Such a unique book, I loved the plot and oh my god the characters we're so amazing!! I definitely will be recommending it!!

Ahhhh I enjoyed reading this one so much! It was so cute and romantic! Not to mention it hooked me right away!

This was cute, but added nothing to the genre. I did enjoy the couple and I can totally see this one being a huge hit in the rom com community. I smiled several times reading this one!

I loved this book! The story was so cute and the writing was so good. I'll try to avoid spoilers so I won't say much, but I absolutely loved how this book touched on mental health, specifically anxiety and panic attacks because I could relate on such a personal level. Mazey Eddings is such a talented writer and the way she wrote these characters was just perfection. The story was so cute, too. Overall, this book was such a good read and I definitely recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this free arc in exchange for my honest review.

DNF @ 32%.

I'm not vibing with this one. It feels like a step back for Eddings. It's a bit flat, the characters a bit one-dimensional. It's hard to believe that a few months ago I gave the author's sophomore book 5 stars! I DNF'd the first book too, and unfortunately this has gone the same way. The writing feels clunky and awkward (and falls into my pet peeve of third person narrative - mentioning the protagonist's name every freaking paragraph and thus dragging me out of the story because it's already obvious who is talking).

This could do with another round of editing for sure, but that probably wouldn't help the fact that I just don't care about Indira or Jude.

I love Mazey Eddings' writing!! Her other books are just the cutest and this one was the same :) She creates complex characters with real-worth personalities and problems. She does great research beforehand and has such a smooth writing style. I will keep reading her books!

Thank you NetGalley and Mazey Eddings!

Listen

Mazey literally cannot write a bad book.

Every single thing she puts out makes me feel related to and real. The research she puts in to make sure that all of the issues and characters are portrayed correctly is immaculate, and the story of Indira and Jude is no different.

10/10. 5 starts. Will recommend to everyone.

📚 The Plus One
✍ Mazy Eddings
📖 RomCom
⭐ 4.5/5
🌶️ 4/5

"Trauma and happy endings aren't mutually exclusive. They aren't even separate entities that have to be experienced at different seasons of life. You can hurt. You can struggle and suffer and learn to heal while doing it. You can stare into the face of your pain and also choose to love."
◾
If you've read the first two installments in Mazey Eddings' A Brush with Love series, you're in for a treat with Indira's story! Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
◾
Fresh off a breakup that bizarrely involved peanut butter, Indira finds herself rooming at her brother's house just a few weeks away from his wedding. Upon her arrival, she comes face to face with her brother's best friend and her sworn childhood nemesis, Jude, who is also staying with her brother while on leave from his job at an international health organization to attend the wedding. Despite their differences, they find comfort in each other during the chaotic events leading up to the wedding and agree to fake date so Indira won't have to face her ex alone. The only problem is, their forced proximity and fake displays of affection are starting to feel a bit… real, and both are left grappling with the idea that a situation that couldn’t be worse, is made a little better with the other around.
◾
💭What I loved: The normalization of therapy and emotional self care played a huge role in The Plus One. There were a lot of deep conversations about guilt, abandonment and trauma that somehow fit in beautifully with the LOL moments I've come to cherish from everything Eddings writes. Indira and Jude had the sweetest shared history and love and laid on the spice too- packing way more heat than the first two books IMO. And of course, I loved getting snippets from Harper and Dan and Lizzie and Rake the series- it's always nice to get more closure for characters you love.
◾
TW: PTSD
◾
Read if you love:
*older brother's best friend tropes
*fake dating
*mental health rep
◾
See also: Life's Too Short, Ever After Always, Fix Her Up

The Plus One...what can I say about this book? I swear to God, Mazey has a window into my soul. Every book she writes, I relate to. A Brush with Love - anxiety. Lizzie Blake - anxiety. The Plus One - panic attacks.

In order to avoid spoilers I won't say too much, but I rooted for Indira and Jude the ENTIRE time. They were so freaking precious, and the evolution of their friendship into something more was so believable.

AND... holy crap... the spice in these books just gets BETTER and BETTER.

I don't just recommend this book. I DEMAND you read it.

Rating: 4
Laughing Score: 4
Heaviness Score: 2

I’m not sure how to start this review, but I feel like the top three things I should start with are:

Indira and Jude are two of the most beautifully complex characters I’ve read in a long time
Check the trigger warnings for this book & read the author's note at the end
Get ready for a lot - a lot of laughs, a lot of love, and a lot of emotions

The writing in this book is engaging, it’s binge-able but also kind of heavy, so maybe don’t binge it? I tried not to because although I’ve never suffered from PTSD, the elements of anxiety that were woven through the characters often left me feeling a little heavy, but then at the same time, I think there was an entire chapter where I was laughing out loud. I think the reason I couldn’t stay away was that I just thought their story was so dang beautiful.

Childhood frenemies to lovers/brother’s best friend, so you know with that, there is pining, there is banter and a whole lot of nostalgia. It’s also a slow burn, with a lot of steam, a one-tent situation, and a pretty great friend group. I really loved that we’re reading about two adults, successful in their careers yet a bit broken because of their life experiences. I loved that the main theme wasn’t about fixing each other but focusing on themselves and being a team.

I also really loved the Epilogue and getting to see how everyone else in this universe was doing. I think this is the last book in this universe, and I found it to be a sweet ending.

Thank you, SMP Romance & Netgalley, for a copy of this e-ARC in exchange for my review. The Plus One comes out on 4/4/2023!

Childhood rivals turned fake dating frenemies turned friends turned lovers! When Indira's life is thrown into a tailspin, she has to move in with her brother, only to discover her childhood nemesis and brother's best friend Jude is already staying there. While there's a history of hate, they find the best solution for single wedding blues is each other, and find that the other can help with them a whole lot more than just being less lonely. Overall a fun romance with some very poignant insights about working through mental health issues. And if you've read the series, also very fun appearances by former book friends!

Charming! The character's attraction felt natural and the circumstances were fun and light hearted. I am enjoying discovering this new to !e author.

Indira and Jude grew up always at odds — a childhood mutual dislike which carried over into adolescence and became a staple of their relationship. The two frenemies are brought back together as adults when Collin, Indira’s brother and Jude’s best friend, invites them to be in his wedding. What begins as a cautious truce turns into something much more, as fake dating tropes, problematic exes and surprising feelings up the ante.

My favorite element of this book is the positive emphasis on therapy — and not just in the context of healing with mental illness, but as a vital ingredient for every person. What I wish the author had also touched on was the inaccessibility of something like therapy in the U.S. Therapy is expensive, not always covered by insurance and just not a possibility for many cost-burdened households. Of course, this book centers around two protagonists who make a lot of money in their career paths of choice — one’s a psychiatrist and the other a surgeon — but as a reader, I would have connected with either Indira or Jude more if they had addressed what a luxury being able to afford therapy is at least once in the text.

That said, I thought the author’s note about her personal experience with trauma driving this book really inspiring, and I appreciated how honestly and carefully she approached PTSD in the story. It was really powerfully done.

All in all, The Plus One is an easy to read romance that dives into mental health issues with sensitivity and grace. Would absolutely recommend.

*Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

I’m honestly struggling to write this review – this book was another amazing gift from Mazey Eddings, one that once again has taken the time to carefully explore mental health issues and representation in a nuanced and respectful way. I love that her books seek to give a voice / a lens into different life experiences – and I also love that they each exploration is a love story. Her books are heartwarming, thought provoking and while they have some appreciable romantic comedy moments of levity, they are romantic dramas that give careful consideration to larger life experiences and issues.

An (non-exhaustive) list of some of the many highlights I appreciated about this story:

• The initial premise / set up: Childhood Nemesis to Lovers scenario (Enemies To Lovers) via the Older Brothers Best Friend Trope
• Fake Relationship – I am a sucker for this trope – always 💖
• Mental Health Representation in the form of Anxiety, Panic, and PTSD – the descriptions leave it feeling so real and relatable in an eerie way. You can feel the pain being experienced as though you yourself are experiencing this painful reality. It was hard to read, but so incredibly important to have a voice for that experience.
• Forced Proximity
• All the teasing and banter = love language – I adored this, I loved the banter between Jude and Indira, I loved the jokes and the teasing and nicknames. This is a love language I could relate to and appreciate.
• I’ve said it before, but I love the characters in this world – loved seeing our old friends and adored getting to know Indira better and seeing her and Jude grow together.

I loved all the feels this book brought and that it managed to deliver both light-hearted moments of laughter and joy, as well as bittersweet moments of emotion and catharsis. The balance was delicately managed and delivered a beautiful story, that will continue to stick with me. Simply a moving and wonderful read, and I cannot wait to see what Mazey will have for us next.

Mazey Eddings’ books are so wonderful!!! I loved this one so much! They are perfect romance novels. I would highly recommend!

Jude and Dina are thoughtful and overall likable characters. The trauma and healing feels authentic. Beautiful story.

The cover and title are lovely but not representative of the beautiful and sometimes painful story this book is. It’s real and raw and authentic, and while it’s a romance, the self love was far more prominent. The current trendy covers of modern romances don’t feel like justice for this story and it feels misleading as well.

- Brother’s best friend
- Enemies-to fake dating-to lovers
- Witty AF banter
- Spicy spicy spicy scenes (69-ing?!?)
- Mental health representation
- Normalizing therapy!!
- Lots of characters from her other books!!


I love the way that Eddings can tell a beautiful story, with a swoon-worthy romance, on top of individual characters with depth. Her stories are always spicy and always make me laugh. But they also deal with some really heavy topics. The character development was amazing for both characters. And I loved that Jude was really the first book boyfriend I’ve ever read with such DETAIL!! men in romcoms are just good for sex and swooning over the heroine. Which is wonderful. However, he just has so much DEPTH!!

This is a 4.5/5 ⭐️’s for me. Would highly recommend!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I read three books of the series! And I loved each and every one. This is book 3 and it did not let me down it was everything, I wanted and more. This is a great contemporary romance. These books can be read as a stand loan, but when you read them together you get so much more from the story. Once I started I could not put it down.

Indira and Jude have been enemies since childhood. The constant bickering never subsided as they'd gotten older, and now circumstances have them living with Indira's brother as he prepares for his own wedding.
Jude is coming home from overseas medical work and is struggling with PTSD from the war-ridden countries he worked in. Indira, a psychiatrist herself, knows exactly what to do to calm Jude. Quickly, she becomes his "safe person" back home. Coming out of a relationship with a man who is also in the wedding, Indira needs to save face. She and Jude strike an unlikely deal to be dates to the wedding. As the duo spend more time together, it turns out the line between love and hate are a lot closer than either of them thought.
**
O.M.G.
LOVE LOVE LOVE
I absolutely adored Jude and Indira. I thought Indira was hilarious, witty, and independent. I love that she had her own struggles with her father and sought therapy, even while being a psychiatrist herself.
But what I really admire was the portrayal of Jude's PTSD. I felt so much of the description of anxiety Jude experienced was similar to my own experiences with anxiety. I often struggle with authors misrepresenting anxiety and depression as personality quirks of sorts. I could tell Jude's was rooted in someone's own lived experiences.
And the steam *insert heart-eyes*. Perfect balance of romance, sexiness, and real life issues to keep this reader happy.
Did Mazey propel her into my top authors list?
She might have!

This book is sooo perfect! I went into this book expecting a typical, romcom book and I was so pleasantly surprised! Every single character was so memorable and amazing. This book is so pure and I love how we got to watch the characters develop and I also love how this book can help readers going through similar experiences! I love books where the characters are imperfect and realistic and this book 100% had that! This book had some of my favorite tropes including enemies to lovers, forced proximity, and of course fake dating. One of my favorite things about this book is how we got to watch Indira stay with Jude the entire time pushing him out of comfort zone and supporting him throughout the whole book!

Such a inspiring and heartfelt book that I’ll be recommending to everybody! Thanks so much to Netgalley and St. Martins Press for this ARC! All opinions are my own.