📖 ARC REVIEW 📖

Thank you @prhinternational for an early copy of The Catch by Amy Lea. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. 🤍

Rating: ⭐/5
Release date: February 13th, 2024

Blurb: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/154488304-the-catch?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=4vopBMPtph&rank=1

🛑Read on with caution; review may contain spoilers🛑

The Catch is the third book in the Influencer Series, and the characters just got worse for every book. This book tells the story of fashion influencer Mel, Crystal and Tara’s friend, and lobster fisherman and bed-and-breakfast owner Evan. They had a rocky introduction, with Evan instantly showing his dislike of Mel despite them being strangers. How immature is that? Total red flag. He keeps his demeanor over Mel regardless of how she’s helping him and his family reconcile by pretending to be fake engaged to him. Circling back, Evan’s family’s issues just don’t sit well with me. For a family consisting of adults, their non-sensical and non-stop bickering is just overly immature, and I really don’t get how Mel pretending to be engaged to Evan (they have zero chemistry, by the way) would help the entire family reconcile.

If you know what’s good for your mental health, I suggest steering away from this book. Evan and Mel’s dislike for each other, his family’s bickering plus Mel’s neighbor/stalker is just too stressful for me and not good for my mental health. I’d prefer a romance novel without too much drama and red flags, please.

The entire series, overall, isn’t for me to be honest. While I enjoyed some scenes from the first novel, Set on You, Amy Lea’s characters are just one-dimensional and come off as immature for their age for the entire duration of their respective books in the series. The couples start off as either enemies or rivals or nonchalant to each other. I don’t think I’ll pick up any of her books anytime soon for the sake of my sanity.

This book was absolutely adorable!!

I loved the small town vibes, the grumpy x sunshine trope, and the use of the fake relationship trope. IMO, this book did everything right, and although it wasn't my favorite romance ever, I thoroughly enjoyed all of my reading experience.

My favorite part of this book was the sneaky found family story hidden within! I loved watching Mel get to know Evan's family and become one of them. It was so heartwarming and made me smile until my face hurt.

This was my first of Amy Lea's books and I can't wait to go back and read the rest of this series!

When an accident leaves Evan unconscious, Melanie is drawn into a family tangle as she is mistaken for his fiancée by Evan’s quirky family. In exchange for Evan’s help with her social media content, Mel agrees to pretend to be engaged for a week, triggering a series of comedic and emotional situations.

As Mel and Evan spend time together, they explore feelings that go beyond the facade of their urban lives. The tension between the perfect city life and the possibility of genuine love in nature becomes the heart of the story as both characters face decisions that could change the course of their lives.

With a mix of romance, humor, and heartfelt moments, “The Catch” invites readers to immerse themselves in an unexpected and authentic love story that challenges expectations and celebrates the beauty of genuineness.

Thanks for the free book PRH International

this one gave me tessa bailey "it happened one summer vibes" in a way, with an influencer going on a trip to canada and finding herself stranded due to the busyness of fishing season, ending up at an inn that is closed and OF COURSE is run by a very hot man and his cousin who let her stay. i mean, I'm sure you have NO CLUE how it all plays out...

i didn't realize it was book #3 in the influencer series, but it was fine as a standalone (just nods to her bffs who were the first two books' FMCs). i thought the grumpiness of the grumpy MMC was a bit overdone and took too long to have context for, and their "issues" seemed forced for the sake of a trope.

overall, though, once the family got involved and a fake engagement was in the mix, things got more tender, but still didn't seem believable the way i've seen the trope done in other romances, so it wasn't a fave for me overall.

it was good but not great!

DNF @ 10%

I loved the first two books in this series, but this one was not for me, unfortunately.

For one, everyone was way too calm about the issue with her showing up for her influencer gig for the wrong week. How did that happen? Who booked the ticket? If she is really on her last leg as an influencer and this is her *last hope* with relevancy…wouldn’t she be more careful? I hate when influencers or people in fashion are depicted as being ditzy. I watched Legally Blonde 300 times when I was a teenager and I just can’t believe that someone wouldn’t take their business more seriously. Everything snowballed for me from that moment and I just couldn’t find my love for the book again.

If you like your romcoms over the top, filled with catastrophes and everything going wrong, I think this one could absolutely be for you. I need my main character to have a little more fun or I just find myself feeling bad for them.

I enjoy a fake dating trope but I LOVE a fake engagement with a super involved family. Melanie is an influencer trying to revive her social media by going to a Canadian Resort. However, when the resort gets the reservation wrong, Mel finds her own accommodations in an old AirBnB. Evan is a grumpy fisherman whose family owns the BnB. He falls unconscious from an outing with Mel, and in order to follow him into the hospital, Mel says she’s engaged to Evan.

FAKE ENGAGEMENT YES PLEASE I loved this.! While You Were Sleeping meets The Porposal. So fun and so swoony.

I really enjoyed this book. I love the coastal vibes, the grumpy character, and the tropes. I thought this was an even stronger character development than Amy's other books, which were also great, I just mean that she is continuing to cultivate her craft and it's showing! I really love this author and her writing!

Thank you to Amy Lea, Netgalley and PRHAudio for the ebook and ALC!

Listen, anything Amy writes is delightful.

I really enjoyed the location of this book! Love a coastal town! Add in a grumpy hero and a bit of a fake dating trope? Yes.

I love this series!

🌶️🌶️


I really liked this one. It didn’t have me completely hooked, so it took me a while to listen to. In theory, it has everything that love so I’m not quite sure why I didn’t want to devour this as quickly as possible. The spice was nice, but I didn’t get a ton of chemistry between the two for a while. It was still a really good read though, full of laughs, cries, fighting and love.

❤️ Tropes ❤️
💋 Enemies to lovers
💋 forced proximity
💋 fake engagement

Mel is an influencer who needs her career to be revitalized. Her followers are down and her parters are replacing her with new young influencers. When she gets a chance to have a week stay at a top notch resort in Nova Scotia, she jumps on it. But there was a mix up with the dates and she is there a week early. In fishing season. The only place that has an availability is an out of the way place in a small town that looks like it might be haunted and came with a growling lumberjack. Wonderful.

Amy Lea does it again! This time with a really grumpy and reluctant hero and a fiercely independent and closed off heroine, falling for each other when they least expect to along the gorgeous coast of Nova Scotia.

Take equal parts of While You Were Sleeping and The Proposal and mix in quite a bit of Deadliest Catch fisherman vibes and curated influencer vibes and you have this story! An “engagement of convince” leads to a whirlwind of romantic feelings and confusion, posing the question, do we really risk it all for a shot at love?

I loved these characters and the small coastal town setting. It was so fun to have a large group of secondary characters that become a found family for our heroine who is facing a lot of upheaval in her carefully crafted life. The banter and barbs were delicious and the spice was PERFECTION!

I absolutely will be thinking of this romance for a long time!

This might be my fav Amy Lea! I love her series but this one felt a little more addictive than her other two. Maybe because there was that element of "getting away" that I enjoyed. I liked the fake engagement trope and seeing Mel and Evan's relationship blossom. He's definitely that grump that flips his heart around. I think the only thing it lacked was depth -- there was a lot of surface skimming and I wanted a little more emotion packed in!

This is book three of The Influencer series.  Mel is the kind of influencer who portrays a picture perfect lifestyle complete with all the hair, makeup and the expensive clothes.  But the book also highlighted how she was constantly chasing the next new viral thing just to stay relevant, which actually led to a really lonely life.  

I went into this book not expecting much because influencers themed books tend to fall flat for me but I ended up really liking this.  Mel’s back story explains why she’s so motivated to keep that lifestyle and you feel for her.  It’s a grumpy/sunshine fake dating trope, not tropes I’m a fan of but it worked with this book.  I adore Mel and Evan together!  They’re very different people but I loved how they embraced it and found compromise in their relationship instead of giving up their entire life for the other.

I’ve heard everyone say that this is the movie proposal vibes and that exactly what this felt like to me it was sweet and another win for Amy Lea!

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted e-copy.

Amy Lea has quickly become one of my favorite authors over the last few years and I LOVE her influencer series! I'm sad this is the last book in the series, but absolutely looking forward to what Amy writes next!

The Catch follows Melanie, a lifestyle influencer from Boston that is headed up to to Canada for a week at a resort. The resort screws up her reservation but Melanie really needs this for her brand and feed (she's struggling), so she decides to stay at a B&B she finds online until she can figure something else out. There she meets Evan, a burly plaid wearing fisherman who is also running the B&B - and he makes it clear she is not welcome. He ends up in the hospital after an accident (that may or may not be Mel's fault) and a whole fake fiancé situation ensues.

I absolutely loved Evan's family, especially Nana - she's hilarious! The fake dating/engagement is always a favorite trope, and add in opposites attract and grumpy/sunshine, plus found family, and it makes for an excellent rom com!

A fun "city girl in the country" romance that delivers lots of steam while also carefully dealing with serious issues like grief, mental health, and abandonment issues.

Love Amy Lea! This story follows Melanie, a Boston fashion influencer and Evan, a rural Canadian lobster fisherman as they embark on a fake engagement to save Evan's family's inn. Melanie happens on the Whaler inn after she goes to a spa she has a collaboration deal with a week early and needs emergency lodging. Evan is very grumpy when she arrives and tries to tell her that the inn isn't open, but she insists and between her demanding and Evan's cousin's encouraging, they allow her a room. Later, after an accident leaves Evan unconscious and, Mel claims to be his fiancee to gain access to his hotel room, only to have the entire extended family show up and believe her ruse to be true. But when the lie starts to bring old grudges to a close, Mel and Evan decide to keep it going a little longer.

Things I liked: the setting was really fun, Evan's family was a delight, the ode to "While You Were Sleeping," the representation of a character who has a hard time opening up to her friends.

Things I didn't like: I felt like Mel's brother's storyline was a little tacked on.

Big thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Oh my gosh, this was SO fun! I couldn’t stop laughing.

I don’t normally love grumpy x sunshine, but I was willing to give The Catch a try since it also features fake dating. I kind of expected to not like Evan, but oh my goodness I loved him from the start. Even though he was gruff and short with Mel, he was never mean to her. And from the start he watched out for her and took care of her (a man that relocates spiders and warns off weirdos at the bar? Yes puh-lease!). Evan was really a sweetheart.

I didn’t expect much of Mel since she’s a struggling influencer, but I actually adored her too! She felt real. She just loves her family and seeing the world.

Overall I really enjoyed The Catch! The characters were sweet and quirky, and I’m such a sucker for a woodsy setting.

Enemies to lovers, fake dating, small town rom-com. Quick, easy read. I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would. I have read all of Amy Lea’s influencer series. I think this one may have been my favorite so far.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an early copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Book 3 in Influencer series

⭐️ 4.5
🌶️ 3

If you love:

🦞 Pretend Fiancée
🦞 Small Town Romance
🦞 Enemies to Lovers
🦞 Opposites Attract
🦞 Grumpy/Sunshine

I absolutely loved this story! It touches on how we look at relationships through social media and how small businesses can really make a voice for themselves on social media.

Evan and Mel hooked me the minute they had their first meeting! Evan is the grumpy and Mel is sunshine and it was so easy to love both these characters. It really reminded me of the proposal and when you were sleeping movies. I couldn’t help but feel the love that Evan was slowly feeling and that Mel tried to keep away from what she didn’t think she could have. Definitely recommend this book for a good romcom!

This book has all the tropes I enjoy: enemies to lovers, fake dating, and grumpy/sunshine all in a small town setting. The banter between Melanie and Evan was perfect: and I enjoyed all the secondary characters. Overall this was a cute romcom and I would recommend it