🫶🏽What worked for me
There are parts of this book that are hilarious! I would get the audiobook just to listen to a performance of the scene where Nora and Yanne first meet Bear and Moxie😂 The description of Brandon as a Steve Erkle who goes to the gym 💀 Bear and Nora have amazing chemistry! The steamy scenes were FIRE, like DAMN Nikki can write some spice! I do love how Nora took her experience and owned it in a way that could bring other victims together to heal.

🤷🏻‍♀️What didn’t work for me
Full disclosure, I haven't read Sense and Sensibility, so I'm not sure if certain aspects that don't work for me are related to the fact that this is a retelling.

I thought the beginning of the book was too dialogue heavy without enough description of what was happening in the physical surroundings, as well as Nora's thought process. It made the first few chapters feel rushed. By mid-book this was no longer a problem, but then the transitions/scenes didn't seem smooth to me. Like when Nora first meets Brandon, he shows up at her house holding a cup of coffee. She takes the coffee and burns her tongue while trying to arch her back and look sexy--I thought this was so funny but also, neither one of them had said anything yet until after she burned her tongue. It seems very odd and unnatural to just take a coffee from a total stranger that shows up at. your door before even saying, "hi." Scenes in the hospital also had the rough transitions. One minute we went from Nora swallowing back a sob to Bear asking her what she's reading and I don't know where this book suddenly came from, or if they're in the car or in the hospital as the scene is taking place. *I think a few sentences later it became more clear that they were in the car, but it just wasn't smooth as I read it*

I was really confused on how to feel about Bear because his personality was so contradicting and his situation with Lu was so weird. On the one hand, he is portrayed as the shy guy who stutters and is killing himself to take care of others. On the other hand, he's a cocky guy who kisses his biceps and has sex with Lu outside the first time they met. Overall, Bear told so many lies of omission that he was hard to root for. I didn't understand all the gratitude to Lu for initially agreeing to marry him, when she was only doing it for the money. Even though what happened to Lu was really messed up, it was frustrating that she seemed to do NOTHING to help herself out. Maybe she was unable relating to the disability claim she was trying to make, but whatever disability she had wasn't clear to me so I got the impression that she was bitter, lazy and overly dependent.

Yanne's free spirit personality was fun and amusing at first, but then it just got frustrating with the way she blowing money and leaving all the work for Nora to do. Overall, I ended up being so frustrated with the characters that it became hard to enjoy reading this book.

I love and appreciate how much work and thoughtfulness Nikki puts into her books. I love her love for Austen. Her retellings are smart and fun and refreshing. But this one didn't work for me. I appreciate the chance to support her and I will continue to do so!

Thank you too NetGalley and Berkeley publishing for my digital ARC. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I loved reading a different plot line compared to some other recent romances that are being published. I loved how it was a race against the clock type of layout. I really enjoyed how they mixed in diverse characters as well still having their native backgrounds as part of the plot. Some financial topics and house lingo threw me off a little bit, but not enough to change my rating on this book. Overall, I really liked it and I will be recommending it for others to read, especially if they want a diverse character cast.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for providing me with an E-Arc in exchange for my honest thoughts <3

I fell in love, first, with Nora's audacity (she strips at her dad's funeral to prove a point folks)! Nikki Payne's character work is phenomenal. Whether we're talking about Nora and Bear or any of the side characters, they felt complete to me. I was living in the story with them.

I couldn't put this down!! I was reading during every single free (and some not so free) second I had. Nora and Bears messy journey to love was as intense as it was beautiful. There were so many outside factors that should have kept them from each other, but they couldn't help it. I wholeheartedly believe they are soulmates. They would find their way to each other in any time.

Y'all this was slow burn but in the very best way. You could cut the tension between them with a knife. Oh yeah... and only one tent!?!? Bear is my new favorite book boyfriend. Like, sir, do you realize the feelings that you've made me have? I love love loved this so much <3

Nikki Payne is easily an auto-buy author for me! She writes fierce, passionate, and fun heroines that you root for! I had just as much fun with this retelling as Pride & Protest. I can’t wait to see what NP writes next!

I'll just start by saying it was smart, witty, funny, diverse, tender, sophisticated, and modern/current. And don't forget steamy!

So upon their father's death, Nora and her sister, Yanne, are forced out of their family home and their inheritance is a dilapidated inn at Barton Cove, Maine. They meet Bear (he's the good guy) and his cousins who agree to help them renovate. The bad guy is Jon who runs neighboring Willow Bee Inn (that made me laugh).

I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the book but my absolute favorite were the Space Jam quotes and quizzes!

And now I have to read "Pride and Protest" since I'm hooked and I'm now a @nikkipaynebooks fan!

Easily the best romance book of this year.

Wow. Nikki Payne is so electric and magical. This book is romance perfection.
I could not put it down.

I ate up the two FMC's chemistry with a spoon and lapped it up with the bread. Because these two are the most powerful magnets I have read in such a long time.
The writing is exquisite. The supporting characters so vivid.
I am in love with this book.

"I want forever with you, starting today. This is the beginning of the rest of our life together. I want to marry you."

Nora is a great character with realistic issues that many women share.
Bear is a man of substance. A man full of dreams. A man dedicated to doing what is right.
Despite the chaos of the story, Nora and Bear's romance develops beautifully over the course of the story and you understand how these two stalwarts of their individual families find strength in each other.
The book is such an interesting spin on a classic story and it delves into important topics like reputation, identity, and responsibility. I definitely can’t wait to read more by this author.

Where to begin with this amazingness! I could not put this down. This spins premises and plot setups that I normally feel lukewarm about with masterful writing leaving me hooked. Sisters are tasked with renovating a broken down inn in a small town in Maine in a spiteful fools errand from an inheritance. If they don’t make a certain level of profit they’ll go bankrupt and the token villain of the story wins. This gets further complicated by small town politics and gossip when local business owner/tour guide Bear gets involved.

Like I said this is masterful. Renovation premise is a microtrope that can fall trap to too literal of details but not this story. This remains character driven and the reno is a backdrop. The writing and dialogue is genuinely funny, no cheesy rom com shenanigans here.

Nora has some heaviness from her past that affects romantic partnerships so it makes so much sense at how this unfolds as friends to lovers. Bear respects her boundaries and privacy and I just love when I love a slow burn. You can tell when an author is also a fan of romance when it unfolds in a way that isn’t just one thing, it isn’t just sexual tension or banter, etc it’s a mix of all the components of a healthy relationship that really shows a variety of expressions of intimacy. By the end you NEED them to be together because you can’t imagine it any other way.

This brings me to the drama. I love when a Jane Austen retelling brings the drama!! The stakes feel so high. You can feel the echoes of a historical romance at times throughout this in really fun ways. It makes this feel so true to the source inspiration to me. But at the same time you absolutely do not need to be familiar with Sense and Sensibility to enjoy this. I love the new topics we can examine in a contemporary context and the narrative changes possible because of that. This brings the question of what a hero and a victim looks like and how it can be based on who is telling the story. Bear and Nora’s personal growths are definitely different but converge on that overarching topic. I loved the healing they both needed to do. Acceptance was also a huge topic.

The side characters are also nuanced and I loved all the subplots, again reminiscent of Austen. Nikki always writes real people and I find it so impressive.

I enjoyed the Nikki’s debut Pride & Protest and I would recommend it but with a follow up like this one I feel like Nikki is really solidifying her place in auto-read authors for me and honing in on her craft. Thank you to Berkley for this eARC, this book was incredible.

I LOVED THIS STORY.
Nikki has a way of bringing real people with real problems to life and making it so easy to understand the classics by relating it to her audience.

I am so obsessed with Nora and Bear. They have my entire heart. It was so refreshing to see flawed characters work together to be better versions of themselves.

I was instantly drawn in watching Nora and Bear’s backstory unfold. They have great chemistry amidst a story about reputation and identity. Lots of humor, spice, and fantastic characterization. The S&S character names and tie-ins were *chef’s kiss* but you don’t need to know Austen to love story. Although when Yanne writes a poem to Bear mentioning dead leaves, I hope you’re the person who smiled to themself. And Brandon is definitely a robot accountant, but we love him.

I have mixed feelings about this book.

I am always happy to see a romance inspired by an Austen work so when I saw this was Sense & Sensibility modern spin I was super intrigued.

I liked the issues touched upon, especially in regard to family problems. As this was a big part of the original story, I did like that the author included and expanded upon it here. I also enjoyed the side characters. They added to the story and for the most part were likable.

My main issues were the main characters and the time jumps/inconsistencies. I found the two main characters left a lot to be desired. Bear as a romantic lead wasn't likable. He constantly gave mixed signals to Nora which after the first few times became frustrating to read. For me, this made the romance here just okay. They had some great moments, but they were too far apart. I did enjoy the steamy scene at the end and thought they had good chemistry. I think the romance was built up a lot and when it finally happens the reader doesn't get a lot of time to enjoy it.
The time jumps were jarring at times and would make me confused. It also seemed like a good amount of them were unnecessary.

I liked that this is inclusive by adding BIPOC characters and their experiences but felt the story itself needed to be revised more.

I was looking for a love-soaked read from the reviews that I scrolled through before diving in, but what I found was a woman’s fiction with a lot of romance build-up.

The author created main characters who are as different as can be but are strong and balanced. Nora is a warrior, tough and independent. Capable of so much and falling for Bear.

Bear is a pillar of the community; stubborn, not perfect, and completely head over for Nora. Together they make a great team, but the issues that divide them are huge.

While the main plot of the story was captivating, I had issues with some of the plot. There are jumps in the story that confused me. One minute they are meeting and then, in a few pages, they are going into business together. It took me a long time to figure out what Bear even did. I must be dense, but the was it was described was not clear to me.

Also issues with the entire renovation that was occurring along with the love story. While it was the main reason Nora and her sister were there, it was not the focus of the story. Time jumps were a killer.

Nora’s sister was such an issue. While she was fun and added great energy to the story, she was flakey and selfish. Other supporting characters were strong and helped round out the entire book, although there is one I could not stand!

Overall, Sex, Lies and Sensibility offered interesting characters and a strong insight to family problems, untold secrets, and love. I did not care for Bear’s character that much by about 3/4 of the way through. And Nora has some serious weak spots too.

The ending was super rushed with the overarching problem solved within a few pages, out of the blue. The story has some wonderful, sexy romance, but most of it builds up to one steamy scene at the end.

Nikki Payne has really done something wonderful with both of her Austen re-tellings. They're fresh, fun, modern, hilarious and extremely loyal to the original material without feeling ham-fisted.

Sex, Lies and Sensibility follows Nora, a wealthy socialite who finds out at her father's funeral that a) her family was just one of his families b) she is dead broke c) she has inherited a dilapidated inn in Maine, which could save her from ruin. On a desperate whim, she agrees to take on the challenge of the inn. In Maine she quickly comes across Ennis "Bear" Freeman, an Abenaki native to the area who is trying to keep his family afloat while a power company tries to take over native land.

One of the most wonderful things about this book is how faithful it is to the original but also how high drama Payne manages to keep it WITHOUT careening into absurdity. Her writing overall is so wonderfully engaging that I kept rereading sentences just to appreciate them fully. And Payne writes spicy scenes in a really incredible way where they're not so explicit but incredibly immersive in the emotion.

Despite the chaos of the story, Nora and Bear's romance develops beautifully over the course of the story and you understand how these two stalwarts of their individual families find strength in each other.

I can't wait for more of Payne's books!

I received an eARC as a member of the Berkley Influencer Program, and chose to voluntarily review and rate it.

I always think Jane Austen retellings are always a huge feat so I applaud Nikki for this one! Bear was such an interestingly complex MMC and I LOVED the chemistry between him and Nora. I loved the through line between both of the characters fear of repeating their past mistakes but overcoming that fear to welcome love. I’m not usually a side characters person but Nikki wrote them so well. Loved Yanne!

Thank you to Berkley and Netgally for a copy of this book to read and review- all opinions are my own!

Here's what is bound to happen when you read Sex, Lies and Sensibility:

1. Go on a deep, heavily layered journey of the crippling inner turmoil and high stakes drama that has you turning the pages so fast you may as well wear gloves so as to not get a paper cut and cancel all plans so as to find out how this could possibly all be resolved!

2. Root for Nora finding her way in which she takes back ownership on something that has been gnawing at her innards for 7 years, and getting to the point in which she can let in the good, expel the bad, and live her life how she wants to- nothing in the back of her mind to sully the good things that have now happened through this journey of personal growth.

3. Absolutely scream/cry/throw up at literally anything Ennis Bear Freeman does because that is a man that smells like cinnamon, leather, and roses, is the epitome of if he wanted to, he would, and he /fucks/. I am crazed.

TL;DR: Read this book right now what are you waiting for go right now what the heck do it now!!!!!!!!!!!!

W o w. I am blown away again by the hand of Nikki Payne! I absolutely loved Pride and Protest, and just was so unbearably excited to get to read this story early. My expectations were absolutely blown out of the water. There is something about Payne's writing style that I really cling to- there is a certain cadence to it that is so addictive- and while the themes in this story are at time so heavy and just giving me a lump in my throat from the emotions they are making me feel, she had me gasping and laughing and my jaw hanging throughout. Nikki Payne tackles topics of this nature with such care, love, wit and humor.

The characters in this story!!! I loved them all!!! Our MC's and supporting alike! Just like with P&P, I don't think it is possible for Payne to have a subplot that anyone could find lacking. The level of depth in such a short amount of time that we can get from these characters is just impressive. The stubbornness of Nora and Bear was frustratingly delightful. Yanne had me laughing all the time and her emotionality was something I found really relatable. I will always love a character that wears their heart on their sleeve. Our antagonists really were antagonizing AF and brought so much high stakes tension that I just could not stop reading because I wanted to just tear out my hair! Really had me stressing, and this story never took the easy way to resolution, which I really, really, (underline) really liked.

In the same vein, I feel like Bear wears his heart on his sleeve in a different way. The way in which he speaks to Nora had me swooning all over the place and the love was just palpable from the beginning, but it also had a great build to it. The sense of heavy burden and duty Bear felt throughout the story was, at times, really hard to stomach and I did not think we would get to that happy place for him, but I am so glad we did.

Nora's journey through leaning into her most vulnerable self and taking that power back had me rooting for her so hard, and whether the romance worked out for our leads or not, getting to that place in which she was able to find that power again was something I really enjoyed finding with her in this story!

Speaking of the ~romance~ it was intense and fizzy and had me all aaaah! While it was a "slow burn" type feel to it (my fav), we got some pretty steamy scenes and they are (you'll never catch me using this word again),I must say, quite erotic. Had me shutting my kindle and reopening it a couple times being my god!!! Ugh. I can't. Speak to me again in 3-5 business years when I have recovered.

Read this book if you like:

- ANGST!
- Jane Austen re-imaginings
- Slow burn romance

<b>“I want forever with you, starting today. This is the beginning of the rest of our life together. I want to marry you.”</b>
This took me a while to read but I think it’s a cute read. I liked the main characters and the romance. The main character Nora and her sister inherited a run down estate and are set to restore it to get their inheritance and avoids foreclosure. She meets Bear the mmc who helps her and her sister and they develop feelings for each other. I haven’t read any Austen classics so I don’t know about the reimagination aspect but I thought this was solid with a good plot and side characters. I wanted the romance to move a little faster but overall it was cute with a couple steamy scenes!

Tropes/tropes:
- Interracial romance
- Opposites attract
- Found family
- Renovation fun
- A smidge of angst
- Native American mmc/African American fmc

While this book explored intriguing themes, I had a hard time connecting with the story. However, that is obviously on me and not the book. I recognize that it has great potential to appeal to other readers and I encourage others to try it out!

This was such a deeply layered romance, with two dynamic main characters—a high drama, high stakes story all within a fascinating Maine setting, seen through an Indigenous lens. But even beyond the drama, the romance and attraction between Bear and Nora was so strong. Payne is such an important and wonderful voice in modern romance; I loved the experience of reading this book.

This was a great read that made me laugh and also broke my heart, often within the span of a few pages. I loved Nora and I was rooting for her the entire time. Ennis I kept going back and forth on - I loved him but then the reveal of his secret made me swing the other way.