This book gave me all of the emotions possible! Whenever I thought I knew what the characters were thinking, I was wrong. Mabel and Alfie were literally meant for one another and I am so happy with the ending. The ending definitely had me in tears. Their relationship from the start was adorable, and I loved the he falls first trope.

I have to admit that this was very slow to start. In the beginning I almost DNF it. It just felt like the author wanted to keep drilling in how grumpy the main male character was. But it was too much. Once you get past that though the story becomes absolutely hilarious! And steamy! It was a really great read. Thank you to netgalley for a free copy for review!

Give me ALL the romance tropes. I love every. single. one. And this book has multiple!! Sports romance, grumpy vs sunshine, fake relationship, I'm here for all of it.

When ex-football player Alfie Harding finally agrees to write a memoir, he realizes he needs help. Enter Mabel, the sunshine and sass to his grumpy and sarcastic. She's everything he isn't, and they're constantly at odds. But when their working relationship gets mistaken for love, what do they do? FAKE RELATIONSHIP. Duh.

I loved this book. It wasn't blow-me-away epic, but it was enjoyable and fun. I would recommend for sure!

Mabel Willicker is an author and ghostwriter and gets assigned to write the memoir of surly football player Alfie Harding. Alfie has a grumpy, monosyllabic, footballer reputation and Mabel is the complete opposite: a bright-color-wearing, happy person.

They do hit it off, bonding over shared childhood trauma and the gossip mill starts churning when fans spot the pair together. So, they go along with the rumors and fake-date.

I LOVED this book. Honestly, I never get tired of the cartoon character romance cover books. And it has my favorite tropes: grumpy/sunshine, fake dating, and one bed.

The banter was hilarious, I found myself laughing out loud in spots. I also thought the characters worked well together.

Thank you to NetGalley and Griffin for the ARC!

This was such a fun read! I love to see a plus size woman be adored! Great banter and spice! For fans of real or tv football.

This was an adorable romance with just the right amount of spice. I’m always gonna be obsessed with literally anything Ted Lasso related.

2.5 stars

Grumpy/Sunshine is one of my favorite romance tropes and I was left a bit disappointed by this.

Let's share the good - these two definitely fulfill the requirements for the title. She's the sunshiney ghost writer to his surly former footballer. These are characters in their 30s (yay for adults!) who are fake dating and falling for each other along the way, another trope I love. The banter between Alfie & Mabel was charming and kept you hooked at times. And we get some really excellent plus size representation to boot. It has all the bones for a great romance story.

However, with the good there's also some bad. While they are technically fake dating it was obvious to anyone with or without eyeballs that this man was down hard. Yet Mabel was your typical plus size female character who refuses to believe this gorgeous footballer could possibly like her and of course she was constantly comparing herself to the "skinny" models he's dated. There's nothing wrong with a skinny model. There's nothing wrong with a plus size heroine. What is frustrating is her insecurity about it, I wish she would've just believed what this man was saying to her. Mabel would also play her cards to close to her chest and not communicate anything to him. He would assume she found him "ugly and the worst thing ever" and she would just say "that's not what I said" and not communicate anything at all.

The ending was the nail in the coffin for me. While I'm not a fan of a third act breakup, like most romance readers, this one was a doozy. The grand gesture did not make up for an entire year of not speaking to each other.

Thank you to St Martin's Press, SMP Romance, and NetGalley for the arc!

She’s a cupcake and he’s a hairy ex footballer. She’s sunshine in human form and he’s a grump. Sounds like the perfect romcom in the making. Sadly this did not work for me. I found the writing to be too predictable and quippy. I found the focus to be too much in the differences in the characters rather than what made them great. The characters felt a little bit too much like caricatures than fully fleshed out people.

This book took me awhile to get into, but once I got halfway I was cruising! The narrator did a good job. Very clear and easy to understand. I didn’t like how the main character talked about herself sometimes, but I do understand people feel that way and/or go through that. Overall, it has solid bones and I would love to read her next book! Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read in exchange for a review!

I'm sad to report this was a DNF at 40%. The inner monologues was excessive and the plot was told, not explained. I'm so sad because based on the description, this book is right up my alley.

This book was great, it felt fresh and not like anything else I've read lately. It kept me intrigued all the way through, I didn't want to put it down.

This book was PERFECT. It had everything you could want from a fluffy yet surprisingly steamy rom com.

From the title, I had high expectations for the grumpy sunshine trope--and it was so well executed.

I though this book was funny and swoon worthy and everything I wanted. As a Ted Lasso fan, this book had me living my readerxRoy Kent fantasy.

I loved Mabel. Plus size rep is so important to me and Mabel didn't disappoint. She was funny and bubbly, absolutely adorable, and I loved being able to see myself in her character.

I think the plot line moved well and I was completely sucked in for the first 60ish% of the book. It felt a little slow near the end, like I was sort of waiting for things to keep moving, but the end left me satisfied and grinning from ear-to-ear. Great book!

The way I wanted to love this book. I love the grumpy sunshine trope and I love romance books with fat MC's. It should have been perfect. Unfortunately I feel like either half of this book wasn't written or half of it was edited out because so much is missing. And it's not like a specific chunk is missing it's like they went in every 5% and took out 15 pages. It's a consistent issue throughout the entire book where you feel like you're missing something.

So essentially we have this ghostwriter who is hired to go straight this book of this famous athlete who is known for being grumpy as hell. And then all of a sudden they're kind of friends and then they're mutually horny but also so mutually unaware that it's exhausting to continue listening to. Like neither one of them thinks that the other one would possibly be attracted to them and that gets old very quick. Maybe if it had started with that and they figured it out sooner than it would be okay but the fact that it goes to the very end of the book drove me nuts.

then we have the fact that there's way too much sex in this book. I like sex and books just as much of the next person but it feels like it took the place of actual conversations about them getting closer and bonding and for me personally, sexual intimacy does not replace emotional intimacy and if you're going to try and have both you really need to have both but emotional intimacy is so much more important for me and I wanted to see that more than I wanted to see the sex scenes.


SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
Don't even get me fucking started on the ending of this goddamn book. You're telling me they go a full freaking fracking year without talking and then she somehow skims an entire book and a release party and realizes that he wrote the book for her and declared his love? I just don't buy it. The idea is cute. The premise is nice. It would have been much more successful had they had their little sodact break up which I'm not a fan of anyway, and then she went back to the agency and they're like oh yeah everything's great and she said okay well let me just run through it one more time or they sent her the final copy or something where she had time to read the whole thing through process it and then go declare her own feelings within a timely manner. It didn't make sense for me to have them have an entire year apart and then for her to somehow be able to read the entire book in just 10 minutes and then be surprised? I don't know. Again, the idea is cute The execution was very flawed.

Overall this is probably like a 2 to 3 star for me because there's nothing really problematic in it I just didn't like it. It usually save my one and two star ratings for like openly problematic books So maybe let's go with a solid two and a half.

I really enjoyed the romance in this book. They had such amazing chemistry and I felt like the growth in their relationship felt natural and real which is so rare for romance books. I loved the fat FMC representation. I would love to have a physical copy of this on my shelf to read again and again,.

When Grumpy Met Sunshine tells the story of a grumpy, ex-football (soccer) player and a bright/cheery ghost-writer, Mabel. Mabel is working with Alfie to write his memoir and in the process they fall in love.

I overall could not get into this story, I was not convinced about the relationship the entire time and their conversations felt very surface level. They talk about traumatic things they went through, but I don't feel like they get to the heart of the issues - they just glance over them in conversation. This was also TOO slow of a slow burn for me. We were 83% of the way through and I was still waiting for them to admit their feelings for each other.

My biggest issue with the book was a lot of the moments just felt unbelievable and cringey. I really wanted to like this book but just couldn't.

2.75 ⭐️

This book had a lot of potential, but it fizzled out halfway through.

The plot gets completely lost as soon as the main characters start getting together.

This sounds perfect for those readers that love grumpy / sunshine dynamics to their romance books and quirky characters!

This was such lovely book about a grumpy famous soccer player and a sunshine ghostwriter who’ s hired to write his memoir. They banter back and forth and she pushes him to the brink and soon a fake dating plan ensues.

This was such a cute romance book! I loved the banter between Alfie and Mabel because it was hilarious and so random at times. I also thought the idea of a romance between a ghostwriter and her client was so cute because it gave them a way to become familiar and comfortable with each other. I will say that the book is slow burn and fast burn at the same time because while I feel like they were attracted to each other from the start, they also didn’t figure that out for most of the book. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would probably rate it a 4.25 if I could.

✨ PRINCEMAN REVIEW ✨

📝 Alfie is forced to write memoirs about himself and his soccer career. Unfortunately, this grumpy ex-player doesn't want to write them. Enter Mabel, his ghost writer. These two are opposites in every way, but their passionate arguments leads to sparks flying. After being mistaken for a couple, these two pretend to be the real deal.

What I 🤍:
⚽️ Sports Romance (Retired Player)
🍑 Curvy FMC
💕 Fake Dating
☀️ Grumpy x Sunshine
🛋️ Close Proximity

I think the premise of this story is spot on. But, it fell a but flat for me. While I loved the idea of these two dating, I was disappointed in how the FMC had such low self-esteem. Like, GIRL.....before you can ever love someone else, you NEED TO LOVE YOURSELF. Additionally, the spicy scenes gave me a bit of the ick. (the dirty talk).

Overall it was a miss for me, but perfect for anyone who loves opposites attract and fake dating with SPICY scenes.