This was another cute addition to the series. I really enjoyed getting to know Indira better learning about her life.

I really enjoyed the back and forth between Indira and Jude. They way they tease each other is so funny. Of course I loved the way they supported each other. Especially Indira being there for Jude and pushing him to acknowledge his mental health needs and feel comfortable in taking the next steps.

This book had all the great tropes - fake dating, enemies to lovers, one bed (one tent). It was filled with very funny moments and also very tender ones.

This one is definitely a little heavier than the other books in the series, but the topics are handled with care. Definitely recommend picking up the final book in this series.

Enemies turned to friends, steamy with mental health struggles and awareness. Not necessarily a book I couldn't put down, but it was good. Would recommend as an easy read.

OHHH This book.
Can I just say I loved how they stress how hard dealing with PTSD is and how much it can effect every single part of your being. I love Indira for just being there for Jude and not overly pushing anything, even when they started off as enemies but she changed her tactic once she saw how he was struggling. I also loved that while a therapist herself, Indira sees one as well to help her unpack her trauma but to also stay on top of her feelings for her own patients. I can't even imagine working with children what she must have to hear and deal with.
I will say the more books that come out in this series the more and more that I am liking them.
This one was the perfect mix of light banter while bringing up some darker themes and issues.
Also can I just say PEANUT BUTTER... EWW

I absolutely loved this book! It intrigued me before I read it so I was excited to dive in, and once I started reading it, I couldn't stop. I couldn't put it down. It also gave me a little bit of nostalgia from my friendships in my childhood, so I really loved that aspect of it too.

I really loved the characters of Jude and Indira both as individuals and together. Indira is fiery and compassionate and strong and witty and I really enjoyed her as the lead here. Jude is quieter but also just as witty and compassionate and they both complimented each other well. I really loved seeing how Jude and Indira grew both individually and together through the course of the book. They are each on their own mental health journey and both dealing with their own trauma that they work through but also find ways to help each other through.

All-in-all, I adored this book and I can’t wait to get my hands on a physical copy!

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

I loved The Plus One! I read A Brush With Love and Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake, and this book did not disappoint. I loved the characters, the story, and the message. It wasn’t quite as funny as the other two books, but I still laughed a ton and enjoyed my reading experience. I think the story was well done as always.

If you like novels with enemies to frenemies to lovers, brother’s best friends, and mental health discussion, you’ll love this book.


I loved Mazey Eddings’ first two books, and I couldn’t wait to read her new book. The Plus One is funny, full of dirty talk and sexy scenes, but at the same time heavy and heart-rending. In this story, Mazey describes the difficult subject of mental health issues/PTSD in a brilliant and raw way, and through her vulnerable characters, Jude and Indira, she shows the importance of seeking support from mental health professionals and people you trust and feel most safe.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press and Mazey Eddings for an ARC.

Did I just read a book or attend a therapy session? I have no idea but I loved every minute of it. I laughed. I cried. I swooned. I fell in love with the characters, flaws included. In fact, I think I loved their flaws the most. They were honest and real and the true journey of mental well-being and healing was highlighted so well. I cannot say enough good things about this novel. Hats off to the author; she did a phenomenal job and told a beautiful love story with a rawness that I think is too often glossed over in romance novels. The ONLY thing I would consider changing is the title, simply because I don’t think it embodies the novel as best it could. 5 stars to this novel!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The writing is well done and the spicy scenes and romantic tension are done so well. I also enjoyed that this book takes on mental health and the stigma that can come with getting help. Relatable on so many levels and just overall so well done!

The plus one
⭐️Book review⭐️
Release date April 2023
Thank you @netgalley and publisher for the #advancereviewcopy

Summary: Indira and Jude agree to be each other’s dates to Indira’s brother’s wedding despite hating each other, but each has their reasons for needing the ‘fake date’. Indira is moving on from finding her boyfriend with another woman and since he’ll be at the wedding she wants to make him regret his actions. Jude suffers from PTSD as a result of working in a hospital war zone; Indira’s presence comforts him.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this book. It was witty and had a great romance arc. It also contained a lot of depth in terms of dealing with PTSD. The supporting characters were amazing and fun to read about. The middle did get a little slow, so I felt like it could have been shortened just a tad to avoid that muddy middle, but other than that, an enjoyable and entertaining read.
4/5 stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Welp. Mazey Eddings is officially an auto buy author for me. More more more more more!! I want all of the books in this series on my shelf.

I really enjoyed this book! I absolutely loved Indira and Jude together. They seriously deserve the world. The book really touched on Jude’s mental health, specifically PTSD, and I think Mazey did a great job at explaining it and showing how it impacted Jude’s character and the people around him. I’m so glad Jude had Indira to guide him through his battle with his mental health.

Moving on from the heavier stuff, this book is packed with laughter and a bit of spice. I found myself audibly giggling throughout the entire book! It contained some of my favorite tropes, like brothers best friend and childhood enemies to lovers. I definitely would recommend this book!

Thank you NetGalley for the arc!

(4.5⭐️) Taylor Swift songs: “New Year’s Day”, and “Golden”, and “peace”, more on those at the end, but also, “False God”!

If you like Tessa Bailey level spice with childhood nemesis/enemies to lovers, brother’s best friend, fake dating, BUT ALSO beautifully written with amazing character growth real people with real problems trying to figure out life together, this is literally perfect for you. Personally, I’m deducting a tiny bit in my personal rating, only because I do not like this much spice in my books, but I loved pretty much every other aspect of the book, it’s just my personal preference. If it had less spice this would probably be a top tier book for me. But I can’t put this book at anything less than a 4.5, it was actually perfect in every other way for me. However, if you like spice, the spice in this was actually written very well! If you like more spice in your books this is definitely for you though, this is just my personal preference, absolutely nothing against the author at all, she did phenomenal.

For this book it was definitely the right choice to do dual alternating POVs. Instead of taking away all of the tension (like most enemies to lovers books do) if you just see how they are feeling for each other and know it’s reciprocated, you get to see these extremely complex characters slowly come to terms and heal from their own traumas. We also get to experience the revelation of their feelings for each other as they do, but it is written in such a beautiful way. I love how while being attracted to each other, they are obviously falling so hard for each other’s souls much more. They slowly become more and more vulnerable with each other, despite not being vulnerable people. Of course the main male character says a few thinks he likes of her physical appearance (actually almost all of them were about her eyes) after he realizes he has feelings for her, but I LOVE how he talked way more about her presence and how safe and comfortable he was feeling with her, and how he truly fell in love with her soul first. And everything feels so authentic between them. While this book definitely doesn’t skip out on their physical relationship, it heavily focuses on their emotional connection much more. I honestly think this book had one of the best emotional connections I’ve read, it was seriously amazing.

I also loved how mental health focused this was, she is a psychiatrist, but also goes to therapy and works on her past traumas with abandonment, and he is also working through a lot of PTSD. I love to see their beautiful relationship form as they both work on their own healing journeys, not trying to fix each other, but to be there through it all. This is really where the song “peace” comes in. They learn that the other will accept them no matter what baggage they carry, the other is there to help ease the burden.

This book was very much a “New Year’s Day” and “Golden” type of love (the songs by Taylor Swift). This book emphasizes how love is shown in the small, everyday moments, where “I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day”!!!! A quote from the book says: “He’d forgotten that happiness wasn’t a banging, violent emotion like all the others that bombarded him every moment. Happiness was soft. Uneventful. It was holding Indira’s hand. Sitting next to her on the couch and listening to her talk. It was a quiet cup of coffee with her next to him reading a magazine. It was teasing her, being goofy and pretending to pass out after sniffing her feet, making her shriek in outrage and giggle. Happiness was them.” 🥹🥹😭

Age rating: 17+, a little spicier than Emily Henry, about 3.5/5🌶️, like Tessa Bailey
*If you wanted to skip spicy scenes, skip from the middle of chapter 22, only read the last few pages, starting around page 180 of my conversion from ebook is correct (important plot point), and then completely skip chapter 23. Skip the last few pages of chapter 26, starting around page 214, (after he gives her the bday present). Skip second half of chapter 32, and the second half of chapter 39.

Thank you Netgalley for providing and advanced reader copy ebook in exchange for an honest review.

A very sincere f*ck you to Mazey Eddings for making me cry this hard in public over a happy ending :') This book single-handedly dismantled the patriarchy and cured every man of their internalized toxic masculinity. It mended my broken heart and imparted the wisdom of at least a year's worth of sessions with my therapist.

I went into this book totally blind, and could not have been more taken off guard by the depth I found in this rom-com. This is a childhood friends (frenemies?)-to-lovers story with banter and emotional wisdom that rivals Emily Henry's <i>Beach Read.</i> I don't say this lightly– <i>Beach Read</i> is one of my most reread books of all time.

I felt the full spectrum of human emotion reading this–the humor that's woven throughout almost made me pee my pants on multiple occasions, the romance was perfectly paced and had me swooning from start to finish, the steam was just the perfect amount of heat, and the heart-wrenchingly tender depiction of PTSD literally made me weep. I want to sit down every person I love and beg them to read this. One of the best books I've read this year; I know I sound dramatic with this review but I MEAN IT it is THAT good. 🥹😭 Prepare to be sick of me because I will not rest until every person I have ever met pre-orders this book.

I absolutely loved the first two books in this series and Plus One did not disappoint! This read is relatable from friendships to romances every reader can find themselves in this story.

Thank you Netgalley and Publishers for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I'm so humbled to have received all three novels in this series via an advanced format through Netgalley.
A Brush with Love (4-Stars, Advanced Listener's Copy/ALC)
Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (5-Stars, Advanced Reader's Copy/ARC)
The Plus One (5-Stars, Advanced Reader's Copy/ARC)

The Plus One is likely my favorite of the three and will join Lizzie Blake in my Top Ten of 2022!

As someone who has read all three in publication order, this is contains the most amount of mental health rep. That doesn't make it any less of a romance because Mazey Eddings is a fantastic author. The rep is important and embedded so well into the storyline and the growth of the couple. This friends to lovers couple are so precious. Having dual POV helped to show Jude's version of the wedding events and then Indira's perspective and it really highlighted the individual character development in addition to their romance. The mental health commentary is done so well that it's so heartfelt and meaningful to the storyline. So, while it's not a light and fluffy novel, it's such a great novel to cozy up to this winter season.

I don't want to spoil anything but thank you Mazey for that extensive epilogue! It perfectly rounded out the trilogy of companion novels.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I was really hoping to love this one because I have physical copies of the first two books in the series but this book failed to meet my expectations. To be fair, I didn’t realize that this book was even part of a series but each book is based on a different character so you don’t have to read the first two to understand the third. I haven’t read the first two books yet but now I don’t know if I want to after this.

One of the main things that made me not finish this book was when we got to read chapters from Jude’s POV. The very first chapter of his made me want to drop the book entirely. How can an author try and be secretive about something that is going on in that character’s life when we are literally in their head? Apparently, Jude had a bad day but we didn’t get to know anything about it but he kept referencing to it in his head. Basically, his whole chapter was, “wow, that thing that happened earlier put me in a bad mood”. But we don’t get to know what that thing is. No one talks like that in their head.

There was also a lot of telling, not showing in this book. In one of the first few chapters, we get to learn how Indira goes about loving people. How she fails in every relationship and why. This might not sound like a big deal but the way it was written was cringey and weird.

And lastly, I want to bring it back around to the beginning. You shouldn’t read this book for the sole reason of the first chapter. Indira walks in on her boyfriend with another girl. Seems like a normal scene for a romance book, right? Wrong. The boyfriend and girl are covered in peanut butter. It sounds funny now but again, the writing made it the cringiest scene I have ever read in my entire life.

Pleasantly surprised at how well the mixing of romcom and some heavy mental health aspects were done in this book! I wasn’t certain I would enjoy the two together (I prefer my romance to be light!) but it was so well done! After reading I will certainly be diving into this authors other work!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to get an advanced e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

So I read the first book in this stand alone series, and now I read the third book and I NEED to find the second one! The way the author develops the characters and makes you feel all of their emotions is remarkable. I love how she tackles the stigma and importance of mental health, it was a breath of fresh air. The love stories in this novel are also top notch, with some spice sprinkled in for good measure.

I have to admit, a meme from someone who had already read the ARC of The Plus One is why I read ABWL. Because I will never start a series out of order though these could be read standalone. And I praise the meme today.

Indira finds herself staying with her brother after a sudden (albeit necessary) break up. She is annoyed to find her brothers childhood best friend Jude is also staying there in the weeks leading up to her brothers wedding. Jude and Indira were always enemies growing up. But is there more to their grown up feud? A scheme to fake date through the pre-wedding activities so Indira can avoid her ex may bring the two closer than ever before.

Underneath quiet, reserved Jude lies a broken man. Years of serving as a surgeon in humanitarian crisis zones has left him closed off and hollow. A new posting looms in the distance but somehow Jude finds comfort and support in Indira.

I cried so many times during my reading. I felt these characters deep in my heart. Jude’s pain is so real on page that I wanted to read into my kindle and hug him. Well done Mazey Eddings. If you haven’t started this series yet I HIGHLY suggest it in preparation for this books release in April ❤️

4.25/5 stars! Loved this third entry in the Brush with Love series. Enjoyed the enemies to lovers and faking dating tropes. Indira is sassy, funny, and just trying to get her life back together. I saw a lot of myself in her and sped through this story. Would highly recommend for contemporary romance fans.

I received an advance review copy for free through NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily