A heartfelt story about friendship and finding love from one of my favorite authors. I was so hyped for this book that's been getting such rave reviews. Unfortunately it wasn't quite the romance I wanted.

Imogen's clairvoyant mother predicts that she will never come first in life or love and I really hated how that sort of became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The one guy Imogen's always loved is her globe-trotting best friend Elliot and when he comes home to deal with a family death he determines to stay for a while and try to help Imogen break her cursed love life.

I was rooting for Imogen and Eliot hardcore and while the book is filled with great scenes between them and their other friend, Franny, he still takes waaaay to long to choose Imogen and I found myself rooting for the other guy more if I'm totally honest.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review. Lots of people have loved this one and I guess I just wanted more of a romance focused story and less of journey of self-discovery for the MMC (who had a LOT of issues to work through).

This was a cute book, but not a top favorite of mine. I really loved certain aspects of this book; in particular, dealing with grief, family matters, mental health and discovering of ones selves. Learning to put yourself first and self care - all very prominent in this novel.

However, I wasn't sold on a few strange parts. Imogen and her 17 breakups. SO MANY BREAKUPS and all for the same reasons. They all left for others. I just couldn't put my finger on the reality of 17 men all leaving her for other women. I couldn';t grasp her 300 jobs. And I couldn't quite wrap myself around a childhood friend being 100% out of her life, coming back and rekindling things within a day and falling in love within a few. Then being off, o, off, on. It was just all very messy and a little unrealistic (lets not get into the mother predicting things).

Alas, it was still a cute book. Just not something I went crazy for.

Imogen Finch has had her heart broken many times, as predicted by her clairvoyant mother - she will never come in first for anything, ever. Everything takes a turn when her first love interest and one of her best friends, Eliot, returns to their small town. The pair of lifelong friends set out on a quest to prove that surely Imogen can come in first at something.

This book brimmed with the same qualities I adored in the author's debut, Marlowe Banks, Redesigned. There were well-formed characters, creative and escapist plot lines, and a surprising amount of heart. However, Imogen was frenetic and scattered in a way that I found difficult to relate to. I also found the third act breakup weak (and felt so bad for poor Dutch!) and the resolution too swift. But overall it was a very enjoyable book and I look forward to reading more from Jacqueline Firkins!

Thank you to SMP Romance for gifting me with an ARC to review. All opinions are my own. I enjoyed it!

The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch by Jacqueline Finch
Romance
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

I was so excited to get an early copy of this book! I absolutely adored Marlowe Banks, Redesigned.

Imogen Finch has been through 17 breakups. She already knew it would happen but it still doesn’t make it any easier. Her clairvoyant mother declared she would never be first at anything or with anyone, and so far in her life that has seemed to be true. Imogen has grown used to always coming in second for her life.

Imogen returned home to take care of her mother, and is working around town at a few odd and end jobs. She has a wonderful best friend and life is pretty good. It’s about to get even better when Eliot Swift returns home, her secret crush and other best friend.

I fell in love with Imogen. She is thoughtful, artistic and a beautiful person inside and out. She takes care of her mother and works all the time to keep them afloat. Her curse has brought such a cloud over her life. She’s forgotten to try and live and believe in herself. Eliot shows up and starts to make her remember this about herself.

This was a wonderful second chance romance. I love the main characters as well as the side characters. This one kept me smiling the whole way through!

Imogen Finch seems to be cursed and has long accepted she will never come first: whether it’s an elementary school sports, an art contest she was a shoo-in to win, or a friendly game of trivia at the local bar. After all her mother predicted Imogen would forever be second best; including in her relationships. It’s no surprise when all of her seventeen relationships end because the other person found someone else, someone better. Imogen has accepted her fate, not that it has stopped her from aspiring for something other than failure. When the long-lost third leg of her friend trio, Eliot Swift, finally returns home after years of vagabonding, Imogen may finally have the encouragement she needs to break her second-place curse. Eliot is convinced the curse can be broken, and proving it becomes an adventurous, crazy exploration as the two enter one ridiculous competition after another to prove it.

Ms. Firkins takes this rom-com and explores the concepts of self-worth, self-confidence, and finding someone who makes the effort. This one was such a soft, tender, friends-to-lovers romance filled with humor, heart, yearning, and a little bit of magic. I highly recommend The Predictable Heartbreak of Imogen Finch to other readers.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.

The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch was a joy to read. I really loved the growth with not only the two MC's, but the side characters too, it made me want to move back to a small town again because I do miss the vibe and the people sometimes.

I read this book in 3 days through audio, which is fairly quick for me and I throughly enjoyed it. I honestly don't know how else to review this book besides that it was such a joy to read and that I desperately need to buy my own copy.

5/5 stars.

Cute, fun, and a little quirky, this will definitely appeal to fans of a second chance type of trope. Revisiting high school crushes definitely brings out the nostalgia for a lot of readers, and I think it’ll be some thing that my students can relate to already being in college themselves. This had good banter and a lot of good feelings along the way.

A super sweet romance that had me swooning and almost wanting more. Happy with the overall story and loved how relatable both MCs were

In The Predicable Heartbreaks if Imogen Finch, Imogen is a woman who can never come in first place. She gets dumped for other woman, she loses contests, she just cannot win. Living at home to take care of her mom, her life takes a turn when her childhood crush returns for a funeral and Imogen tries to break her losing streak. It is a sweet story about second chances, forgiveness, resilience, love and friendship. With lots of sweetness, silliness and slapstick kind of comedy.

What kind of parent tells their child that they’ll never be first in anything for the entirety of their life? That is exactly what Imogene’s mother did that set her on a course of expecting to be forever disappointed. What comes first, the chicken or the egg? When she is finally ready to give up for her own HEA in comes Eliot. I found myself rooting for Imogene from the first paragraph and loved her journey. A feel good story with great characters and ultimately a great lesson about accountability and living life on your own terms.

The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch had such a unique idea for a romantic comedy, and I loved it. Imogen Finch has just been through her seventeenth breakup. Each relationship ended because her exes leave her for another partner. Imogen's mother predicted that she would never come first to anything or anyone. Imogen has pretty much given up, until Eilot Swift comes back into town. Eilot was her first crush and her first heartbreak when he left and promised that he would never return. When Eilot finds out the Imogen still believes in the curse, he is determined to break it. While Imogen and Eilot enter every contest they can think of, Imogen realizes her feelings for Eilot never went away and Eilot may feel the same way about her.

I loved this book. There were so many aspects to this book that I enjoyed. Imogen is such a strong character with a big heart. She is selfless in her relationships with her family and friends as well as her relationships with her exes. This book centered in on Imogen finding that she needed to put herself first over others at times. Eilot was a big part of this book as well. I loved the chemistry between Eilot and Imogen but didn't know how his travel would play into their relationship and his disdain for his family home in their hometown.

The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch made me feel all the feelings. I laughed through all the contests they entered, and my heart broke for Imogen during each of her break ups. Overall, this was a fantastic read.

The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch is out now!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to review The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book.

The Predicable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch by Jacqueline Firkins
Contemporary chick lit.
Imogen Finch has been through a lot of heartbreak. 17 and counting. Her mother made a prediction more than twenty years prior that Imogen would never come first at anything or to anyone. Is it self destructive behavior or could her mother be clairvoyant? As each man leaves Imogen, she finds it harder to commit, knowing what’s coming. When Eliot Swift returns to town to deal with a family situation, Imogen is happy but knows he will not be staying. Her heart wishes otherwise.

From the title, we know that Imogen and relationships don’t work but we hope for the best. All the contests that are attempted are amusing but sadly reinforce her curse. I wanted a magical cure but it’s not that easy. I really wanted Eliot to wake up and fortunately Imogen convinces him to seek therapy.
I don’t want to spoil the story. It’s categorized as a romance and it ultimately is but for me it was really too little, too late. Saying that, she is only twenty nine so for her, there is a lifetime ahead still.
3.5

I received a copy of this from NetGalley.

Thank you to Jacqueline Firkins, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

How cute is this cover?! I love it so much. This book plays at the emotions. I found myself laughing one second and getting teary-eyed the next. I liked Imogen and felt for her. The character development was amazing.

You can’t help but root for Imogen in this one. Cursed to never be the winner, she’s yet to best someone at a board game, come in first place in a race, or stay in a relationship…when she’s always dumped for other partners, someone smarter, prettier, or whatever the excuse is. When someone from her childhood returns, secret crush Eliot Swift, she wonders if he could be the one to break the curse. However, when she’s tied to her small town and he’s a globe trotting nomad, is it really enough to cross fate? A little bit of magic and a whole lot of relatability, this was a fun story to read. Bonus fact-this takes place on the Oregon Coast!
Thank you to Griffin for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This is out now.

Ever since age six, when Imogen’s mother (who can predict the future) tells her she’ll never be first in anything, she has set out to prove her wrong and break the curse. In childhood, it was everything from sports contests to academic pursuits, and from art school onward, it was trying to find a man who wouldn’t eventually leave her for someone better. However, overshadowing it all, is her lifelong friend and high school crush Eliot who took their mutual best friend Franny to the prom and then left town permanently after graduation, eventually ghosting her despite his promise to keep in touch and leaving her heartbroken.

Just after her 17th boyfriend tells her he’s leaving her for his co-worker, Imogen’s mother has a premonition and Eliot’s father dies. In the ten years he’s been gone, quiet, sweet, kind but tortured Eliot has wandered the globe, amassed four million followers on his YouTube channel, and kept his vow to never return to the home where he was raised and neglected by his cold parents. When he’s called back for the funeral, he isn’t just confronting his mother and the pain of his childhood, he’s also having to come clean with Imogen. Once he share his fears with her, he commits to helping her win at something, knowing that this curse has held her back from living her fullest life and following her dreams. In the process of competing in everything from corn-shucking to cupcake baking contests, is there a chance that Eliot will decide to stop running away and, instead, run towards life with Imogen?

Although this has all the elements of a second-chance, friends-to-lovers, small town romance, it fits more in the women’s lit genre with complex family situations, an enduring friendship between three friends that isn’t the love triangle it appears to be at first glance, a small town citizenry that is predictably all up in Imogen’s business, and two lovely, kind people who are great at helping each other face hard truths but whose baggage might keep them from ever forgiving themselves and the people who wronged them so that they can be together. Firkin keeps readers in suspense up until the final moments. Fans of Kristan Higgins, Katherine Center and Abby Jimenez will want to check this one out.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from St. Martin’s Griffin through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Twenty-eight-year-old Imogene Finch lives in the small Oregon town where she grew up. Scraping together enough money from part-time jobs to get by and care for her eccentric mother, she has lost her passion for creating art while succeeding in a series of unsuccessful romantic relationships. Re-enter Elliott Swift, her childhood best friend, and object of her unrequited love. After years of traveling the globe and avoiding his parents and life that stifled him, he has returned for his father’s funeral and to reconnect with Imogene and their other best friend, Franny. Through their brief and intense in-person time together and over the following year, they will learn to support and bring out the best in each other.

The book was well-written and a pleasure to read. Honestly, I read it in two days and could not put it down. I laughed a little. I cried a bit, and I enjoyed watching the transformation, challenges, and growth of the characters. Highly recommend!!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch by @jfkillsdarlings was one of my most anticipated books of the year. I’m so grateful to @stmartinspress for an advanced copy of this one. I also preordered it and caved on Tuesday and purchased the audio.

Imogen Finch has a mother who may (or may not) be psychic, but either way her mother told Imogen when she was young that she was cursed to never be first at anything and Imogen believed her. And so far the curse seems to be true. She’s never won anything and she’s now going through her 17th breakup with yet another guy who’s found someone who’s actually first in his heart. But Imogen doesn’t exactly blame the guys, because someone else has always been first in her heart—Elliot Swift, her childhood best friend who left his rich, abusive family and the town they live in the second he was old enough and hasn’t looked back. But when Elliot comes back to town after his father dies, he’s determined to help Imogen break her curse.

There are a couple things I know I can count on in a Jacqueline Firkins book. Beautiful, thoughtful writing. Complex characters who aren’t perfect. And mature conversations about relationships. To say they are always grown up isn’t quite fair because she also writes YA, but even in books aimed at younger audiences, I love the characters’ conversations and the way they go about communicating. This book might have some of my favorite of those conversations. I loved the way Imogen and Elliot talked and respected each other. I loved the way their conversations unfurled and the way they trusted each other with the things they felt. It was really, really lovely.

I’d absolutely recommend this book to romance lovers who like characters who are more complex. While Elliot is dreamy in a lot of ways, his decisions also made me a little crazy, and I think readers looking for a perfect hero who does and says everything right might struggle. I’m not always crazy about those heroes, and ultimately I loved Elliot and Imogen even if I might have made different choices.

Unfortunately I didn't get very far into this book. I loved the idea of the book but it was slow and really didn't excite me. I had to dnf at 15%.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book had all the makings for it to become one of my favourites - however (spoiler alert), I wasn't overly impressed with it and found it just average. I'm a fan of the friends-to-lovers and the second chance romance tropes. I really liked the lead male and female love interests individually - flawed yet very human. However, I wasn't a fan of them together. The main female character seemed to have more chemistry with the town's bartender than the her love interest, and it appeared to me that she only wanted to be with him because of their history (and nostalgia). The main female character was worried throughout the book of being second in priority to everyone and everything, and it felt like in the end, that was what she was for her love interest - which I personally didn't think she should have settled for.

I did really like the writing, the other characters and the setting, and would check out other books by this author - it's just the romance I couldn't get behind 100%.

This book was a change from the contemporaries I've been reading recently and I really enjoyed that. It's a small town friends to lovers romance, where the two main characters have quite obviously had feelings for each other for a long time but were too afraid to say anything.
After college Imogen returned to her hometown to be there for her mother and what was once her passion of drawing has become less than a hobby now. Tie that into her mother predicting she'd never come first at anything when Imogen was much younger and now after her 17th breakup she's just about had it. When her long-time friend Eliot returns for the first time in ten years he becomes determined to change her outcome on life.
I love seeing the character development from both Imogen and Eliot throughout the story, I thought it was written really well. I wasn't entirely sure how the end was going to go and I like that that kept me interested the whole time. I will say what ended up happening in the end fit the story perfectly.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the arc.