Member Reviews
This was utterly delightful from start to finish, with breezy prose that made even this slow reader feel like she was flipping pages at a swift rate, because the story flowed so smoothly and the pace of the unfolding narrative was impeccable. I loved the twist on the "relive your worst day or decision" trope, this time focusing on the collateral damage of that choice rather than the choice, itself. Robb shrewdly keeps the ex off the page, focusing the story on the heroine and her best friend, who's clearly the central love interest from chapter one. I loved the way she built the stakes (one of the reasons I adore a friends-to-lovers romance, because who wants to risk losing their best friend?), so as the feelings grow, so do the risks and complications. I also loved the butterfly effect one altered choice had on elements outside the romance, such as both main characters' careers, and the shelved creative pursuits of the heroine's overburdened sister. The humour is sharp, the details are fun and cleverly considered, and the love story so sweet, with a fated-mates feel that also demands the heroine earn her happy ending, and not just accept her destiny. Also, as someone who grew up with a dad who had a shelf full of curling trophies, the Oh So Canadian content made me smile. A debut I suspect will appeal to a wide readership, and ensure we see a lot more from Robb in years to come.
Thank you to NetGalley for the arc of this lovely book!
Where to begin! I had already preordered this before receiving the arc cause of the author interview in the arc of “You,Again” (which was a 5⭐️ read for me) I thought the premise was so interesting and couldn’t wait to read it.
Gemma and Dax are just adorable from their friendship in the main timeline to the friendship to lovers in the 2nd timeline. I loved their banter in both worlds and loved every time Dax would notice little things about Gemma.
His slip of the tongue was just 🥰 he was an adorable book guy and just lovable and a sweet baby Angel. His love for Gemma in all forms was just beautiful. We love a SIMP OF A MAN 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Gemma’s arc is so relatable of being afraid of taking risks, and not fully trusting herself. To see where she begins and where she ends up was just really nice. And from being someone who could somewhat be self-centered (not fully) to making certain sacrifices was great growth. And her realizing that everything you want is on the other side of fear was truly inspiring.
I also loved the humor between Gemma and Kiersten, what a lovely sister relationship. And Aunt Livi was adorably eccentric.
Overall, such a good little read and I look forward to seeing any future books from Kate Robb!
If I had to describe this book in one word, it would be, perfect. But if I could add a few more they would be: spellbinding, magical, and adorable. I loved this story. It gave all the comfort of Gilmore Girls, and the feel-good romance of your favorite 2010’s RomCom. (Only without the Stars Hallow small town). There is so much I could say about this story, listing everything I loved about it, but that would take forever (because I loved everything). But to name a few, Gemma and Dax are a match made in heaven, Aunt Livi is who I want to be when I grow up, and while this book has no mention of Halloween if feels weird perfect to read during my favorite season (which is fall if you didn’t get that). I absolutely recommend this story. If you need a little magic, a little feel-good love, or if you’ve ever wished you never met that stupid Ex.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC! This story was such a cool idea, and I loved the characters. The one issue I had with this book was how spicy it was; it wasn’t advertised as such and I was surprised by how much graphic content there was. If you’re looking for that kind of story, then you would definitely enjoy this book. But I wish I had known before I read it!
4.5 stars! I absolutely loved this book! If you’re looking for funny and sweet Rom-Com then look no further.
Image going through a bad breakup and your hippy book loving aunt suggests a love cleanse…when you wake up the next day everything is different! You wake up in a different reality and get see how your life could be if you made different choices that you were scared too scared to make before.
All the characters in this book were so lovable, and Gemma and Dax’s love story is just chef’s kiss! ❤️
I received this book via NetGalley, thank you!
🌙✨This Spells Love✨🌙
⭐: 4/5
🔥: 2/5
Author: @kate_robb_writes
Gemma just got dumped by her boring boyfriend of 4 years, and she cannot deal, so she calls up her sister, her kooky aunt, and her best friend Dax to help her drink her sorrows away. After many margaritas, her aunt suggests they perform a love cleansing spell she found in one of the books in her store to wipe her memory of her ex. The thing about the spell is that she has to seal it with a kiss from Dax. When she wakes up, she realizes that the spell worked! Not only does it seem that she never dated her ex, but everything else in her life changed, including her friendship with Dax. This Dax has never met Gemma. The only way to reverse the spell is to convince him to kiss her.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It was sweet and spicy with some humor sprinkled in. I really wish I had a visual aid of Dax in his Batman costume!
🍩Friends to Lovers
☕Alternate Reality
🍩Set in Canada
☕️Small Business Owners
🍩Donut and Coffee Enthusiasts
Thank you NetGalley, Kate Robb, and Random House Publishing for this ARC!
I'm not typically a friends-to-lovers fan, but I did find this one to be a good read. Perhaps that was because the whole plot was set up differently from a typical friends-to-lovers story, but I enjoyed this one!
I love a well done second chance romance. And this one did really well at it. I loved the banter between the fmc and mmc. And the grandma was hilarious. I couldn't put this book down. It's a top read for the year for me and I can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy!!
I’m stuck on this rating…it felt like a 4 star read…but the steamy romance parts made it 3 star 😂 this is totally a me thing so please take that into account here! I don’t like steamy scenes, so aside from that this book was so good!! I LOVE the idea behind exploring what would have happened if a certain event never took place in your life. I also LOVE friends to lovers! And this felt like well done on that front. Characters were all very interesting & I love Dax especially. Such a good guy, genuinely…and I was so here for that. The aunt and sister were hilarious and the scene in the beginning almost gave me practical magic vibes when they were doing their thing in the apartment with the random spell book 😂😂 so yea, definitely going to recommend this book, with the added warning that this is pretty steamy!
This was incredible. I had kept pushing off reading it because I assumed it was going to be witch-ier and those are always hit or miss for me. But I absolutely adored this, and was gravely disappointed when I could tell it was coming to a close.
I recieved a free e-arc through NetGalley and this is my honest opinion about the book.
Amazing, cute, funny read. Absolutely loved the story. It makes you laugh and giggle. The character is fun, whitty and not to whiny and off and on about the best friend being more thing which can be to much sometimes. The Fun, light read with just enough spice.
This book started off with some promise, but to be honest, it lost me when she threw shade at the monster romance books in her aunt's shop (derisively calling them erotica though they're no more erotica than this book). It actually put me in an overall reading slump and I couldn't finish it. I find it irksome that one romance author would shade another subgenre of her own genre. I won't be posting this review anywhere other than netgalley because I'll admit that it's not much in the way of a review but anyway. I tried putting the book down for a few weeks to get in a better frame of mind but in the end, I was just too soured over this book to pick it back up.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for giving me access to this super charming book!
Following a break-up, FMC Gemma "love cleanses" herself into a multiple dimension world that is similar to her own but not quite: she's still single, more successful in business, but is missing her best friend, Dax. Dax exists in this multiverse but is a stranger and Gemma wonders how she can get them back to the bestfriendship she misses. The catch, she (with the assistance of her sister and aunt) only has until the next waxing gibbous cycle to reverse the spell and send herself back to her world--but as she lives her life as "other" Gemma, will she want to return to life as "old" Gemma? This book had Practical Magic, Freaky Friday, and Sliding Doors vibes-- a must-read for fans of the friends-to-lovers trope!
This book was so fun! I loved it from start to finish. The characters were enjoyable and well fleshed out. The story moved along at a good pace and never felt too stretched out.
I did think it was going to be a bit more witchy but it was more humans accidentally cast a spell. Sometimes the main character did drive me up a wall because she was so self-absorbed sometimes but I guess I would be too if I was sent into an alternate timeline.
Ok so I have this thing where, if something really intrigues me in a book, I get restless and cannot focus on what I'm reading, and I start having too many questions and need to know what happens. Most of the time it's very frustrating, and I end up dnf'ing because I just can't be bothered anymore.
This happened to me with This Spells Love. In this case however, I really wanted to keep reading because I was loving the story. So to calm down my mind, I went ahead and peeked at the end to get a sense of where things were heading.
Once I got that out of the way, and suspended disbelief at certain things, I was able to enjoy the story better. And even though I knew the ending, I felt that the story was refreshing.
I loved Gemma's whole journey, how she handled her relationships, the realizations she came to, and the glimpses of how things could be.
However, the tricky thing about this kind of story is that all your questions are not always answered. That's a downside to some of us who like to have everything in neat order and squared away.
Still, overall, I enjoyed the This Spells Love.
!!!! Kinda spoilery ahead !!!!
These are the types of questions that went through my mind while I read <spoiler>alternate timeline storylines: what's going on with the Gemma in <i>this</i> timeline? And while the Gemma from the other timeline is in this timeline, what's going on in the original timeline? Has she just disappeared? Or is there another Gemma still there?also, did it all really happen (what a question to ask about a fictional fiction with fictional characters!)? Or was Gemma veryyyy drunk and had booze-y dreams?</spoiler>
This is what Avengers did to me y'all. I love it.
Thank you to the publisher and author for the ARC via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
2.5* rounded up
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.
Unfortunately this fell flat for me. I was bored for most of it and I didn’t want to leave a review for this ARC I would have not finished it.
I truly could not put this book down. I don’t usually like friends to lovers but this was just so well written. I can relate to Gemma in so many ways and Dax is just what we all need :)
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!
This one is super cute for the upcoming autumn season. I found a the spells and magic enchanting. I also loved the *manifesting* vibes. The characters were humorous and had great banter. Their spice and tension was just right, I’d say about 2.5/5 peppers on my spice scale. While Dax and Gemma were memorable characters, I wished there was more “magic” out of this one. This is a personal preference - so please still check this one out!
I liked the premise of this book, but in the end, it wasn't for me--the pacing was a bit weird and I didn't feel super invested in any of the characters or why Gemma was suddenly attracted to Dax in the new timeline.
It's hard for me to put into words how much I LOVED this book! I did not want to put my kindle down and completed it in less than 12 hours!
I need another book! I'm not emotionally done with these characters! This book shows such amazing character development. Gemma and Dex's relationship had me smiling the entire time!
The "What If..." story line had me hooked from the very beginning! I think we all have had times were we wonder what our lives would be like if we could have changed an event that happened. This book gives you a glimpse of the pros and cons of altering time.
After reading this, you will definitely start realizing that sometimes the what if moments might really be worth taking a risk.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!