While I was reading this, I absolutely loved it. I loved Indira and Jude together; their banter, born out of being childhood “enemies,” was top tier. I laughed out loud a few times. I loved the therapy representation, and just the mental health discussions in general. It wasn’t just “so and so went to therapy. It was great.” It actually gave readers an inside look at what therapy can be! Love it! The way this book handles mental health, PTSD, and how to just be a supportive human was beautiful. I think Jude and Indira are a great example of a healthy relationship. I also really appreciated that their relationship isn’t perfect; there is conflict, but it’s addressed and handled and learned from! Shocking.

I loved getting to see the previous books’ characters again. It’s such a realistic and sweet friend group! The ending was a lovely wrap up for the group (for now?…). I do think I was hoping for a little bit more out of the ending, but I’m not exactly sure what. It just didn’t feel quite as satisfying as I was hoping for. So take that with a grain of salt lol.

Ok, earlier I said while I reading I loved, so here comes the bit that didn’t bother me as much until I had time to reflect. Because this takes places, mostly, in a compact timeframe, it felt like I didn’t get to know the characters as *people* quite as much. It feels like it’s Jude and his PTSD, Indira as a psychiatrist, and then their relationship. Of course the friends are there and other things happen, but those elements felt a bit more underdeveloped to me. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have a more narrow focus in a book, but I think *because* I loved these characters, I just wanted more.

Overall really enjoyed. My favorite of the three!

This book has been getting amazing reviews and I truly wish I could've been one of them.

This one was a two star for me. I wanted to give it 3 because of the mental health issues that were discussed in this book -- they truly were amazing.

However, the MCs had little to no chemistry. This book claims to be an enemies to lovers trope but I didn't see any part of their relationship as enemies. She was just the annoying little sister and he was the big brother's best friend growing up. There was no bad blood.

When they finally got together, it was enjoyable but they really didn't fool anyone with the "fake dating" because everyone knew except for the ex-boyfriend. They didn't play into that at all.

Overall, just fine. Would I recommend? Probably not.

I found Mazey Eddings’ books roughly a year ago and I have been smitten by them ever since. The Plus One is the third and final (queue the sadness) installment for the series a brush with love. Though it is the third in the series it is able to be read as a standalone book. If you are not familiar with Mazey’s books they deal with mental health and neurodiversity while still being beautiful and steamy books.

In this book we have Indira and Jude. Jude is Indira’s brother Collin’s best friend and they all were very close growing up though Indira had a hate / strong dislike for Jude and he shared the feelings. Jude comes back home for Collin’s wedding to his love Jeremy, while he was away he was a surgeon who helped in areas affected by civil unrest and during the time developed PTSD. I was not knowledgeable of PTSD when I started this book but the topic was handled delicately and really explained how hard it is for people who are dealing with it. Indira saw Jude struggling at one of the countless pre wedding events (after her long term bf was caught having sex in their apartment with the use of peanut butter….. ewwww) and they formed a pact to fake date until the wedding so she could help him get out of hard situations and so she didn’t have to see her ex at the wedding and be alone.

As we all know the fake dating trope is a high quality one. Honestly it was 10 out of 10 in this book. I appreciated how there wasn’t a silly third act breakup or miscommunication. The characters just realized they had feelings and worked together to find out what their relationship was.

This book also brought up couples counseling. I will say this was so nice to see it being used prior to an issue being present. Both Indira and Jude had issues from their past that they brought into the relationship and they started couples counseling to make sure that the prior issues did not affect their love for one another or how their relationship progressed in the future.

Listen, I could go on and on about the wonders of a Mazey Eddings book but honestly just go buy the damn thing and read it. These books are powerful and deal with real situations and emotions and are so beautiful. I am sad to see this group of friends end their book journey but I know Mazey is working on some other things and honestly I can’t wait to read what she writes next.

Mazey Eddings is now going to be added to my auto-buy list. I absolutely adored Lizzie’s story in the last book, since it’s so rare that I get to see neurodiverse MCs. But here, with The Plus One, Ms. Eddings solidified her hold on my book loving heart.

This is a sweet & snarky frenemies to lovers BUT it also very authentically addresses mental health struggles, including anxiety, abandonment issues and PTSD. It is so rare to find these topics addressed in a rom com that doesn’t just gloss over the surface and end in an easy happily ever after. I LOVE that this one includes lots of talk and action on the therapy front and the important fact that mental health isn’t a one and done solution…but rather an ever ebbing & flowing journey.

Well done 👏👏👏.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Griffin and Mazey Eddings for an advance copy of this gem. All opinions are my own. Now everyone GO ORDER THIS BOOK.

You know that moment when you're a couple chapters in and you get the thought that "I'm going to read every book this author has written and will ever write?" yeah, I had that while reading this one.

this was my first book by Mazey Eddings (even though this is the third in the series oops) and I loved it so so much that I immediately went ahead and started reading the first two books in the series one after the other. I also loved A Brush with Love and I am currently halfway through Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake and am loving it as well, even though both of these books have tropes that I usually don't care to read. Eddings books have that magic and charm that are making me read and even like the tropes and storylines that I usually don't even bother reading!

This book was absolutely amazing, I absolutely could not understand how it was able to make me laugh out loud at one moment and then cry my eyes out a couple pages later, but I can't remember the last time a book pulled that many emotions out of me.

I really really loved this book and will definitely think about Indira and Jude for a long, long time, so I highly recommend checking it out!

read if you like
- brother's best friend trope
- childhood enemies to lovers
- forced proximity
- found family/ friend group
- mental health rep
- books with weddings

4.5 ⭐️

I think this was my favorite in the entire series. I absolutely loved the banter between Indira and Jude. Jude is a precious bean who must be protected at alllll costs. Jeremy and Collin were also the absolute CUTEST. I don’t want to say too much to spoil it but I loved it so much!

If you haven’t read the first two books, I DEFINITELY recommend reading them before this one comes out! They’re all so amazing and you won’t regret it.

Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake was my top read overall in 2022, so I could not wait for The Plus One, and omg it did not disappoint. Wonderful, vulnerable Indira has just been cheated on, so she turns to her brother’s best friend and childhood nemesis Jude to be her fake date to the wedding. He’s just gotten back from being a surgeon in a country going through tragedy and is suffering PTSD. I was emotional from dedication to the final page. This book is perfection. It’s witty, with wonderful banter and dialogue and smart characters. It’s steamy, Jude is so sexy and his and Indira’s chemistry is off the charts. It’s vulnerable, going through topics of mental health, the amazing healing powers of therapy, and Jude’s struggles with PTSD. It is literally everything. I both never wanted it to end and couldn’t wait to see where these characters took me. It was fun and emotional and heartwarming and just every kind of wonderful! Indira is so beautifully strong and brave and bolsters Jude through his struggles, and Jude is so compassionate and sweet. I loved the enemies to lovers mixed with friends to lovers in this. It may just be my new favorite book.

I'm pretty sure this was my favorite of the series, and that's saying a lot because I really liked the first two books as well. I really liked Indira, the female main character, a psychiatrist who works with children and is also dealing with her own psychological issues, many of which stem from her father abandoning their family when she was young. The book opens with Indira walking in on her boyfriend, with whom she has been living for a while, cheating on her. She breaks it off immediately and goes to stay with her brother and his fiance, only to find that her brother's best friend - and her childhood/teenage nemesis - Jude is also staying with him. Jude is dealing with his own trauma, having signed up for an organization that sounds like of like Doctors Without Borders, which provided his med school tuition in exchange for four years of professional service in dangerous, war-torn locations around the world. He has what seems like very severe PTSD, and one of the things I liked about this was that he didn't just, like, get cured because he fell in love. This book does justice to the hard work that is surviving trauma of various types, and is a pretty strong advertisement for the benefits of therapy, even for mental health professionals. I also liked the inclusion of some old standard tropes - brother's best friend, enemies to lovers, fake dating - that all kind of magically melded together and added some lightness to balance out the heavier topics covered.

I loved this one from Mazey Eddings, definitely my favorite of the series. I thought it was so great how open Jude and Indira were with one another. I felt the conflicts could’ve been a bit stronger. It felt a little rushed but everything else was heartmelting and perfect. I truly appreciate how I pant at mental health and getting help was almost a character on its own.

5/5 ⭐️
4.5/5 🥵

Indira and Jude are two people who tolerate each other’s presence like one tolerates the common cold. Someone intrinsically present and hardly tolerated for the duration of there presence.

Indira, having been cheated on, goes to stay with her brother, Collin who is about to be married to his partner Jeremy. But Indira’s bad night only gets worse when her brother’s best friend, Jude opens the door to her brother’s house. Jude isn’t terrible, he’s just awful, with his contrite manner and crappy, albeit witty, come-backs. Jude is back from being stationed overseas as a response surgeon in areas of conflict. He got time off after 3 of he 4 year contract to attend the wedding. And he’s staying with Collin. Obviously Indira can’t complain too much as she needs a place to stay while she puts back the pieces of her life. And considering she’s has a doctorate in psychiatry that should be easy right? Well mental health doctors aren’t perfect and everyone needs a starting point when they find their boyfriend, balls deep in another woman with faces covered in peanut butter, right?

As the story continues we find Jude isn’t himself. His work has turned him into a shell of the person he once was. Experiencing terrible boughs of ptsd and trauma responses during the most menial times has got him on edge and struggling with the pre-wedding festivities and it’s only getting worse. But of all people, Indira notices, with her honey eyed stares and inexplicable knowing. And Jude is scared and drawn to her like a man dying of thirst and she’s an oasis in his desert of loneliness, fear and shame.

So when the idea is posed to go to this wedding together for support, no one could have predicted the outcome of these two childhood antagonists finding their person was with them all this time. And all it took was them seeing one another as people to find the love there. These two see each other and study the pieces and put their lives together with one another and create a beautiful story, showing how important mental health is and wanting to love one another fully and completely. As their best selves.

This story made me laugh, cry, rage, ponder and feel happy! It was the perfect 3rd book in a beautiful series about friends and their lives and lovers. Mazey’s writing got better with each story and this one has sealed the deal on making her and instant purchase author for me. The only nit picky thing I have to say, is that Collin has blonde light colored hair and green eyes, Indira has dark hair, dark skin and brown eyes. And they have the same parents and are Italian and Greek… the genetic descriptors threw me off. But again that’s me being very nit picky haha. Sorry I just had to mention it. Thank you so much NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the ARC.

I don't know HOW I didn't realize this was part of the same series as Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake which was one of my favorite romances last year! Enemies to lovers is one of my favorite tropes of all time and this childhood enemies to lovers novel definitely scratched the itch. I love seeing representations of mental health in novels that are actually realistic and include non-linear healing. So often novels glamorize mental health and use it as a way to move the plot forward but Mazey Eddings handles it very well. I will gladly read and recommend anything she writes at this point.

Big thanks to St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin, and NetGalley for sharing this advanced reader copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

This is the first book I've read by Mazey Eddings and surely, it didn't disappoint. Tbh, I didn't even read the synopsis before requesting it, but I just read the magic words: "fake date" and I'm in!

Opening the book (not literally since it's an ebook), there is a content warning which I totally appreciate. It focuses on mental health problem which usually is being stereotyped. Finishing this book, I felt that somehow, I have undergone therapy, too, if that's how it actually felt like to be in one. Both characters have suffered from a great deal amount of traumatic experiences and both were healing from it -- together. The chemistry between Jude and Indira is palpable. I felt it the moment Jude opened the door for Dira the first time.

I'm giving this a 4.5/5. The missing .5 is because I thought that the ending was lacking and rushed. A better ending for this wonderful couple should have been a little bit better.

Enemies to lovers. Fake dating. Forced proximity. Spicy sex scenes. Oh, yes! Did I say 69? Well, then, absolutely there is 69 here. LOL.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin for providing me an eARC in exchange of an honest review. Book will be published on 04 April 2023.

DNF at 36%. Sadly, I don’t think the writing style was for me. Though I appreciate the mental health representation, I struggled to connect with the characters and believe that they were ever truly enemies.

The Plus One

“The Plus One” is the final installment of Mazey Eddings’s Brush with Love series. In this novel we are introduced to childhood enemies Indira Papadakis and Jude Bailey. Indira is Jude’s best friend Colin’s little sister. Jude is temporarily in town to serve as best man in Colin’s wedding. As part of a scholarship program that absolves him of his student debt he has spent the majority of his career overseas providing surgical assistance to victims of war and catastrophic natural disasters. Unfortunately, after constant exposure to such volatile environments, Jude has developed PTSD. He deals with it by ignoring it and pretending that he is fine. The only problem with this approach is that Indira is a therapist and she is able to see past the walls Jude puts up, which only keeps him on the offense.

Jude is not the only one with issues. Indira has just been cheated on by her on again, off again boyfriend. To make matters worse, he’s a part of the wedding party since he happens to be her brother’s fiance’s cousin. Yeah, that’s not awkward. Oh and did I mention that she has to temporarily move in with her brother as a result of the breakup. And guess what? Jude is staying in the house as well before he goes on to his next assignment.

As Indira and Jude navigate through Colin and Jeremy’s many wedding activities Indira finds herself constantly confronted by her ex and his new girlfriend, whom incidentally, he cheated on her with. Unfortunately, all the boisterous fanfare proves too much for Jude’s PTSD and as a result he has a difficult time proving to himself that he is mentally okay. It’s not long before Indira and Jude come to the conclusion that their forced proximity could prove beneficial to them both. As her fake boyfriend Jude will serve as a buffer between her and her ex. Ideally with him on her arm she will not come across as the spurned ex lover. In exchange, Indira will help Jude decompress when the wedding activities become especially stressful for him.

Enemies to lovers. Best friend’s sister. Close proximity and fake dating. This crazy mashup of romance tropes makes for a fun read. I love reading how Indira gets under his skin during their MANY arguments because she is able to get past his protective walls. Slowly but surely, Jude’s numbness melts away and he begins to feel like his old self.

Jude is not the only one who is blossoming from this fake dating situation. As the intimacy between them intensifies Indira begins get over her abandonment issues and she truly feels that she is worthy of love.

The Plus One has a little something for every romance lover. Not one but three tropes and genuine and fun characters. Also, I like how the author addresses the issue of student debt in this country and how stressful it can be to a young professional just starting out in the world. I also, like how knowledgeable and sensitive Eddings is around the subject of PTSD. Although it does not come close to its predecessor “Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake”I still really enjoyed this one.

From the cover and the blurb, I thought this was going to be a very lighthearted book. I got so much more depth and, honestly, trauma than I expected.

I started the book, not quite liking Indira. The hatred between her and Jude was a little forced. I had a really hard time believing that even kids that grew up together would continue to be so cruel to each other when they got their late 20s. However, she really grew on me. I loved her devotion to her clients. I loved how she and Jude made each other better. I loved the emphasis on working through trauma and therapy. I even liked how the initial betrayal by her boyfriend was handled. The story was handled with enough humorous moments to make it entertaining and some thing that brought joy.


Thank you Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC.

I am a mess. I’m a wreck. My face is streaked with dry tears. Did I just attend a therapy session? I’m pretty sure that’s what this book was. Oh my gosh I can’t form words for this. 5/5 stars all the way. Go preorder this ASAP. Jude and Indira were absolutely everything and my new fave couple. The mental health representation was phenomenal as usual with Mazey. The PTSD was heart wrenching and just left you speechless. It made you want to just hug Jude and never let him go. Indira’s strength was absolutely everything. To see her gain confidence in this book and see just how strong she is. Inspiring. Truly.

The sexual tension was chefs kiss. The romance as a whole was so well done. The reminder that you don’t have to be perfect for love. You don’t have to wait until you’re healed to love and be loved. Which that really hits close to home. So, thank you for that reminder. As usual the side characters were gripping. The personalities they all give off just flow so well. The friends are all so different, but they fit so well together.

I could go on and on with this review. The spice was delicious, you will laugh, you will cry, and you’ll experience rage during certain moments. You’ll also never look at peanut butter the same.

This was another well-done read by Mazey Eddings. We see the last friend in the friend group get their happily ever after. It had heavy medical world viewpoints because the man has a doctor's background and the woman is a psychiatrist. I thought the build to the relationship was well done and it also took time to showcase the need for mental health resources. I also liked the build-up to Indria's brother's wedding. I really loved that we got to see other characters from previous books, specifically Lizzie.

THANK YOU NET GALLEY AND PUBLISHER FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO READ THIS. That being said, rating and feelings are my own:

3.5 stars rounded up

This was a pleasant surprise for me and I’m so glad I was approved for this ARC. I had previously DNFed a Mazey Eddings book so I was a little wary of trying her again, but I think her writing style was one I just needed to get used to because after a few chapters I was hooked. The dual POV done in third person narrative can be tough for me to connect with, but I got used to it enough that it stopped bothering me too much. Indira and Jude follow the enemies to lovers trope- but not really- and the fake dating trope- but not really (they tell their friends and family about it so it’s only fake to, like, 3 people)- so none of the tropey stuff gets too much in the way of their story. I loved that their relationship developed through really deep conversation and we really feel the connection and love growing between them. I especially loved the lack of the third act breakup- it actually feels like one is coming but then they (gasp!) talk about things instead like mature adults??? Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised too. Jude is dealing with some serious PTSD after being stationed in different international war zones as a surgeon, and he is in full denial that anything can be done to help get him through it- until Indira helps show him the way.

I felt like this really was Jude’s story, and Indira was a side character, and I actually ended up really appreciating that, as we got to see the mental health representation followed through the full book (plus Indira was a little boring/underdeveloped for me). Indira is a fundamental part of his journey and I was worried at first that it would become a co-dependent relationship, but the author tactfully handles that with Jude’s acceptance that while Indira helped him get the treatment he needed, he was able to follow through on it with or without her.

If I could change anything that would give this book more stars from me, I would have really liked to see more of their childhood/past that caused them to be such great enemies- and maybe more of them as current-day enemies before they became friends and then lovers. I felt like the enemies part didn’t really matter much because we barely saw it exist, it was kind of just a trope they had to throw in there as a conflict but it just didn’t do much for the story. I loved the childhood stories they told and I would have loved to see more of those, if only to maybe see how much they really were never enemies at all.

Thank you so much for the advanced copy! I love this whole series and this book did not disappoint. I loved the enemies to lovers storyline and the reunions with the friends.