I really loved this book and the overall plot and storyline and characters. As an MMC I loved Christopher. He takes responsibility for his actions, he works to correct past wrongs, and he’s very self aware IMO. I also really liked Kate and I understood her motivation for treating Chris the way she did at first but I did find her very hard headed at times and I wanted to shake her just a little bit.

The spice was great, there’s no third act breakup because Kate and Chris have a very rational adult conversation instead (other authors take notes). I only wish we got her familys and friends reactions to them getting together because I low key loved all the side characters

The more Chloe Liese writes, the better it gets. I loved this story. I liked the revisit to the Wilmot sisters’ world. I loved the 10 Things I Hate About You Easter eggs/parallels. Chloe writes so beautifully…I love the lyrical way she describes settings and feelings and characters…and the spice! She gives us characters with neurodivergence and/or disability representation, for lots of inclusivity. (And can we talk about the cover?! Gorgeous.) Will be anxiously awaiting Jules’s story and any nugget I can get of these characters.

Thank you to Chloe Liese, Berkeley Publishing, and Netgalley for this advanced reader’s copy in exchange for my honest review.

Chloe Liese just gets it. Characters that you fall in love with and want to be friends with? Check. Tender moments that make you swoon followed by moments that moves you to tears followed by laughing at a piece of dialogue that is hilarious and perfect? Check.
This story was beyond amazing, and I read it at a moment when I really needed it so that made it even more meaningful. Kate Wilmot has my whole heart and I want to protect her forever♥️ Run to buy this book when it comes out in October, y’all.
Thank you to Berkley Romance and NetGalley for a free ARC.

Chefs kiss💕✨❤️


Thank you soooooo much netgalley, the author and the publisher for the advanced review copy if this book💗
"I voluntarily read and reviewed the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

I am thoroughly enjoying this series and am really hoping to read Juliet's story next. I enjoyed seeing the way Kate and Christopher overcame their animosity (though I found it a little hard to believe that years of negative behaviour could be overcome so quickly) to find their happily ever after.

5/5
Better Hate Than Never is an exemplary hate-to-love romance surrounding the misperceptions that come from protecting ourselves and those we care about, and how we can break down those barriers and better ourselves. Part Shakespeare retelling, and all things hot and vulnerable, Liese’s tremendous talent for portraying personal transformation and vulnerability is at its height. Kate and Christopher truly are the moment, with an open communication that is worth angsting over and longing for. Liese will give you standards you didn't even know you needed, like a man who makes you pasta at the drop of a hat. Better Hate Than Never is not only a fantastic love story, it’s Liese’s best work to date.

A full review will be posted on my blog closer to publication!

I loved Two Wrongs Make a Right so I was super excited to get to read this one! I liked this one too. My favorite thing about it was all the Fall cozy vibes. I identified with Kat a lot since I too am a donut aficionado, neurodivergent, and really hate doing laundry. The friends to lovers mixed with enemies to lovers tropes in this book didn't have the same vibrancy that I felt with Two Wrongs Make a Right, but overall it was a sweet romance that I will recommend to any romance lover out there!

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨/5 (4.25)
rep: chronic migraines, ADHD, demisexual MC
Thank you so much to NetGalley and the author for an ARC copy! I love Chloe Liese’s books, and I was extra excited when I heard that this had chronic migraine rep as someone who suffers from them. As usual, Chloe nailed it with her disability rep. In every book of hers, it is so clear that so much love, care, and thoughtfulness has gone into making sure that the various disability/mental health rep is accurate. Her books are truly some of the best for disability rep in my opinion. However, this book was unfortunately not my favorite of hers. I really enjoyed Two Wrongs Make A Right, but I think I preferred it to this one. Maybe it was just me, but I didn’t feel as connected to the story and I had some trouble staying engaged. Other than that, I enjoyed this! Kate and Christopher are so sweet together, and there were so many amazing and lovely quotes that I highlighted throughout. All in all, I can’t wait to see what’s next from Chloe! Thank you again NetGalley!

Wow, I really enjoyed this one! This was my first book by Chloe Liese, and I honestly can’t wait to read more from her. This was as sweet as it was charming, and I didn’t want to put it down!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️🌶️🌶️*
3 peppers because the spice is descriptive and exciting but it doesn’t come until the last like 30-25% of the book.

𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗲𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆:
- ADHD Rep
- "Friends" to Lovers
- Taming of the Shrew Retellings
- No Third Act Breakup

Chloe Liese is the queen of sibling stories. With the Bergman family and now the Wilmot sisters, I can't wait to see what family Chloe will introduce us to next.

I read this in a day while I was traveling so you know it had to be good if I was able to tune out all the airport noise and keep focused while reading.

I love friends to lovers and enemies to lovers and with Kate and Christpher, it was kind of a mix of those two tropes. They've known each other forever and know how to get under each other's skin which leads to mouthwatering banter.

The pace of Kate and Christpher's story was perfect and I never found myself wishing things would move faster. Along with that, Kate and Christpher are wonderfully fleshed out characters that made all their actions make sense.

NO THIRD ACT BREAKUP! I love how Chloe Liese writes characters that communicate SO WELL.

There are a fair amount of appearances from Jamie and Bea - from the first book in the series and I'm hoping we get Juliet's story next (of course with major appearances from Jamie, Bea, Kate and Christoper).

This is the second installment of the Wilmot Sisters series and follows Kate, the youngest sister, and her childhood next door neighbor Christopher. The two have been at odds for forever, so when Kate moves back home, will they keep up the enemies act or begin to realize how much they’ve been lying to themselves ?!

I am a big Chloe Liese fan, but this story took me a while to get into (about 50%). It wasn’t so much the plot or characters, as I grew to love both, and as always the representation and realness of the story was top notch. However, there was a lot going between Kate’s sisters and the newly introduced characters at the start that I found myself getting lost, and I struggled to see that something was there between Kate and Christopher despite the childhood animosity, which felt immature with the large age gap. Also, there was one paintball scene that lasted a bit too long for me (about three chapters). Once the two opened up more and their relationship bloomed, I become more invested in the story and couldn’t get enough of their banter, intimacy and honesty. Plus, the no third act breakup was refreshing.

Even though this wasn’t my favorite of the bunch, I’ll continue to read all of Chloe’s books, and I know many will absolutely love this!

Read if you like:
-Enemies to lovers
-Close proximity (next door neighbor)
-Age gaps (6 years)
-Chronic migrain and ADHD rep
-Demisexual heroine
-Books that follow sisters

Better Hate Than Never is a modern take on The Taming of the Shrew featuring Katerina and Christopher, two people who seemingly know each other better than most and have seemed to hate each other for most (?) or all (?) of their adulthood.

Katerina is a traveling photographer who has a passion for causes and uses her passion and talent to tell those stories. Christopher is a venture capitalist whose firm invests in progressive causes. He shares a yard with her parents, parents who took him in after his died and he needed the love and guidance of someone who knew them better than his grandmother. Essentially, in his most formative years, Katerina's family was like his. They were close. Knew everything about each other. That knowledge fueled an antagonist relationship between Katerina and Christopher. All she wanted was his attention and respect and all he wanted was her love and to protect her and keep her close. Despite what they wanted, what they had was a relationship where she needled him about being a money sucking capitalist and he needled her about running away and never being home. Round and round they would go until her dad intervened and asked Christopher to try to stop.

As anyone in a mutually antagonistic relationship knows, when one of the parties starts being nice, you get really suspicious really fast. So when Christopher tries to care for her, she's prickly and resistant until she sees his sincerity. Once she believes them, their love story is sweet and tender and respectful.

If you're familiar with the play that this novel is based on, you can definitely recognize many of the original features-lots of witty banter, lots of barbs, and a truly sweet ending. As a fan of the Shakespearean version, I can definitely recommend this one.

I love this angsty, accepting world Chloe Liese has created. Better Hate than Never is the second in Chloe's Wilmot Sisters series. This time it follows the story of rebel youngest sister Katerina and the boy next door Christopher. I love a hero who has been denying his love for the heroine.

I can't want to read everything Chloe Liese writes in the future.

All the stars for Chloe Liese's newest book featuring The Wilmot family!!
This was a great friends to enemies to lovers book featuring another one of Chloe's wonderfully written men, Christopher Petruchio. Again, I cannot stress how much I love Chloe's characters, who always seem to be written with so much care and attention that I just fall in love with them with all the books I've read from her. This was a wonderfully written, emotional, and beautiful love story and I cannot wait for more to come!!

In this retelling of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, photographer Kate is broke and back at home after years of adventure. She falls right back into old patterns of dealing with the orphaned boy next door her parents helped to raise: ethical investor Christopher. Six years her senior, his first interaction with her was when infant Kate had a diaper pooplosion on his lap, and things have gone downhill ever since.

I did not have as much love for this as for Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right, in part because I don’t know Taming of the Shrew as well as Much Ado About Nothing, and I think I had more forgiveness for Beatrice and Benedick because they were manipulated, as opposed to holding a grudge and being purposefully antagonistic. I really loved the nods and asides to 10 Things I Hate About You (which is my primary frame of reference for TotS). The writing is excellent and clever, the story features neurodivergent characters, and the family and sisterly relationships are strong.

I received an advance reader’s review copy of #BetterHateThanNever from #NetGalley.

Chloe, why do you do us like this?!?

Man, Kate and Chris. Christopher and Kate!!! Sigh. Swoon!! More, please more!!!

First, I love how Liese gives us a little Shakespeare for those who love it, but keeps it light for those (me) who could take it or leave it. She has the perfect balance.

While balance is present, there is equally chaos! As a neurodivergent myself I saw so much of my own chaos being explored in Kate. Watching her be accepted for who she is when he rejection dysmorphia is high was simply the best.

Watching her recognize that she is wanted and loved, and in return wanting and loving another, was magical.

Liese has such a beautiful way of showcasing beautiful people who think they're flawed, but really...they're just you and me!

Also, COMMUNICATION is present and we are HERE FOR IT!!! I love me some healthy communication.

Now, to go research ethical stock exchange!

Thank you so much Berkley for this advanced copy of Better Hate Than Never. I devoured it like all Liese books, and always am so pleased.

Chloe once again manages to write a romance novel full of feels, incredible representations and so much love. She’s incredible. This book is incredible. If you’re a romance reads or not, you need this book!!

I’ve read this author before so I was excited to read this book. She’s good at creating a slow burn and this one was similar. I was really into the book for the first 2/3 of the book and then the last 1/3 seemed to drag and was a bit too fluffy for me.

It’s about neighbours who have known each other forever, literally. Christopher essentially becomes part of Katerina’s family after his parents pass when he’s a teenager and he spends more time with the Wilmots than his grandmother. Christopher and Kate always have had a fiery relationship, pushing each others buttons. After Kate comes home for Thanksgiving (she’s a photo journalist who travels a lot) and gets into it with Christopher, Kate’s dad him and ask him to get along better. With her dad realizes that Christopher has used this animosity to cover his attraction to her over the last several years. That’s a story progresses. Kate realizes that she is also drawn to Christopher and away. It’s not childhood friend related.

I do like that the author talks about Kate struggle with ADHD and Christophers struggle with reoccurring migraines, and how to impacts both of their lives. It does add a different dimension to the story.

Overall will be a great relief for the fall.
#indigoemployee

4.5⭐️
“I’m going to communicate like a goddamn adult.”
If you enjoy a feminist retelling of Shakespeare where the characters actually talk through their feelings like adults like I do, read this book! I absolutely adore Chloe Liese’s writing! I was hooked from the first page, first from the antagonistic tension between Christopher and Kate to then the romance that kept me on my toes as I waited for them to finally get together! The only thing that I didn’t love was the age gap. I really wish that they had been slightly closer in age. Four years apart would have made sense given that they have known each other as since they were kids. Overall, this was a great book!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Chloe Liese can do no wrong.

I'm a big fan of enemies to lovers, and I'm finding that through Kate and Christopher's story, I'm an even bigger fan of enemies to friends to lovers.

Kate and Christopher grew up together as neighbors, and over the years, the animosity between them grew. Snarky comments, pranks, and basic shenanigans ensue until a finally-grown Kate flees home.

Years pass before they see each other again, but when Kate does return home, it's as if the animosity between them hadn't waned at all. With their families begging for peace between them, the two determine that they need to start getting along.

They do get along... too well.

Watching them fall in love was nothing short of magical. I loved this book!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.