Another charming installment in Mazey Eddings' Brush with Love series. I enjoyed the witty banter and fun side characters, and as always, such a well done focus on mental health representation!

There are not enough words to describe how much I love Mazey Eddings and The Plus One. This was so freaking cute!!!!

Five AMAZING stars!

- enemies to lovers
- brother's best friend
- fake dating
- mental health rep (anxiety, PTSD)

Wow. I had a feeling I would love this book, but never could I have known HOW MUCH. This was beautiful, sweet, emotional, funny, heartbreaking and healing all at once!

I just loved how both characters had their own baggage and traumas. Life is messy and you're not always in a great place when you find love, but it doesn't mean you are any less worthy of being loved.

Mental health is a big part of this story and I thought it was handled in a honest and respectful manner.

This is Book 3 in a series, but it can definitely be read as a stand-alone!

There is NO third-act breakup. Instead, we get to enjoy some amazing spice and deep, emotional conversations about healing and love.

This is definitely going to be one of my favorite reads of 2023! I can't recommend it enough!

I think I can officially say that I am obsessed with Mazey Eddings. She writes such deep and well-formed characters that have full lives and that deal with big emotions and issues. This book resonated with me so deeply, especially the way Eddings wrote about and addressed mental health. At various stages, as I read this, I stopped and re-read sections of this book because of the impact that they had.

I loved both Dira and Jude so much. I related deeply to Dira as a mental health professional and also felt a really deep and profound connection to Jude's struggle with accepting and loving himself as he came to terms with his reality and worked through some challenging emotions.

Mazey Eddings has without a doubt become an auto-buy author for me and I cannot wait to read what else she has in store for us!

Thank you to the publisher for kindly providing me with an ARC via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Another excellent Eddings novel! I read through this in (almost) one fell swoop, it was so cute and engrossing. Indira and Jude both feel like real people with flaws, and that makes them more endearing for the reader. The twists were both surprising and believable, and I find Eddings' dialogue very realistic. I hope there's more from this series to come! Rounding 4.5 to 5 stars; thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.

Mazey does such a wonderful job portraying her characters living with mental health problems. She also is great at normalizing therapy. As someone who goes to therapy & has anxiety it is always great to see it represented in romance. I really felt like I was in Jude's head & could empathize with what he had seen & been traumatized by. The way he & Indira came together was so natural & made my heart burst. I am sad to see this series end but I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Harper, Lizzie, & Indira.

Mazey Eddings solidified herself as an auto-buy author for me after A Brush With Love, and Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake was among my top reads in 2022. Knowing we would be concluding our time in this world with The Plus One, I delayed reading this book as long as I could because I knew I wouldn’t be ready to say goodbye to these beautiful, flawed characters. But I think Mazey knew that and gave us one last emotional hoorah with Indira and Jude’s love story.

To share the tropes in this book really undersells the story, but I’ll share them anyway because it’s a handful of my favorites: childhood enemies to lovers, brother’s best friend, forced proximity (only one tent), fake dating. And there are certainly times where I found myself laughing out loud, but this book is not your run-of-the-mill rom-com. The Plus One dives deep into the world of mental health and centering healing from trauma for both main characters – for Indira, it’s the abandonment she felt from when her father left their family in childhood, and for Jude it’s the all-consuming flashbacks from his time serving as a front-line medic in wartorn areas of the world. Mazey shares these as content warnings before reading, and I believe she not only takes great care but also does not shy away from the long term effects of trauma. Therapy is shared on page, as well as the very real feelings one has while figuring out how and when to start the process of healing.

I know the book couldn’t go on forever, and maybe that’s why I felt it wrapped up a bit quickly for me at the end, but once again Mazey crafted a beautiful love story that felt so very real. Thank you NetGalley & St. Martin’s Press for the advanced copy.

It truly felt like Mazey had wrapped a weighted blanket around me like a tight hug. This is what that book felt like, and if there’s any book you read this year, let it be this one.

While this may be a romance of brothers best friend, fake dating trope and falling for your childhood nemesis with endless laughs because the humor is unmatched, I have never felt so seen.

I don’t think I related to a character more than I did Indira. Mazey saw that pain and wrote that in her character and I felt seen. I felt heard. I understood Indira’s feelings to a T, because I feel them everyday.

Mazey gives us a beautiful, raw, humorous love story but at the same time portrays mental health in a new light, the healing process and how hard it is for people to say three words that make such an impact “I need help.”

Watching these two help one another through their own struggles was beyond words. Beautiful and magical don’t even compare. It was so genuine and pure and I loved every god damn thing about this book, these characters!

“𝐼’𝑚 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑓𝑢𝑐𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑏𝑟𝑜𝑘𝑒𝑛.”

“𝐼’𝑚 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑥 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝐼’𝑚 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢.”

I highly recommend picking this one up. While it is a standalone novel, it is part of an interconnected series, and I can’t wait to dive more into her books

Thank you again to NetGalley and the author Mazey Eddings for this book that I will never stop recommending. The Plus One comes out 4/4 and I recommend sprinting to your nearest bookstore!

I very much appreciate how Eddings always tackles difficult subjects in her writing and this book is no different. A unique story and PTSD is not something I know a ton about. That being said, the love story itself felt very secondary and I didn’t quite buy the build up. The chemistry between Indira and Jude wasn’t there for me, and I found myself wishing I could read a story about Collin and Jeremy instead.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was so good!! I did not even realize it was in the same world as Lizzie Blake which I reviewed last year. This was super cute and I was honestly rooting for these characters the whole time. Jude was struggling with PTSD and it had some very real and tough moments but it was written so well.

Mazey Eddings tends to write books with troubled heroines who have some sort of problem that they need to cope with, whether it be ADHD or anxieties. Indira, the heroine of this book, is a good friend of the heroines from previous books. She suffers from depression and insecurities because her father abandoned her family when she was young. She’s a psychiatrist with her own set of problems.

The book opens with a trope that I’m getting really tired of - the heroine walking in on her boyfriend having sex with another woman in their home. It’s gotten to the point that if a heroine (or hero) is coming home at an unexpected time to a home shared with a partner, you know that the partner is cheating and will be caught in the act.

The love interest in this story is Jude who is suffering from severe PTSD after having served as a doctor in war and disaster zones. He’s feeling guilt for all the patients he couldn’t help. He keeps asking himself what is wrong with him. He’s a doctor; can’t he recognize PTSD when he suffers from classic symptoms?

Indira and Jude were childhood enemies and are very snarky with each other. But, of course, they overcome that and start growing closer with a fake romance that everyone but Indira’s ex knows is false.

This was quite dark. Jude has severe problems and can barely cope. Indira has her own problems. You have to know what you’re taking on when you read a romance that is really a study in psychological problems and how to deal with them.

I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader copy of this book that I received from Netgalley; however, the opinions are my own and I did not receive any compensation for my review.

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Mazey Eddings for the eARC of The Plus One!

Mazey Eddings has done it AGAIN. Enemies to lovers. Brother’s best friend. Forced proximity. This book has ALL the tropes a girl could dream of!

Indira and Jude’s relationship is so special. Jude has PTSD from working as a trauma surgeon in places where there is a humanitarian crisis. Indira does such a great job of making him feel validated. I love how prominent mental health is in this book.

I have never read a childhood enemies to lovers book, so this was a first. And let me tell you, Mazey Eddings delivered! I kept giggling and laughing out loud throughout the entire book. The characters felt so real and the chemistry between them? Off the charts!!! The story and romance were entertaining and heartwarming. This is an author to be on the lookout for!

From frenemies as children to lovers as young adults, the story begins with psychotherapist Indira walking into the apartment she shares with boyfriend Chris as he’s in an uncompromised position with another woman. Indira flees to her brothers apartment where she is surprised to see her childhood frenemy Jude, home on leave from his surgical position with a nonprofit working in war torn countries around the world.

From the onset of the story, we find Jude severely struggling with work related PTSD, anxiety and depression. While these issues were handled with great care and compassion by the author, this was indeed a very heavy rom-com. And while I’m not a prude when it comes to language, I felt there was an excessive use of every word I won’t write here. For these reasons, I had a difficult time connecting with the characters and their story. I had high hopes in reading this enemies to lovers story and unfortunately I was disappointed.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.
Publication date: April 4, 2023

The Plus One felt a little heavier than Mazey's past books, but I enjoyed it just as much. All of her books confront mental health, but The Plus One took a close look at anxiety and PTSD. It felt very relatable and meaningful, compared to the more lighthearted feel of the previous books in the series. I love that Mazey's writing talent is so expansive!

I found myself just wanting to hug both of these characters. I loved their childhood backstory--frenemies doesn't feel like quite the right word for their relationship, but they certainly loved to hate each other. You can feel the care beneath their sniping, though, and I couldn't wait for it to blossom into a romance. And best of all, there was no third-act breakup!

Fans of Mazey Eddings will not be disappointed, and if you haven't read something by her yet, you should change that.

This series has me in a chokehold 😍

~Indira probably should’ve felt more when she caught her boyfriend cheating. Instead she finds herself worrying about her brothers best friend who seems like a completely different person.~

I really love the mental health representation in this! Especially because it’s with the MMC instead of the FMC. Men are allowed to have feelings and emotions, and I love that it’s being normalized.

Jude is the sweetest man. He might be my favorite male in this series! He’s just so raw and real about everything. My heart broke for him but then mended back together as he dealt with his PTSD. It just makes you so proud of him.

Indira is a spitfire but also such a sweetheart. I can’t say much without spoiling but I love her dedication to Jude and her brother. This was such a sweet read.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!

*I received an ARC of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review with my honest opinion.*

I have read Mazey Eddings' books and fell in love with the way she writes - so realistic, relatable, and funny while being serious and tender as well. I was thrilled to be able to read this book on NetGalley before my preordered copy comes in the mail.

Indira was fiesty, smart, and an incredible friend to those around her. Jude was strong but sweet, funny, and truly doing his best to work through things most people can't imagine going through in their lifetime. The way their friendship blossomed from poking-fun and getting under each other's skin turns into getting under the sheets was SO enjoyable to watch. Their banter and the amount of both physical and verbal chemistry was executed to perfection, and when things get steamy... *chef's kiss*! Totally was not expecting that level of spice! And to top it off, all the side characters were lovely - I absolutely adored Collin and Jeremy, and it's always fun to see more of the characters from the previous books in the series. Cannot speak highly enough of this series! I can't wait for more from Mazey in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review this advanced copy!

This was amazing. Mazey Eddings is a phenomenal author, and I love seeing these characters. I loved the past that these characters have, and how they moved forward together and became one.

Really enjoyed this one. I hadn’t previously read Mazey Eddings, but I now have both of her previous books on hold at my local library.

Overall, I really appreciated they ways the author (and the characters on the page) portrayed anxiety and mental illnesses. The characters felt real and authentic, and you really feel close to them by the end. I enjoyed that the characters didn’t have a 3rd act miscommunication as so many do. If you don’t love a “fake dating” trope, I loved the way that these two handled it. Spoiler: the fake dating lasts about a minute, and is definitely not the main focus of anything.

Also, the steam-y bits of this one are 🔥, well written, and feel inline with characters.

Overall - definitely a must read. I’m guessing this will be a popular beach read and book club book this spring and summer. Bring your Kleenex.

i really didn't connect to the characters and found myself skipping through a good chunk of it. i think i can't get into a lot of romance books that are kind of like this one, and i don't know why. occasionally, they work for me, but, other times, they really don't. i just didn't enjoy this one that much and some of the approaches that the author took. i'm sure a ton of people would enjoy this more than me.

maybe, with these type of romance books, it's that i'm not reading a physical copy ? i don't know, but i read the first book in this series, a brush with love, as a physical copy.

thank you to netgalley and st. martin's press for sending me this ARC !!