Thank you to Jackie Fraser, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Well, I wasn't the biggest fan of this one. After fleeing from an abusive relationship, Jess squats at a stranger's house. He finds out, they instantly trust each other and he lets her stay. That didn't work for me, it was too unbelievable. Another thing I disliked was the lack of communication. This one just wasn't for me.

Back in 2021, I read The Bookshop of Second Chances which was a lovely story about starting over. Once again, Fraser has written a tale about starting over and second chances which warmed my heart.

After fleeing an abusive relationship, Jess found an empty home she thought she could occupy until the owner moved in. Little did she know the new occupant would be the kind and wonderful Gethin. Like Jess, he was leaving a relationship, and I loved that they found each other as they embarked on their new beginnings.

Gethin and Jess seemed to have a rather meaningful connection from the start, and it was a treat watching their friendship take shape. Gethin was generous in sharing his home with Jess, but he got so much from their relationship as well. He had been lonely, and Jess filled that hole in his heart. She may have been stunned by Gethin's kindness, but in return he got so much pleasure from her company and friendship.

I adored both Gethin and Jess, and I was rooting for them as a couple. Jess had many, many years of trauma to overcome with her last relationship leaving physical and mental scars. She was never treated as well as Gethin treated her, nor was she ever regarded with such high esteem. This was all difficult for her to believe, and she also worried about it falling apart. The push and pull was hard for me to tolerate at times because I KNEW these two belonged to each other, but as with most things, my patience was rewarded.

Overall, I found The Beginning of Everything to be a warm and wonderful story of two middle aged people finding each other at rather low points in their lives and lifting each other up as they attempt to start anew.

3.5 stars rounded up!

I was so happy to see another small village, mature romance from Jackie Fraser after loving The Bookshop of Second Chances! I did enjoy this one, though not as much as Bookshop. I wished that Jess had been a bit more open - I feel like we didn't get a sense of her struggles/mental health issues even from her internal POV until later on in the book, and I feel like had we gotten that earlier, it would have made her more endearing to the reader and make us want to root for her more. I did love the banter between Jess and Gethin, even if I wanted to shake them at times because their chemistry and feelings for each other were so obvious! I enjoyed the unique premise and thought it made for a sweet slow-burn strangers-to-friends-to-lovers story.

TW: Abusive relationship, homelessness, mention of cheating, mention of previous death of a parent, sibling estrangement

Jess has been living rough, camping out with friends or living in her car, or under a bridge. She finds a vacant house and is able to slip inside. These lodgings are far better than she has had in recent years. The owner of the house, Gethin, shows up and Jess fears she will be thrown out or turned in to the police. Gethin agrees to let Jess do the repairs on the house, in exchange for a place to live. Jess lives up to the bargain, she even starts cleaning the garden. Needless to say, Gethin falls in love with her. Jess learns to care for and about herself and realizes she is a worthy person.

The plot seemed rather far-fetched and that led to my disbelief in the story. But it's fiction and anything can happen in a story, right?

The Beginning of Everything is an interesting story of the lives of Jess and Gethin. Jess has run from her last home and settles into an empty house owned by Gethin. Upon arriving and finding her there he offers to let her stay and help him fix it up before he moves in. She reluctantly agrees. She again stays, renting a room after he moves in.
Lots of changes occur in their lives but will they bring them closer or move them further apart?
Well written with characters you can relate to on some level. I enjoyed it and give it 5 stars.
I received an advance copy of this book from the Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

The Beginning of Everything by Jackie Fraser is a novel that left me feeling hopeful.

Jess is in a rough transition period in her life when she takes up residence in an empty home. Gethin is moving in when he discovers Jess and allows her to stay. The Beginning of Everything follows them through the ups and downs of their relationship.

I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up The Beginning of Everything. It left me with a happy and warm feeling that’s hard to get from a book. If you’re looking for a story that will make you smile and filled with good people.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dell Random House Publishing for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Beginning of Everything
Jackie Fraser
Pub Date: September 26, 2023

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Beginning of Everything was the perfect friends to lover novel with themes of resilience and new beginnings. This was my first book by this author, and I will definitely check out her other book!

I adored the main female character, Jess, who escapes are bad relationship and is committed to a new start. Needing to find a new place to stay, and not much money, she starts to stay in a recently hold, but unoccupied house. Hoping to save up money to get her own place, she commits to making the house a temporary solution. But when Gethin, who is also looking to move forward after being in a long-term relationship, enters his new fixer-upper, he is surprised to find Jess, who eventually agrees to stay and help Gethin with the renovations in exchange for room and board. As they continue to work together, they start to feel something more for one another. Can they both risk falling in love again after everything in their past?

This book was so heartwarming. I love the middle-aged characters and how this book is so focused on resilience and hope.

Read If you Like:
💙Friends to Lovers
💙Resilience
💙Slow Burns
💙Second Chances

Thank you Jackie Fraser, Penguin Random House, Dell, and NetGalley for a #gifted copy of The Beginning of Everything!

Posted on Goodreads on September 2, 2023: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/144922955?ref=nav_profile_l
**Posted on Instagram - Full Review- September 26, 2023: http://www.instagram.com/nobookmark_noproblem
**Posted on Amazon on September 26, 2023
**-will post on designated date

This book did not work for me in so many ways. I am not going to bother with the plot or the blurb I am just gonna state what felt off for me. I didn’t buy that Gethin would let her stay there, they are complete strangers to one another and Jess deciding to take him up on his offer after leaving an abusive relationship didn’t fly with me either. Abused women do not trust that easily or that quickly. I also didn’t buy that Jess was sleeping rough; aren’t there emergency shelters available for that? Did she have no friends or family to help? I mean she has a cellphone. The whole scenario was just too unrealistic for me.

Both Jess and Gethin seemed really immature for their age and the lack of communication was frustrating to read. Jess and her internal dialogue ending with a question at every turn grated on my nerves. I don’t much want to have to deal with anyone who might discover me lurking in their new property. That would be awkward, right? It was like that over and over again throughout the book.

Parts of the storyline should have been further fleshed out, such as Gethin’s relationship with his brother and their backstory…maybe to explain further why he seems too good to be true and help a stranger. This is a very slow burn and it takes too long to get to the heart of things and that’s saying a lot as the book is only 267 pages on my tablet.

I hated the cheating angle and I can’t see Jess being with someone who admits to it, in fact, I can’t see her with anyone at all after what she went through and the romance was just ick. I really liked the premise but the execution fell short, the writing style was a turnoff and the character development was lacking.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, my first from author Jackie Fraser.

I loved the way in which the author added depth to the story while also keeping the book as something easy to read and not overly heavy. The book was quite charming and I loved that the characters were not the standard young 20's in a romance. The chemistry was very believable and I loved how the book came together. If you are looking for a non-cheesy romance, pick this one up!

Thank you to the publisher Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine & NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

3 🌟

The set up for this book made it kind of hard for me to get into. Jess, in her 40s, finds herself homeless after leaving an abusive relationship. She ends up breaking into (Gethin's) home and staying there. When he finds out, he invites her to stay. She helps him remodel and a friendship forms.

This was a sloooow burn and I struggled with someone in their 40s being homeless after a break-up. Not that it isn't possible, but Jess seemed to have the support system in her friends to not he homeless. The relationship between Jess and Gethin seemed a bit forced and immature for people their age (although, I LOVE the premise of a romcom with an older couple).

Thanks, Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Dell for the ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book.
If you can get over the fact that a man finds a complete stranger has been living in his new house for a month and he lets this woman stay - even gives her keys to the house! - then it's a lovely story. I do enjoy the author's writing style. Except for those ellipses!! Good lord, they're in almost every paragraph. Again, getting around that, this is friends-to-lovers with an extremely slow burn and an ending that's wrapped up way too fast. Around 70% I felt like I was missing pages - there's a part of the story when Jess's best friend visits and the storyline is completely dropped. What happened with Noosh?? She was so funny, I wanted more of her. It was very odd. Both MCs are in their late 40s and their miscommunication is aggravating, right up to the very end.

OK, I've just re-read what I wrote so far, and it sounds like I didn't like this book at all. I did, but I think it's going to be one you either DNF almost immediately, or you push through and are glad you did. I probably kept going because I loved her debut book so much. This won't be my favorite of hers, but it won't stop me from reading her future ones either.

I think this suffered from my own high expectations after reading and loving The Bookshop of Second Chances earlier this month. This one feels like a bit of recycled plot from Fraser’s first with the added component that the main character is dealing with much darker trauma and has a complex about being irrevocably ruined and incapable of being loved. Her exact circumstances are not revealed until the end and the tension of it kept me worried about just what kind of book this was - was the Bad Ex going to come for her? Is the friend who’s coming on too strong going to cross a line? It’s another slow burn for the main love interests (although not as slow as Bookshop!) and a closed door romance. I also missed having the full cast of quirky characters as there was much less of that here. See - it’s that I LOVED Bookshop so much that I’m feeling so critical of Beginning. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.

Thank you netgalley and publishers for this copy in exchange for my honest review and opinion.

Jess has run away from her life and is living in a tent, until she breaks in to a recently sold house. When the owner shows up she runs off expecting her things to be thrown put, but comes back to a note wanting to meet her.

They start living together as the renovate the house and form a friendship. But will it turn into more?

I wasn't sure how to feel about this book at first. The thought of asking the person who was squatting in my home to live there with me was just too weird for me. I know strangers co habitat together all the time as roommates but usually one of them isn't a homeless squatter to begin with.

I appreciate that the story was set over a longer time span and that they didn't fall in love within a month. I found the dialog a bit annoying at times when it was presented as stammered and sentences/ thoughts not finished. I also found no chemistry between Jess and Gethin.

Overall I'll give it 3 🌟

I loved this very different love story. The characters were so interesting -- at first I was skeptical that a relationship like this one could work, but Jackie Fraser really does a great job at building a friendship first and a romance second. I believed that these two protagonists could form a close bond that turned to love. I highly recommend this book and will post about it on my social media close to it's pub date.

A bit slow moving but a nice story with older main characters. A book about starting over with serious issues - homelessness and abuse, but a nice story of friendship and more.

This was a sweet story! I loved the progression of Jess and Gethin's relationship. For Jess, it was learning to move past her trauma to be able to trust and love again. Geth had been in a dead end relationship that had not had love for a long time and he was learning to start over. They needed each other more than either realized. I enjoyed the storytelling and really liked the characters.

The Beginning of Everything

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I feel like I haven’t read a ton of books set in Wales, this might be my first!

Jess is first a homeless person running away from an abusive relationship. She stays in a vacant house and ends up renovating with the owner and renting after it’s completed!

I haven’t read a ton of older character romance, so that aspect was nice. This was definitely a slow burn, so if you’re into that you’ll enjoy it. I didn’t love how bad Jess was at communicating and this continued even until the last wrap up. Overall a cozy vibe as they became friends to lovers!

Thanks to @netgalley for this ARC!

Jess and Gethin are not teenagers when they meet and form a friendship. He arrives at his home to begin refurbishing it and discovers her trespassing and living I there. Jess is middle aged, homeless and coming off a bad relationship and Gethin is newly divorced and trying to start over. He invites Jess to stay on and help him redo his house. This is such a sweet story about two people helping each other and discovering that maybe it could be something else. Both are afraid and it is really charming watching this relationship evolve. I loved all the characters and this was a great book to read. It is a book full of hope and new beginnings. At no point did I want to stop. I am a fan of Jackie Fraser’s writing style and this is a great addition to my bookshelf. I look forward to reading more of her books.
I wish to thank NetGalley and Random House – Ballantine Books, Dell Publishers for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Title: The Beginning of Everything
Author: Jackie Fraser
Length: 336 pages
Format: ebook ARC
Pub Date: September 26, 2023
Genre: Contemporary Romance, ChickLit
Trigger Warnings: references of domestic abuse
Rating Out of 5: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Summary:
A captivating tale of fresh starts: Jess, fleeing a bad romance, stumbles upon an empty house. Gethin, recovering from his own love misadventures, offers her a renovation deal: help him fix up the place in exchange for room and board. Their shared journey through DIY and heart-to-heart talks sparks an unexpected connection. As sparks fly, Jess must decide if love's worth the risk after her rocky past.

Thoughts:
This book was so cute and cozy and even made me chuckle numerous times. I do think some people might find the plot a bit slow, but I personally loved it because of the entertaining dialogue. Jackie’s dialogue between characters is some of my favorite. I loved it in The Bookshop of Second Chances, and I loved it in this one as well! Another thing I love about Jackie’s books, including this one in particular, is that the main characters are middle-aged rather than the very popular mid-twenties. It’s a refreshing take in the genre. This friends-to-lovers romance gave me all the warm fuzzies. I love Gethin and Jess’s bonding over decorating and furnishing Sunnyside house together and all the quaint adventures they go on together.

Special thanks to Jackie Fraser, Random House Publishing and NetGalley for the book in exchange for my honest review!

I absolutely LOVED this book.

Once again, Jackie Fraser delivers a slow burn romance-ish novel that I could not put down.

A middle aged woman runs away from her old life and towards the possibility of a new one. Whatever she is leaving behind is terrible enough that she does not talk about it (or even want to think about it) to the point that it is not initially clear exactly what has happened.

This MF romance-of-sorts is free of most of the usual tropes as this woman struggles to accept a male friend into her life, let alone admit there may be some romantic feelings there. Our heroine, Jess, is a patchwork of seeming contradictions - brave yet terrified, attractive yet scarred, beginning her life after an ending. Her self-deprecating inner dialogue was painful to read but only because it is so relatable. This book delivers an honest account of a middle aged woman who is both victim and survivor. Essentially, I just wanted to root for her (and for the male MC) and I could not wait, at the end of each chapter, to see what would happen next.

I was a huge fan of The Bookshop of Second Chances, so I was over the moon to be able to read this ARC and it did not disappoint. I was hoping for another romance with a 40 something year old character but this was so much more.

Being a person with emotional baggage and trying to form relationships is is hard and awkward and that is portrayed realistically here. It was not a happy story, per se, but it was incredibly heartwarming. The characters are flawed and messy but in a subtle and relatable way.

I loved everything about this book. I completely recommend it for anyone looking for something that may build slowly but delivers a tender, lovely romance about a couple of semi-broken adults.

If you like a fast paced, spicy romance with a couple of hot, nubile MC’s, this probably is not for you.

I would like to thank Net Galley and Random House Publishing Group for the opportunity to review this ARC. I cannot say how grateful I am for this. This review copy was provided to me at no charge; my review of it is my voluntary offering and is my honest feedback.

Most of all, thank you to Jackie Fraser, for writing another wonderful book.