every time, but this if my favorite Mazey book I've read. Jude and Indira are both endearing, self-conscious, little balls of anxiety and I adore them both so much. Mazey's books have so much depth to them, and never fail to make me cry at least three times.
It was great to get a little time with the friend group as well.

Lizzie, Rake, Harper & Dan, and Thu are just the best friend group. I LOVED Collin and Jeremy as well. The banter between not only Indira & Jude, but all of the characters is full of snark and jabs, and some good natured ribbing.

Indira Papadakis walks in to her boyfriend cheating on her with some random girl and an alarming amount of... peanut butter? Don't worry, it only happens at the worst possible time, when she has numerous pre-wedding festivities to attend for her brother's upcoming nuptials. Who wants to go to these events single and alone? The best solution, obviously, is to team up with said brothers best friend Jude. You know, her single biggest nemesis she had while growing up? Surely nothing bad or sexy will happen.

After reading Mazey Edding's last book in this series about several friends in Philadelphia, I was excited to get approved for this advanced copy of this book. I have to say, I do think that this book was the best one yet! This was such a fun and quick read! I LOVE a good forced proximity and friends to lovers troupe and this checked all the boxes. I found Indira and Jude to have such an authentic friendship as well as relationship. This made the story much more believable. It was refreshing to read about mental illness including anxiety and PTSD written in such an eloquent way as well. We love some representation in our new novels, so yay for that as well. I am a sucker for a happy ending too, and this ending was just perfect and tied up all the loose ends.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy of this fun and steamy read. All opinions within this review are my own.

Okay, hands down this is the best book in this series. It has really complex and interesting characters. It has the perfect blend of passion and romance. It has the appropriate amount of spice. It has a really well done enemies to lovers vibes. It has a deep look into mental health and shows how crucial it is to help others. It has the banter that made me feel giddy. It has the older brothers best friend trope. It essentially feels like it has everything. Basically I’m saying it has all the things a person could look for when it comes to a romance. Spot on 🙌🏻.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the advanced copy for review.

Indira seems to have her life together. Great job and a good boyfriend. That is until she comes home to find him with another woman. What a cluster! Completely reeling from this find, her and her cat make the trek to her brother's house only to find her childhood nemesis Jude, also her brother's BFF, at her brother's house for the next 7 weeks. Ugh. But then she starts picking up on things happening around them and maybe Jude isn't the worst after all.

Oh, Indira and Jude. I just want to wrap these babies up in a weighted blanket and squish them.

Fake dating + enemies to friends to lovers = OMG I love these two so much.

Mazey is legit so good at the tease where you think it's going to lead to something and then it doesn't and when you think it won't it does, but it's just so sweet and endearing. I LOVE IT!!

I so absolutely loved this book. There are some dark and hard points, but when Indira and Jude learn to lean on each other through them all it just makes everything worth it. Highly recommend this book!

3.5

I really liked a lot of the last book in the series and felt like Eddings's writing was just getting better, so I was looking forward to reading this book. And in many ways, I do think that Eddings's writing continues on an upward trajectory. Some scenes and lines in this book are just so damn romantic I almost couldn't handle it. However, I can't say I enjoyed this book as much as her previous two.

First of all, kudos to the author and publisher for including the content warnings at the beginning of this book; they are vital and should be standard. That said, the content warnings did not prepare me for the depths of Jude's mental health struggles as depicted in this book. While this representation seemed thoughtful and well-executed, and while I definitely agree that such representation is important and has its place in romance, I personally found it really hard to read. I think a somewhat unfortunate side effect of just how unwell Jude is in this book is that when he gets together with Indira, it almost seems like an unhealthy coping mechanism. These two get REAL serious REAL fast in a way that felt almost manic to me, a lay person with no training or experience with these sort of mental health issues. This isn't to say that I didn't think their feelings for one another were genuine, but the book as written left out a lot of the slow burn and tension that I think not only would have been nice to see from a technical writing standpoint to get me invested in their relationship, but ultimately would have also convinced me that them being together was an asset to Jude starting to improve his mental health. I also wanted more from Indira, a character I really liked and who had her own issues I'd have liked to see explored a bit more. Finally, I can let a lot slide in a romance, but I truly cannot believe the location of the last explicit scene in this book - it felt totally inappropriate and ended the book on a sour note.

All that said, I really like this friend group (plus the addition of Indira's brother and his husband - loved them) and I am sad this is the end of their series. I do look forward to reading more from Eddings in the future.

Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Therapist Indira walks in on her boyfriend having an affair and leavers for her brother’s house only to find that her brother’s best friend, Jude, who happens to be her childhood nemesis is already staying there. The pair agree to be civil while staying with Indira’s brother and helping put together the finishing touches on the brother’s wedding. Jude, a doctor, is clearly suffering from PTSD from his work with a medical NGO but has one year left in his contract and does not know what to do. Indira’s ex is part of the wedding party and therefore constantly around so Jude and Indira agree to fake date at the wedding events to make things less awkward, but of course the to cannot help sparks of animosity turning to sparks of chemistry.

I enjoyed the first book in this series (A Brush with Love) but didn’t care for the second (Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake), so I was not sure what to expect with this one. I was very pleasantly to find that this was my favorite of the three. I am always a sucker for enemies to lovers and especially love it when an added dynamic is brother’s best friend. I absolutely adored both Indira and Jude. Both were very complicated characters that complemented each other well. I really liked that while Indira is a therapist she never treated Jude a patient and I liked that she herself was in therapy and could admit that she doesn’t know everything or have all the answers. I enjoyed seeing the characters from the previous books again. I’m not sure if this series is going to continue or if this was the final book, but either way I’ll read Mazey’s next book.

I really enjoyed the audiobook. I found both Imani Jade Powers and Joe Arden to be compelling narrators that really brought the characters to life and kept me engaged throughout the story. Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC and ALC in exchange for an honest review.

I have truly loved Mazey Eddings' trio of books in the Brushed With Love world, and this third addition was no different. Her characters are rich and rounded and the development of this enemies to lovers, childhood friends, brother's best friend romance, forced proximity romance was truly a delight! All of her books deal with neurodivergence and/or mental illness, but there was something really special about reading this story from the perspective of a therapist (psychiatrist) going to therapy and processing that part of her own identity. These intersections of practice & practitioner are so rich and can shape so much of the relationship, I loved seeing them played out here. I won't lie, there's an extra special place in my heart for Lizzie Blake (and of course some darling cameos by her and her perfect Rake in this book), but Indira & Jude have made themselves a place on that shelf as well with this story of honesty and vulnerability building a true love.

While the summary of this book makes it seem like it will hit on the trope of enemies to lovers, the reality doesn’t deliver. This felt more friends to lovers and I needed a bit more chemistry between my characters. Jude and Indira have known each other since they were kids and unfortunately a lot of immaturity is shown in this book by all characters. I found myself rolling my eyes a few too many times. Also, I got sick of hearing about Indira’s hair, by the end of the book it felt like it was it’s own character.

However, there were cute moments and I thought Jude and Indira were sweet together and very supportive. I also liked how this book attempted to shine a light on mental illness and normalize seeking counseling.
All in all, it felt like a slight let down from the previous two but also a solid story.

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 3.5 stars

I went into this book with VERY low expectations after just finishing Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book.

Now I know her name is Indira Papadakis, but my mind kept changing it to Ingrid Papadicks, so that's just what I'm going to call her for the rest of this review. So I liked Ingrid's character for the most part. I saw a lot of character growth with her, which is ultimately what you want. I do wish it would have gone into a little more detail about how closed off she used to be before Jude, but her character was good overall. I saw the most character growth from Jude. I really enjoyed that his initial chapters were written in a way that showed how his character was feeling on the inside and then as you saw his character grow, the writing changed as well to reflect that. This was probably my favorite part of the story.

The plot wasn't bad for this one. It kept me engaged and reading. I did find it pretty predictable though and just felt like way too many tropes were thrown in. But I overall did enjoy it more than I thought I would. This story had me laughing out loud on several occasions and had a good balance of funny and serious moments.

If you've loved other books by this author, then you will probably enjoy this one too.

Read this if you love:
- Brother's Best Friend
- Weddings
- Enemies-to-lovers
- Fake Dating
- One Bed/Tent
- Forced Proximity
- Anxiety/PTSD
-LGBT+ Representation

Give me a book with forced proximity and it'll be REAL hard for me not to enjoy it.
I loved this story, adored our characters and once again find Mazey Edding's work to be something I fangirl over.

This was fun, enjoyable, sweet and all around what I am craving in books right now!

This whole series has me in a chokehold— this book is no exception.

Indira and Jude are childhood enemies who are forced into proximity, and I am sure you can figure out where the story goes from there.

While this was not my favorite in the series (Harper and Dan still have the crown), I was delighted with how intricate and well written the characters were. Mazey did such a great job handling their stories despite it feeling a little heavy at times. The heaviness may have distracted from the romance and happiness, but so is life. I did feel that Jude was the main character and Indira was a side character, which isn’t the norm but also wasn’t a bad thing.

I am excited for the next (and last?) book in this series! Can’t wait to catch up with everyone.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

~Thanks to Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The Plus One in exchange for an honest review. ~

wow, okay, I see you Mazey Eddings, starting this book off with a bang when Indira walks in on her boyfriend with another woman.

I knew this was fake dating, which dissipated pretty quickly, and a smidge of enemies to lovers, but was not aware that Jude was Indira’s older brother’s best friend, and I think that’s really the main trope this book should be sold as. It doesn’t feel like they hate each other, just that they bicker a lot. We see their relationship improving as they begin to react more maturely toward one another pretty early on. Indira can tell something is off with Jude and is doing her best to be there for him in difficult times without pressing, which leads to some very sweet and intimate moments between them— cuddling and handholding. Though sexual tension has also taken a jump after Jude ends up walking in on Indira after a shower. And holy shit, when they finally collide, it’s hot and heavy, only for things to become that much more entertaining when they remember this is supposed to be a fake relationship. It just gets better when we finally reach the smut. It’s spicy but also has some fantastic lines around Jude’s mental health. And the smut just gets spicier!

There are a ton of therapy positive discussions since Indira is a therapist and also is working through her own therapy as well. She’s trying to process her abandonment issues as well as her struggles with working as a therapist when she doesn’t feel qualified due to her own issues not being resolved. I’m definitely feeling like Jude could probably benefit from some therapy as well. His POV is a lot more difficult to read, as he constantly feels on the edge of a panic attack and is suffering from PTSD due to his work in active war zones and dealing with the loss of patients while working as a surgeon. I love that Indira tries so very hard to be there for Jude, but doesn’t want to be his therapist, she just wants to be somebody he trusts enough to talk with. She stands up for him when he folds because he doesn’t want to be perceived as not normal, which nearly made me cry at one point, I won’t lie.

I did realize that part of why I enjoy Jude’s personality so much is because he reminds me of Josh, but he’s also just so smitten with Indira, and every time we see more of that, I just swoon harder. However, it did feel like we lost that personality in the latter half of the book. His chapters were completely revolving around his PTSD, making him feel more one-note. Truly, what has me so obsessed with these two though, is the emotional intimacy and tenderness they show toward one another. The way each of them is there for the other at some deeply personal and emotional moments is so sweet, making their romance feel so authentic that I didn’t bat an eye at an “I love you,” when they’d only been dating a month.

I would like a little more from Collin, Indira’s brother, and Jude’s best friend, but what we’ve seen so far of him is cute and funny, plus I actually believe these three must have grown up together. Eddings was smart enough to include little moments here and there to reinforce these three’s previous relationship, but also some adorable bigger moments, like when Indira collects her things from her ex’s apartment and Indira and Jude look through some of her childhood diaries where she complains about him, thus bringing up sweet memories. However, there is this ongoing tense discussion between Collin and Indira when it comes to their father which did grind my gears but also feels like it’ll have a pretty predictable resolution once we arrive at the official wedding.

The ending… was fine? It’s as though Eddings realized she’d set up all these additional side plot elements that she forgot would need wrapping up after the wedding ended. So the last three chapters were really odd in terms of pacing, with multiple time skips and quick wrap-ups, that just felt really rushed and weren’t given the time for me to really enjoy them. Especially in regard to the epilogue. We see a little bit more of the friend group this series has followed, but it just wasn’t a satisfying send-off, unfortunately.

After LOVING Lizzie Blake’s best mistake last year, I’ve been really looking forward to Indira’s story in The Plus One! My expectations were really high but I was slightly disappointed by The Plus One.

My main issue was that from the synopsis (and previous books), I expected the story to be a balance between light hearted moments and serious topics but The Plus One was a LOT heavy and serious than it’s predecessors right from page 1, mainly because of the discussions regarding Jude’s PTSD.

It isn’t a bad book AT ALL, in fact, I’ll most definitely recommend it to my friends and encourage them to read it. Maybe it was the combination of bad timing (I was already in a bleak mood) and how heavy some of the topics discussed here were and the fact that I was expecting something lighter that disappointed me.
If I had gone with in correct mindset, I’m pretty sure I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more (I still loved it!).

Other than that, I love Mazey Eddings’ writing style. The mental health rep was of course, fabulous since it is Mazey’s specialty! I’ve read lots of books with main characters dealing with mental health issues but never in such detail. I also loved that we got to see the therapy sessions instead of keeping them in the background.
Despite not having any of the issues our main characters dealt with, I really felt connected to them and their struggles and most definitely shed some tears while reading.

“You can hurt and also be loved. You can feel sadness and also laugh and feel joy. Good emotions can coexist with hard ones. You can struggle and suffer and learn to heal while you also love. The best place to start is by giving
yourself permission to feel with abandon. Feel everything.”

^This is just one of my favourite quotes from this book (there are MANY)
I have more than a handful of annotations in my arc because there were so many relatable quotes and moments.

I also felt that Jude and Indira’s romance was rushed. By the time the romance aspect came into play, I knew that it wasn’t the main focus of the book (mental health was) but since it is a romance book, I expected a bit more from it, especially because there was a lot of potential with the tropes involved.

I really loved seeing Harper, Dan, Lizzie, Rake, Thu and Alex again! Lizzie is still the ray of sunshine I remembered her to be and being back with the old characters made me very happy!

All in all, The Plus One was a great read, especially the mental health aspect! If one knows what they’re getting into (due to heavy topics), I’m sure it’ll end up being a really impactful read!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martins Press from my e-arc.

4.5 Stars
I'm just going to say it. This book was a lot. That's not a bad thing. There were so many emotions. Indira and Jude were going through some big things and while those things were heavy, Eddings still managed to make this book feel light. That's impressive. 

Despite being a psychiatrist, Indira had baggage to work through. She was fresh off a breakup and being involved in all the things for her brother's upcoming wedding was not what she wanted because said ex was part of the festivities. I liked Indira. The war she had within herself between being a psychiatrist and not feeling like she had it together herself was interesting. I loved how she "saw" Jude when everyone around them didn't.

Jude was actually my favorite character. He was dealing with PTSD from a job he thought he could easily step into. The way he fought dealing with his feelings was very emotional and I constantly worried about him while reading. I loved how Indira was his calm in the storm. 

Jude and Indira's relationship started out as childhood enemies not wanting to deal with each other while living together. They quickly found refuge and safety with each other. Their journey from enemies to a fake relationship to a real one was full of so many tender moments. Those were my favorite times, when they were supporting each other. I loved them together. 

I know I've made this book sound heavy. It was, but there were so many fun moments to lighten it up. Indira's friendships from the previous books in this series brought levity, as did her brother and his fiancé. There was just enough to keep me smiling and even laughing between the tough times. I don't really have anything to complain about other than wishing it was written in first person, but the third worked well enough. I enjoyed reading The Plus One.