3.5 stars

This is the first book I have read from Andie Burke, I was pleased to know that it was a sapphic romance. The romance between Olive and Stella was cute and I enjoyed watching it unfold. There were also a lot of subplots that kind of in my opinion distracted from the main plot of the story. The crazy ex felt a little excessive in my opinion. There were a few parts that felt a little rushed and things that didn't fully get resolved which to be honest kinda sucked. I enjoyed the writing and the read just had a few issues.

Thank you Netgalley and Griffin for a eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited for this book but unfortunately was super disappointed and ended up DNFing at 70%. At 70% and it’s like they barely know each other. Also really uncomfortable with a white author writing about a Latinx main character.

I loved the Disney World love in the beginning and it really brought me back there. Like one of the characters I did wonder why they had to fake date instead of actually talk about their feelings. I think that is one reason why I don't enjoy this trope as much in adult novels. I would definitely still recommend this story as over all it is good and has a nice pace.

Fly With Me
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Author: Andie Burke

I requested a digital advanced readers copy from NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Macmillan Audio and providing my opinion voluntarily and unbiased.

Synopsis: A one-way ticket to love or a bumpy ride ahead?

Flying-phobic ER nurse Olive Murphy is still gripping the armrest from her first-ever take-off when the pilot announces an in-flight medical emergency. Olive leaps into action and saves a life, but ends up getting stuck in the airport hours away from the marathon she's running in honor of her brother. Luckily for her, Stella Soriano, the stunning type A copilot, offers to give her a ride.

After the two spend a magical day together, Stella makes a surprising Will Olive be her fake girlfriend?

A video of Olive saving a life has gone viral and started generating big sales for Stella's airline. Stella sees their union as the perfect opportunity to get to the boys' club executives at her company who keep overlooking her for a long-deserved promotion. Realizing this arrangement could help her too, Olive dives into memorizing Stella’s comically comprehensive three-ring-binder guide to fake dating. As the two grow closer, what’s supposed to be a ruse feels more and more real. Could this be the romantic ride of their lives, or an epic crash and burn?

My Thoughts: On the surface, this seems like the perfect meet cute. Olive is having a hard time over the last year. On a flight, she ends up saving a life and with today’s world, the video goes viral. On this flight, Olive meets the co-pilot Stella, and the video also brings positive PR to Stella’s airline. In saving the life, Olive gets stuck at the airport and Stella offers her a ride, while on this road trip to Orlando, they decide to enter into a fake dating relationship for differing reasons. Along the way, does love conquer all? While this seems like a light read, it does deal with some heavy topics which adds a layer of depth that I love. This follows the tropes of fake dating, queer romance, and viral video.

This storyline contains some heavier topics of grief, loss, sexism (pilots being a boys club), terminal illness, and toxicity in relationships. Both of our MCs are flawed, struggle with standing in their truth, faced their share of diversity, have persevered through the diversity, and have complex family relationships. The MCs are relatable, likable, and easy to connect with. The story is narrated by Olive, in her perspective, through her lenses. I did not care for Oliver’s family or Stella’s ex, which can be expected. The characters were fleshed out well, especially Olive, with depth, witty banter, chemistry (so much chemistry), authentic, and creatively woven. The author’s writing style was complex, humorous, even poignant at times, swoon-perfect, steamy, and engaging. The characters kept me invested and I rooted for them the entire story. One of the things that I loved about this story is not only do you get see the relationship develop between Olive and Stella, you also get to witness them as individuals and the growth across the pages.

I had the pleasure of receiving both the digital and audio ARCs. The narrator was amazing, had great voice variation, and really brought to life the characters of Olive and Stella. This was a sweet, endearing sapphic romance. The emotional rollercoaster was cleansing. Sometimes I laughed, sometimes I cried, and sometimes I just shook my head. For a debut book, this was amazing. It is a little on the longer side at almost 400 pages, but it is necessary to build the relationship between these two women, iron out the plot and subplots, and give them a HEA that is truly deserving. I think the story would have been elevated if we had Stella’s POV mixed in, although do not get me wrong, Olive did a fantastic job creating Stella through her eyes. Another thing I would have like to see is more resolution into Olive and her family’s relationship. I highly recommend picking up this book.

This book was so cute and wholesome. I found myself wanting more!! This is very much giving Ashley Herring Blake and it's exactly what I was looking for!

What an AMAZING debut novel.

Two interesting characters, an organic connection. A deep plot. It was a fun romance novel with heavy themes at times which I personally really enjoy. The book was the perfect length.

Highly recommend!

I enjoyed this book but I found myself thinking the fake dating trope felt forced. When they had an actual genuine connection, I just wanted to read their love story unfold, not this fake relationship resulting in fake drama for no reason - not everything has to be shoved into a trope! That being said, I liked the characters, the relationship, and I thought it was well written.

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned to the sky, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” —Leonardo Da Vinci
Not only did I read Fly with Me while on my cursed, double-diverted flight from St. Louis to Oklahoma City…I devoured it. Andie Burke’s debut novel features a romance between nervous flyer (Olive needs the relief from a prescription kind of fear), and mission-orientated Stella as they decide a fake dating relationship could be mutually beneficial upon landing after a newsworthy flight.

I was immediately charmed by Olive. She works in medical care as a nurse, is terrified of flying but is determined to conquer her fears in order to run her first ever marathon at Disneyworld in order to honor her brother. Unfortunately, after a series of events that even made me gasp, Olive’s medical training is prevailed upon midflight and luckily having someone else’s life in her hands was enough to get Olive’s fears under control. The pilot of Olive’s own cursed flight is none other than Stella, who generously thanks Olive for her coolness during a medical emergency even though they’ve had to divert to Atlanta which is nowhere near close enough for Olive to get to her race in Orlando.

“You’re like a magical unicorn, Olive.”
With Stella’s help, Olive luckily makes it to her race on time and after a magical day spent at Disneyworld agrees to enter into a fake relationship that would not only help Stella’s chances at a promotion within the airline, but also give Olive a little bit of support with her newfound social media and media outlet fame. The problem is that Olive is a bit of a romantic and wears her emotions on her sleeve, whereas Stella is definitely not the relationship type.

Truly, I adored reading this novel. Stella and Olive’s fake dating relationship gave me all the warm feelings. I adored Olive’s friends, and getting to see Stella open up to a real relationship was equally part of the charm of it all. Where I think Andie Burke truly shines is how evocative and real she made Olive’s struggles with grief and her estrangement from her family. While I loved all the light-hearted and romantic moments, I was won over with how the heavier themes were written. I also admired the way the concept of misogyny in the workplace was addressed, and overall, how feminism and inclusivity is at the forefront of Fly with Me.

“Oh, you think this is nerdy? You should see my label maker.”
As far as debuts go, I believe that Fly with Me is indicative of a stellar career for Andie Burke and I look forward to more stories from this talented author. Fly with Me releases everywhere September 5th and I highly recommend you pick up a copy of your own!

This book was really cute and I loved the characters a lot. I do wish there was more substance with the story, but overall I felt like it was such a cozy story.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. The love story between Stella and Olive was so sweet, the characters were developed well and I felt invested in them from the start. However, fake dating is one of my favorite tropes so I'm very picky about how its done and my biggest complaint was the constant mentioning how they were just friends and how their relationship was fake. I didn't need that constant reminder, it made things feel repetitive. I also felt like the author was trying to do too much but the last 20% really brought it all together and redeemed this story for me. The representation in this book was on point and I really enjoyed the side characters too. She even wrote the perfect frustrating villain in Olive' mom. I do wish that it was been written in first person with dual POV.

I really liked the anxiety rep in this, and how Stella was so caring and understanding about Olive's fears. I felt like these two were so good for each other. They were both so supportive and caring. My biggest issue with this book came from the third act conflict and the drama coming from the ex girlfriend trying to stir up drama. But overall a really good book that I highly recommend!

You can watch my reading vlog hrere! https://youtu.be/7wYBS9AaNcE

I really wanted to like this one but I honestly just didn’t feel engaged with the characters and didn’t feel like I picked up on any of the characters’ chemistry with one another!

i absolutely loved this book and was so thrilled with it. i love fake dating, i love obvious pining with a slight miscommunication that makes the MC think the LI doesnt love them back…… this was so good for me personally and i loved how andie burke handled phobias in this book. would absolutely recommend to friends

I thought so many aspects of this book were good, the dialogue was fine, the premise was great. But overall it wasn't for me. Wouldn't say other people shouldn't read it but it was not my thing.

I received a free advanced copy for review of fly with me by Andie Burke all thought thoughts and opinions written here are my own. I received no financial compensation or compensation of any kind for writing this review.
Fly with me. Is a Sweet romantic book that touches on some of the difficulties faced by those in the lBGTQ+ community based on the choices they have to make in today's society. As well as some of the difficulties faced by those who don't conform to standardized gender roles.
The characters face difficulties that many of us would shrink at, or that are still here, but we like to think of them as a thing of the past such as sexism. Or the good old boys club mentality. We like to think that that's a thing of the past but it's still exists,.
Fly with me also. Illustrates that love doesn't necessarily come from those that we think it will come from, such as family by birth. Love and and of itself can come in many forms from many different places and when the love is honest, it is a good thing. It's a powerful thing, regardless of gender roles; ,gender identity or sexual preference.
Andie Burke did a wonderful job writing this book. It has well-rounded characters that soon became my friends. I hope that she chooses to and write some kind of backstory or something. Continuing the life of these characters, I wouldn't want to miss her next book.i would love to watch Andie Burke grow in her craft as a writer
I appreciate the opportunity to read this story

Loved this book! I felt like it was a great interpretation on the fake dating trope, and I couldn’t help but smile throughout the whole book. The characters were well thought out, as well as the stories that went along with them. The story talks about grief and I thought it was a beautiful depiction. I wasn’t too annoyed by the miscommunication trope in the book, and could genuinely see why some of the circumstances led to that. Overall great read and great book!

This is honestly the second LGBTQIA+ book I have ever read, and I think this one takes the cake as my favorite so far. Aside of loving the dynamic and romantic development between Olive and Stella, I appreciate the representation of Latinos, #futureisfemale vibes, the reality of toxic workplaces, characters with anxiety/depression, and the important message that nobody got time to deal with toxic exes, family, or ANYBODY for that matter.

This was a fun and sweet sapphic romance. Olive saves the life of a man on a flight and goes viral. Stella is the pilot of the flight in question. They begin to fake date in order to further their careers. The book does deal with issues like anxiety and grief. The characters feel real and the book was enjoyable.

Olive is an ER nurse, and she's terrified of flying. On her first-ever flight there's a medical emergency, and she saves a man's life and gets the attention of the gorgeous pilot, Stella. Olive's heroism is (of course) caught on video and Olive goes viral, which leads to a complicated, mutually beneficial fake-dating situation with Stella.

Fake dating is one of my least favorite romance tropes, but I really loved it in this book with these characters. Olive and Stella both felt like real people, dealing with real issues (and having some hot sex along the way). Great banter, solid steam, and lovable characters combined to make this a delight to read. I hope Burke has future books in store - I'd love to read them!

I’m feeling very conflicted about this book. On the one hand, I can see what the author was trying to accomplish, but I'm not sure if it was done as successfully as it could be.

This story follows Olive and Stella, a nurse and pilot respectively, who meet when Olive saves a man's life on a plane. A video of the incident goes viral, and they begin a fake dating relationship to help further Stella's career. I typically love fake dating tropes because they're usually filled with so much tension, but this one felt a bit lackluster to me. Olive and Stella instantly hit it off and you can tell they have feelings for each other pretty early on, so it didn't feel very "will they/won't they".

In addition to this, there were a few heavy subplots regarding end-of-life decision making, parental health issues, emotional abuse, and some passive homophobia and sexism. It just felt like too going on all at once, whereas if the plot narrowed down on only a few of these topics, they would be better fleshed out and more impactful overall.

The romance scenes in this book were cute and I did enjoy the way that both Olive and Stella balanced each other, but unfortunately I think the plot issues outweighed these moments.