Bittersweet moment to have finished this series, this one has been my favorite of the three. From the first moment Iris appeared on the page, I knew I wanted her story. And it came to me with fake dating, messy friend groups, Shakespeare, and wing-womaning; what more could I ask for? I loved meeting Stevie's friend group and was hoping for more interaction of them and Iris's friends, but alas. The chemistry, the anxiety discussions, the epilogue, loved it all! I have thoroughly enjoyed reading a series that is full of queer representation, from the first page to the last.

This is the last in a series of interconnected romances from Blake. She knows Iris well, loves her and wants the best for her. Iris is interesting. Stevie is a total cutie, but the author doesn't know what to do with her. I very much got the sense that Iris's struggles with her own writing were how the author was feeling with this one. When Iris gets feedback that the third act break up isn't well formed, yeah, yeah it's not. I wish the romance publishing cycle wasn't so aggressive, because this just needed a few more months to bake into something wonderous. As is, it's okay, but I definitely had to talk myself into finishing it.

I really liked the first two books in the “Bright Falls” series This book did not live up to the other two for me. It was alright, but a tad too spicy for me. 😜

I’m honestly not ready to say goodbye to this series. I feel like I loved each book more than the last, which seemed impossible.

Fake dating is one of my favourite tropes, and Blake pulled this one off masterfully.

Iris had been my favourite character of the friend group from the start, so I’m really glad we finally got her story. Seeing her softer side and being able to see inside her head and her heart was fantastic; as was Stevie. Her POV might actually be my favourite I’ve read from Blake. I’d honestly read 100 more books about these two.

I loved my time spent in Bright Falls. I’m going to miss it, but thankfully rereading exists and I can see myself doing that often over the years. It will feel like coming home.

I freaking loved this book! This whole series has been fantastic, but I absolutely adored Stevie and Iris's love story. I loved the theater elements and the way both Stevie and Iris had to grow into themselves in order to find happiness with each other. All that and this book was HOT. I loved every second of it!

Iris Kelly Doesn't Date is a great ending to the Bright Falls series. I loved the characters in the series and catching up with them in each new story. If you are a fan of the fake dating trope and theatre, this is the book for you!

This book follows Iris Kelly who as the title suggests "doesn't date" because of past bad relationships. That all changes when she meets Stevie Scott, who is dealing with her own past relationships issues. After a disastrous one-night stand, the 2 enter a fake relationship that each benefit from in their own ways. I loved how well these characters opened up with each other. There was still miscommunication, but each really tried to learn and grow. I definitely recommend this book to any romance readers.

Thank you Netgally, Berkley Romance and PRH audio for the free ALC in exchange for my honest review. Holy holy is this Ashley Blake's BEST book yet oh em geeeeee. I loved the characters, the steam the story the narration the whole dang thing perfection!!!!!! I need to preorder this book asap one of the best books I've read in a long time!!!!!!!!!!

“Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date” is the perfect conclusion to Ashley Herring Blake’s Bright Falls series. I really enjoyed that Ashley explored the softer side of Iris in this book while staying true to all the spunk and fire that makes Iris who she is and what we saw in the other 2 books. I adored Stevie so much. Her storyline regarding her experience with anxiety is handled so well and I loved seeing her blossom as the book went on. Iris and Stevie’s banter and chemistry were spectacular; you could really feel the fire between them. I loved that it was a dual POV rom-com. It was so great being able to read both Stevie and Iris’s thoughts and feelings about each other and it made it so easy to see why they fell for each other. The love, care, and respect Iris and Stevie had for each other was superb. Seeing the way they communicated with each other and learned to support each other was beautiful to read. I loved that we also were able to catch up with Delilah, Claire, Astrid and Jordan. Stevie’s friends are the worst. Not just Adri, her ex-girlfriend, who I think we’re supposed to kind of hate, but also Ren, who is supposed to be her closest friend in the group. The way they treated her and the things that they said and did were really not cool. Iris’s grand gesture at the end (no spoilers) was one of the best that I have ever read. It was just so perfect for who Iris and Stevie were as a couple. I do wish that we got a little more wrap up to Iris and Stevie’s story, but I did enjoy the epilogue. Thank you to Ashley Herring Blake, Netgalley and Berkley Romance for the ARC. I would highly recommend this and all three of these books to anyone who loves romance and LGBTQIA+ fiction. I’m so sad that the Bright Falls series has come to an end. These were some of my favorite Sapphic romance books. Maybe down the road we can revisit these great characters and awesome town. I can’t wait for Ashley’s next book, which she previews at the end of “Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date”!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ebook ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Ashley Herring Blake has done it again! If she writes it I will read it.
This novel has everything. One night stand gone wrong, fake dating, and neither feel like they should make their first move.
Having all of the original characters back once again is amazing! It shows the reader how in love these characters still are even though their story has ended.
Ashley Herring Blake knows how to write chemistry! You can feel the attraction they feel towards each other. A great mix of romance and found-family friendships. Loved.

AHB writes some killer romance books! I love the way she writes complex, multidimensional characters with realistic struggles and desires. I also love the queer and female friendships in these books. Iris and Stevie are a fun, frustrating, lovely couple you can’t help but root for.

One note: I noticed a pattern of side characters being explicitly described as POC and then never developed (or even referenced again). Even Vanessa, who is an important character and one of Stevie’s close friends, doesn’t get much development or dialogue beyond being the super hot Latinx girlfriend of Stevie’s ex. I appreciate the attention to including a diverse cast, but that should go beyond naming a character’s race/ethnicity/physical appearance. It felt a little checklist-y.

If you’re unfamiliar, the Bright Falls series features Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail, and is rounded out with Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date. Iris is the lone wolf of the friend group as she’s the only one uncoupled yet she’s down to be free as a bird.

All of that changes when she meets Stevie or Stefania. The two immediately have instant chemistry and are all set to get together until Stevie freaks out. We quickly find out that Stevie has an anxiety disorder and is reeling from a recent break-up and just needs some help which is great because so does Iris.

Iris needs some romantic help as she’s a romance writer while Stevie needs her friends to get off her back. The two end up fake-dating and it goes from there. Honestly, this book surprised me with all of the tropes it managed to pack in without feeling like it was going overboard.

It had fake dating, a romance writer heroine, a disastrous meet-cute, sex lessons, and lots of pining from both sides. Coupled with the adorable cover, Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date felt like such a refreshing story as it featured a more intense case of anxiety and gave us a look at the girl being the “player” which we rarely see.

Coupled with the adorable cover, Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date was a steamy and sweet sapphic romance. As with the previous books in the series, I do think the book could have been cut down a bit. It did feel a bit meandering at points yet that’s more of a me problem than the actual book. I’m honestly still shocked by how much I liked this and I’m happy to see this was a great ending to Ashley Herring Blake’s Bright Falls series.

This is probably my 2nd favorite out of the 3 Bright Falls installments that Ashley Herring Blake has written. They loosely form a series, but you could read them out of order or skip one if you want. The only "spoiler" would be that the couples from the previous books are together, which is to be assumed from the Romance genre anyway.

In book 3 we finally focus on Iris, who had been a side character I was interested in during the first two books. After going through some rough patches, Iris has fallen into a belief that she is done with dating/only good for hookups. On the other side of the equation, we have Stevie, who has only really had relationship experience in the form of a long-term relationship with someone that has also been a close friend. She is very anxious and through a series of shenanigans Iris and Stevie decide to fake-date for mutual benefit. They can both be frustrating when it comes to their thoughts and actions about the scenario - but hey, if they just communicated properly we wouldn't have a book to read would we?

The OG Delilah Green is still my favorite of the whole bunch (the book and the character herself) but I would easily recommend this to someone who has enjoyed the series so far and/or someone who is looking for a wlw fake-dating story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this title!

This was a really sweet conclusion to the Bright Falls series. All three of the books are hits for me and I really enjoyed getting to read them and get to know these characters!

I feel like I'd been waiting for Iris to get her story from the get go and this was very sweet and very tender. I personally really enjoy her type of character--the ones who are kind of closed off and have to be unraveled by their love interest. Her and Stevie were so cute to read and I really liked how gentle they were with each other.

Stevie's friends all made me so mad though, and I guess that was the point, but because of the way everyone treated her she read almost like she was a teenager sometimes? Occasionally I'd forget that she was also a full adult because of how everyone basically talked over her. The point was made I guess because I was MAD.

Overall, highly recommend. This was such a fun series!

True Rating: 4.5 stars.
Blake hit it out of the park with this series. I adored Iris's book, but it felt like there were some hiccups that didn't work as well for me, so let me quickly get that out of the way.
Stevie's friends are LITERALLY the WORST!! They were not very good friends honestly. The fact that her ex was part of that group didn't help at all. But they were a bigger downfall to this book than I wanted.
My other tiny gripe is that I needed another chapter or two at the end to flush out a tiny bit more. I just felt like our final couple needed a little more grounding at the end.
Other than those 2 small complaints, this book was GOLD!! Iris and Stevie had chemistry in all the right ways, and I adore a good fake dating trope. Getting Iris's perspective after her friends had found their people helped endear me to her a bit more, and I adored Stevie so much.
If Blake does another adult romance series, you bet your butt I am going to read it.

Iris Kelly was the perfect addition to our Bright Falls trilogy. I sorely missed these characters and had just enough of Delilah, Claire, Astrid, and Jordan in this story along with our new characters.

Iris is such a relatable and messy and beautifully formed, complex character. Her finding a new artistic outlet as an adult made me feel all kinds of happy things.

I also loved the anxiety representation in our love interest (sweet cinnamon roll Stevie), the different types of queer identity and love, and the exploration of communication and healthy relationships.

Thank you so much for the early access on netgalley! I was so grateful to dive headfirst in this story!

I love this series so much! This is an open door LGBTQIA+ romance with fake dating, GAD rep, and some deep themes of being enough and being the boss of your own story.
Iris Kelly is the third in a trio of BFF (the FMCs of the other 2 books). She’s creative, uninhibited, and done with relationships. Feeling like a disappointment, she just wants the acceptance to live life on her own terms. Instead, she is stuck trying to write her 2nd romance novel and feeling listless. After a pretty rough one-night stand attempt with adorably nervous Stevie, a fake dating scheme unfurls when they end up as the leads of a community theater’s queer reimagining of Much Ado About Nothing. Stevie is healing from the end of a 6 year relationship and trying to navigate her life with an anxiety d/o. She wants to save face with her ex and get more comfortable in sexual/dating scenarios. Iris wants to be inspired by going through the stages of a relationship to help her writing. As the lines of what is real and fake start to blur, can Iris and Stevie move through their own personal struggles to be good for one another?
What I love most about Ashley Herring Blake’s writing is her ability to craft characters encompassing the full spectrum of what it is to be human. They could lift right off the page! Iris and Stevie are great FMCs who make each other better. I loved reading about their journey, and OMG they were so romantic! Real swoony. And steamy. As always the secondary characters are AMAZING! The bff’s (and now their partners) are a great group who lead with love, history, and taking no BS. Stevie’s friend group also added an interesting dynamic. Plus, other than family members, I think every single character was LGBTQIA+ which was fab.
I highly recommend this book! And REALLY encourage you to read the other two in the series as well. I read them in order, however they stand alone/out of order.
Thanks to NetGalley for the free ARC! Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date comes out 10/24/23 so go ahead and add it to your pre order list!!

Continuing with the story of our favorite sapphic friends, Iris Kelly Doesn't Date tells the story of outgoing, anti-relationship Iris and anxiety-ridden actress Stevie. The two are the perfect pairing and their chemistry is absolutely stunning. Ashley Herring Blake has created such well-rounded and believable characters that you want them to be part of their friend circle. The story was nicely complimented by a moderate steam-level. And who doesn't love a fake dating trope! The perfect ending to this sapphic series.

4.5 out of 5 stars!

Rep: Bi MC, lesbian MC with anxiety, side characters of various sexualities, genders, and ethnicities

Content warnings: On-page sex, toxic friends and family members, lack of communication between partners, panic attacks, vomiting, getting drunk, past infidelity (not from a main character)

What a perfect way to wrap up this series! There's so, so much to love about this one -- the smut! The romance! The cameos from past characters! The representation throughout it! The anxiety rep in particular is extremely well done; Ashley Herring Blake clearly either has an anxiety disorder herself or worked closely with someone who does.
Despite her lack of communication toward the end, I adored Stevie. I saw so much of myself in her as a fellow anxiety-riddled sober lesbian. Actually, I'm not sure I could name another sober character from a romance novel, so this meant the world to me.
I'm in the minority on this, but I don't really care for Iris. On one hand I VERY much relate to not meeting family's expectations, feeling pressured to be in a relationship, and panicking that the dynamics of a friend group will change. I love how thoughtful she was when first getting to know Stevie and how she never treated her anxiety as an inconvenience, and of course her sweetness at the end. But on the other hand, she can be so incredibly whiny and selfish. She made Delilah and Claire's announcement about herself. Plus, people reminding her to have safe sex isn't slut-shaming (it's being responsible) and her friends noticing that her actions don't line up with her words isn't telling her what to do (it's being caring). The amount of self-sabotaging was through the roof and extremely difficult to read. Maybe it's just because I'm autistic, but I truly don't understand why characters don't say what they mean, possess even a little self-awareness, and go to therapy when they have the means to do so. I mean, I understand in terms of plot and tropes and all that, but I wish it was more common to write healthier characters, or at least not have third-act breakups.
However, these are just my own personal preferences and not any type of reflection about the writing itself. It was as glorious as ever! I am extremely excited for this to publish next month so I can swipe up the whole trilogy, which is easily my favorite sapphic series.

**HUGE thank you to Berkley for granting me an eARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!**

I really enjoyed the other books in this series, but I’m afraid this one has several of my least favorite romance tropes/characteristics:

* An anxiety-ridden main POV character. I’m all for representation of mental disorders in fiction (Stevie has diagnosed GAD), but can we please get some variety? It seems every other romance heroine has anxiety. And genre fiction is meant to be an escape. Stevie was so worried for so much of the novel that it was often hard to enjoy.

* A third-act break-up.

* Annoying secondary characters. In this one, Stevie’s manipulative ex and Iris’s entire asshole family.

* Much angst caused by the main characters seemingly willfully misunderstanding each other / not having a simple conversation.

I recognize that these are just my personal pet peeves, though.

The best part of the book was the scenes where Iris and Delilah, this series’ two snarkiest characters, sassed each other.

I have loved the Bright Falls series from the first chapter of Delilah Green Doesn't Care and though I am so sad the series is over, man oh man was this the perfect ending! Iris Kelly is struggling to write her second romance novel so seeks inspiration at a queer bar, where she meets Stevie. Their first night together goes rather terribly due to Stevie's anxiety and they never expect to see each other again. That is, until Iris shows up to audition for a role in a community play where Stevie just happens to be playing the lead and the director is Stevie's ex who thinks that Stevie and Iris are dating. What happens next is a fake dating, beautifully and messily queer love story that feels so real.

Fake dating is a trope that I've read quite a bit of this year, so I'm always excited when I find a unique twist on it - I can't quite put my finger on it but this book really made this trope feel different! Instead of just fake dating, you also get a "lessons" trope and it's pretty clear from the beginning that both Iris and Stevie have deeper feelings for each other.

Read this for:
- Fake Dating
- Lessons
- Small town
- Theater setting
- The BEST friend group
- So much Queerness
- Anxiety Rep

The "will they, won't they" of this may annoy some people but I honestly think it is really accurate to reality - Iris is terrified of love - so terrified that she makes decisions that she thinks will protect her but end up hurting her even more. Honestly I just love messy queers so much that I was eating this up! The anxiety rep that we see with Stevie is honestly top notch! It is so good and I loved seeing her stand up for herself at the end of the book.

I would also be remiss to review this book and not mention the SPICE. The spice in Ashley's books has always been great but this one I think is special - there are certain things that happen in one scene in particular that we don't often see in traditionally published romance and I was so excited to see it here!

Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley for the eARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Iris Kelly Doesn't Date publishes on October 24, and is not one to be missed! I can't wait to see what Ashley Herring Blake writes next!