This book made me laugh so much! I loved the banter between Mabel and Alfie! Super cute rom com. I think it would be even better as an audiobook!

Thank you NetGalley for the advance copy for my honest review.

I need to stop thinking cute covers = only a tiny bit of spice. Don’t let the cover fool you there is definitely spice to read. The characters are relatable and I love the fact the main character is plus sized! But I’m not sure if I would really give it the sunshine and grumpy trope.

This book reads like fanfic in the absolute best possible way. Fans of Ted Lasso's Roy Kent will find Alfie to be an absolutely pitch-perfect avatar of him as he navigates falling in love with his ghostwriter. And Mabel is absolutely adorable - insecure in the most relatable way, while still being a fantastic writer and friend.

I love a good grumpy x sunshine trope, and I LOVE fake dating, and this delivered on both fronts. When Grumpy Met Sunshine has a simple enough premise - bubbly ghostwriter Mabel Willicker is hired for her toughest job yet - to help surly, taciturn ex-footballer Alfie Harding write his memoir. Over the course of their first few sessions, they discover they both have similar backgrounds, having been raised in poverty by alcoholic fathers.

Things take a turn when paparazzi snap photos of Mabel exiting Alfie's apartment. To cover up the fact that she's his ghostwriter, the publisher hatches a plan for the pair to have a fake relationship, only until the writing is done. As you can imagine, their fake feelings slowly turn into something more, and eventually their undeniable chemistry bubbles over.

This book is horny af and not a bit ashamed about it. It was a bit more spice than I usually read, but the beauty of this book is that the connection between Mabel and Alfie is so strong, you buy into the absolutely bonkers bedroom antics.

4 stars - a real delight to read. Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's for the ARC.

Mabel Willicker, ghostwriter, has been assigned to help footballer Alfie Harding write his story. But since Alfie is the grumpiest man to ever live, she doesn't think it will work out, especially after he calls her a cupcake (which she takes as a dig about her weight). He persists, though, saying that Mabel is the only one who can really get him to talk, and the more they work together, the more they begin to understand each other.

Unfortunately, when Mabel is spotted leaving Alfie's apartment, touching his hand, the paparazzi go wild, and their "relationship" goes viral -- especially after Alfie is caught brawling in defense of the lady's honor. So what else can they do but lean into it and fake their relationship?

After publishing a number of erotic romance novels through indie presses, Stein presents this as her first mainstream romance novel. And while it has the down-and-dirty steaminess of her other books, it somehow feels like a first book or an early draft instead of something more polished. The banter between them is almost ferociously aggressive, and it's written in such a way that feels unedited, with a serious lack of punctuation at times. And despite that, there was a distinct gap in communication all the way to the end.

The general plot of the book intrigued me -- sunshine has to help grump write a book -- but that part of the plot seemed to get dropped almost as soon as the fake dating started. I didn't enjoy some of Alfie's abrasiveness but I appreciated learning about the WHY behind it and seeing his sensitivity as well. Mabel should have been a relatable character, given her similar working-class background, but I really got tired of her getting down on herself about her size and her unworthiness to be with Alfie. I also found it really difficult to believe that a woman who had those feelings of unworthiness could suddenly have the confidence during sexual situations to talk really dirty with her partner.

And a nitpick: I couldn't understand why Mabel's agent was British but based in New York when the entire book took place in England. Why that jumped out at me, I don't know, but it took me a long time to get past that confusion.

Overall, I really wanted to like this much more, but dang, these two needed to work on themselves a little more. 2.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you, St Martin's Griffin and NetGalley, for providing an eARC of this book. Opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for giving me an ARC of this.

One of the things that I loved about this book was Alfie. I feel that too often a lot of the grumpy love interests are just major assholes that don’t always have such redeeming qualities but Alfie didn’t feel like that. He also had so much depth and warmth to him. While he was grumpy, he was still kind and thoughtful. This was something that I appreciated about him. He felt so well-rounded.

I could also really feel the tenderness and care that went into crafting this book. However, I felt some parts of it were under explored or glossed over. Maybe this is just me but I felt like there was too much banter? And perhaps that sounds wild to say! I love thoughtful and funny dialogue. More often than not the dialogue was this.

And lastly…that ending ruined things for me. It felt anti-climatic and it wasn’t even resolved in a regular chapter but the epilogue? God.

Anyways..tldr; loved Alfie and Mabel. Didn’t love the execution of the ending.

I definitely tried powering through this book. I got through about 120/300 of the pages, but the book didn't seem to click for me. Although the characters are very British (which is fine), the conversations seemed forced. This might benefit from a dual POV. The third person writing makes it hard to connect to the characters, and although they do have some heart to hearts so far (a conversation about the characters' fathers), it seems very superficial. The banter seems as if they're just stating facts at each other, rather than having a conversation that flows.

Really loved this book! As a plus size girlie I love to see big girls repped in books! The grump x sunshine is one of my top tropes as well so this book was a real chefs kiss for me!

This book sounded like it was right up my alley.
1.) grumpy ex sports star
2.) shy/awkward woman who must interact with him for with
3.) fake relationship
4.) slow burn
However, this book did not work for me. It had moments where the banter was great. Moments where I was fully engaged in this story.
Then it just kept going and going and instead of growth they just stay static for a long time.

I tried my best to navigate through this book without getting caught in another never-ending banter session. Grumpy-meets-sunshine, a trope I adore, comes to life in the main character, Alfie Harding, who resembles the hottest version of Roy Kent, complete with a golden heart but plagued by social ineptness and anger management issues. Mabel Willicker, the quick-witted and observant ghostwriter, also shines without any reservations.

However, the excessive and lengthy dialogues feel reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino's films, dragging on for what feels like ages. Unfortunately, they persist, causing frustration and hindering the enjoyment of the reading experience.

With repetitive dialogues and a lack of action or progress, I found myself rolling my eyes and, admittedly, skimming through some parts just to reach the conclusion.

Overall, this book holds great potential with its opposites-attract and workplace romance tropes. However, it would benefit greatly from rigorous editing to trim down the lengthy banter and inject more action to drive the plot forward. Consequently, I can only award it three stars, despite my best efforts.

Here's to hoping my next romance read will be more captivating and entertaining.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press/St. Martin's Griffin for providing me with a digital review copy, allowing me to share my honest thoughts on the book.

Big fan of Charlotte Stein and have been anticipating this book for a while! So thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martin's for the ARC.

This might be the horniest book of 2024, so all the stars for that. Where Stein excels, she really excels (intimacy--both emotional and physical), and when I imagined the hero speaking like Roy Kent, everything just worked.

But not quite sure this checks the romantic comedy box, and I found myself confused (often due to the interiority and how plot and character were presented) by certain basic things like setting, timeline, etc. So this was hard to get into, but once their relationship took off, I was hooked!

Alfie’s grumpy nature stems more from him being awkward and lacking the knowledge of social cues.

Mabel is fierce, seeing aside her “quiet” girl next door personality to be spunky and Pushing outside of hers and Alfies comfort zone

However as the book progressed, I did find that the rest of their personalities lacked anything other than their grumpy and sunshine personas. I really liked that heavier topics were touched on as well, but it aside from that, not much else to the characters. I enjoyed the banter and the chaos that seemed to ensue everytime they got together, but it felt off almost forced that made it more difficult to enjoy.

I really loved how the book was formatted with articles of Alfie, emails, and other little written information. It’s refreshing and provides outside perceptive without being multiple POVs which I thought was really cool.

Thank you so much for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Sweet and Swoony!

This book was nice but ultimately fell flat for me. The writing style felt frenetic and got in the way of the main relationship. It kept me from being engaged or even caring about them.

Kind of disappointing because I was so excited about the plot/blurb but it was still a decent read.

Thank you NetGalley & St Martin's Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review!

I read this because I was interested in what I expected to be some Roy Kent fan fiction. I am picky about romance books though and need more fleshed out characters and details of their past and deeper struggles (this was only surface level addressed in this book). These two characters felt very stereotypical and we’re told he’s grumpy, but there wasn’t a lot of evidence that this was so. The banter was awkward and the book is mostly the two characters alone (no friends/family/etc represented) lusting after each other, but not communicating their interest in a deeper relationship beyond that (though we’re later told she’s his “true love.”) It’s very open door for those who prefer not to read explicit sex scenes. I wanted more of their friendship blossoming while she writes his memoir, but instead it was mostly smutty thoughts and unnecessary angst. I prefer characters who have more than just sexual chemistry.

2.5 Stars I was really excited to get an ARC of this book because the cover is SO CUTE, but sadly, it just didn't do it for me. It's definitely a slow burn and takes a while for the attraction between the MCs to grow, so that made it kinda hard to get into. Also, it's only one POV and there's so much internal monologue from the FMC. I found myself skipping some pages because there was too much internal monologue between action or dialogue.

This was a cute, fun read. I always appreciate a book with a curvy main character and this was no different. The banter was wonderful and the steam was even better!

Ex-footballer Alfie Harding is talked into selling his memoirs, but he's certainly not happy about it. Meeting ghostwriter Mabel Willicker for the first time, he makes, shall we say, not the best first impression. But while they are out working, they are spotted and their business deal turns into a fake relationship in order to deal with the press.

3.5 ⭐ This slow burn is witty and hilarious. It took a little bit for me to get used to the oddball humor, but by the end, I couldn't stop laughing. Mabel is sweet, hilarious and adorable, and Alfie has so many more layers than you see on first impression!

I love the fake dating and the grumpy/sunshine tropes, and this one lived up to my expectations. It started off slow for me, but I'm glad I pushed through the first part and got used to the witty humor. Definitely recommend this if you enjoy these tropes and weirdo humor!

[Thanks to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!]

Mabel is a ghostwriter, and Alfie, a retired footballer, has hired her to help him with his memoir. They pretend to date, and fall in love.

I want more stories about fat women in their thirties, so I hesitate to give this one was 2 star review, but I agree with other reviewers that it seemed disjointed, and like it was missing something. The constant banter was just SO much and I couldn’t get past how juvenile so much of it felt. That being said, the story does have a happy ending, but I wouldn’t recommend it to others.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Let me start by saying that the grumpy character is named ALFIE. I gather that’s a common name across the pond, but the only Alfie I know and love is Alfie Bell from “Pansies.” And honestly at first I kept seeing *this* Alfie as *that* Alfie, but once I got past that I grew to appreciate the character. And then we have sunshiney Mabel, hired to ghostwrite Alfie’s memoir about his career in football.

I’m a fan of Charlotte Stein, and I thought her voice comes through quite clearly, even though this is unlike anything else I’ve read by her.

There are some difficult underlying topics (cw for alcoholism, parental abuse, fatphobia), but there are also many moments that made me laugh and swoon. It’s a very sweet story at heart (and a steamy one—Stein writes very sexy sex).

I appreciated how a number of gendered stereotypes are undermined in subtle ways (I loved Alfie’s horrified reaction when he discovers that Mabel doesn’t own a vacuum, his deep love for rom coms and how he helps Mabel style her hair). There’s also a lot here about connecting over a common upbringing, the perils of life in the spotlight and the ways toxic masculinity, gender expectations and unrealistic beauty standards screw everyone up. And I’m not sure anyone is better than Stein at telling a story where the love interests are mostly on their own with each other for the entire book.

A few things that didn’t work as well for me—I didn’t adore the ending, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. And this is the second book in a row I’ve read with news articles, emails, tweets etc. about the celebrity character interspersed between chapters and I just can’t get into it for some reason. It pulls me out of the story and I end up wanting to skip past it. But this must just be a me thing, because it seems pretty common.

Overall, Alfie and Mabel are a refreshing couple—and I think this book will appeal to readers who are familiar with Charlotte Stein as well as new ones.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the arc!

ARC REVIEW (thanks NETGALLEY!)

Omg I loved these 2 idiots so much!

Writing style took a bit for me to get used to and the first 20% I honestly didn’t know what was going on. I was so excited for this ARC I didnt bother reading the blurb which would have clued me in a little better.

Book kind of reminded me The Wall of Winnipeg and Me & Funny you Should Ask except very British. Book claimed to be opposites attract but to me, Alphie and Mabel were sooo much alike. Their conversations so were so bizarre and hysterical. Like why does Alphie have a fax machine worth 15k?

Spicy scenes were pretty hot even though we were edged for a good chunk of the book. When they proclaim their feelings for eachother at the end I was literally in tears they were both so stupid and so sweet. Wish there had been an intimate scene between them after they’re reunited where they could have both let their walls down.

So glad to see Ms. Stein back at what she does best!