This is the third ‘The influencer’ book that I’ve read and I think it’s my favourite so far! I’d given the first one 3 stars and the second one 2 stars so my expectations were a bit low but when I saw this one has fake dating I knew I had to give it a try!
I like the ‘enemies/hate you’ to lovers aspect. Always a winner in my book Evan was a likeable grump and Melanie wasn’t too annoying like the other influencers in this series. I liked that we covered heavier topics like abandonment issues in adoptees, mental health, grief - it was good. I felt the spice scenes literally went from 0-100 which was a bit strange. Like we had no dirty talk then WOAH.
Also I was really mad at the end where the whole SIX MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY FLEW TO SEE HER when they kept going on about their finances and that’s why they wanted to sell the inn … what a waste of money.

Gah, I love Amy Lea’s writing style. This is my third book of her’s and you can just tell she is a romance reader, she gets the recipe and executes it brilliantly.

Adored the setting, the characters, the tropes. It’s a perfect summer romance read, pool-side, beach-side, garden-side, this is going to be so so perfect.

I randomly decided to pick this one up because I really wanted to read a cute rom-com and this one definitely fit that vibe and I loved it.
I read the first two books in this series as they were being released and I loved both of them and so I was really excited to pick this one up when I was in the mood for a cute romance and I was not disappointed. The Catch gave me the same vibe as 'It Happened One Summer' by Tessa Bailey (which happens to be one of my favourite books) and I loved the small fishing town vibe of this book just as much as that one. I loved Mel as a main character and how her and Evan had a grumpy/sunshine relationship with each other.
I love fake dating/engagement trope which is what this books main plot is and I could not help but root for Evan and Mel to get together especially because they had so much good banter with each other.
I do feel like this book may have been a tad too long and I did find myself getting bored during parts of it because I felt like it was never ending, but there were so many good elements/scenes within this book that I loved it despite the length of it.
I will definitely pick up future Amy Lea books if she contains to write cute rom-com books.

As always, i love an Amy Lea book. I just swoon at all the characters, and i love the descriptions, locations and overall vibe. There's always an edge of comedy, and this was no different! Definitely a perfect rom com book.

I LOVED this book so much!! I truly have no idea why I forgot to put a review up, I think because I read it so long before it was out, came on stories and raved about it and that made me think I’d already reviewed it!

I loved both the main characters a lot, the (sort of) enemies to lovers vibe with a little grumpy/sunshine and the fake dating too! The Canadian setting was just beautiful and everything about this story just worked. The pacing, the humour, the sweetness, it felt like a true romcom and it was exactly what I’d been looking for!

I loved the authors writing as well, I’d read her first book when it came out and her writing style has advanced so so much, it was such a lovely thing to be able to see the progression in her writing style in such a short space of time! I’m excited to read what she writes next!

From the blurb -
In a last ditch attempt to rescue her brand from the brink of irrelevance, fashion influencer Melanie Karlsen finds herself in a rural fishing village on the east coast of Canada. The only thing scarier than nature itself? Burly fisherman Evan Whaler - who single-handedly disproves the theory that canadians are ‘nice’.

After a boating incident lands Evan in the hospital, Mel is mistaken for his fiancee by his welcoming yet quirky family. And, in exchange for Evan’s help with her social media content, Mel agrees to fake their engagement for just. one. week.

But reeling in their budding feelings for each other proves more difficult than expected.

*ARC from Netgalley

Thank you for my eARC of this book. I had heard so much hype for this book that I was really intrigued. I did enjoy it but it wasn’t a stand out for me. I would read this author again though

"Fake dating always leads to true love. Fact. I don't make the rules."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Book: The Catch
Author: Amy Lea

i have loved reading amy lea’s influencer series over the past couple of years! she is such a fun writer and i adore her characters, but this one wasn’t my favourite out of the series. It was just a bit too insta-lovey for me, i really wish we had more of a build up to the relationship. The characters were great but the romance didn’t wow me at all.

i have been trying to find a book that gives me the same feeling “It Happened One Summer” by Tessa Bailey gave me, and i thought that this one might be the one, and i will say, it was very similar, but i just didn’t have the same “oh my god i need to pick this up NOW and find out what happens next” feeling that i had with IHOS 🤷🏻‍♀️

Read if you enjoy:
🩵 enemies to lovers
🩵 fake dating
🩵 small town
🩵 grumpy x sunshine
🩵 forced proximity
🩵 fish out of water
🩵 Single POV

Series ranking:
1: Set on you
2 The Catch
3: Exes and O’s

(thank you so much to Viking UK for the EARC in exchange for an honest review 🫶🏻)

I'm such a sucker for Amy Lea's books and this book DID NOT disappoint. It was such a fantastic book.

Although I tend to love Amy Lea's plots, I fell in love with the relationship in this book. It was so different yet so similar to her other books and I absolutely loved it.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loved her previous 2 books and romance books in general.

A huge thank you to Netgally, the publisher and author for sharing copy of The Catch with me - so very appreciated.
I was absolutely thrilled as one of the authors prior books ‘Exes and O’s had been a standout favourite of mine.
The Catch was a lovely read for me - I’m not usually a fan of grumpy x sunshine BUT I do love a fake dating scenario so I ate this up.
Small town vibes were immaculate too. It was giving ‘Chesapeake Shores’ - for anyone who might’ve seen that show.
Thank you once again for this lovely comforting and escapist read.
I look forward to more of Amy Lea’s work.
Bonus points if we can get any more firemen MC’s :)

I really enjoyed The Catch and I didn’t even realise that it was part of a series until after I’d finished. I now have the first two books on my TBR list!

Mel, a fashion influencer, meets Evan, a grumpy fisherman. Yes, what happens next is predictable but who cares. You can’t help but fall in love with all the characters in this book, not just Mel and Evan. The story focuses on love, family, friendship and grief and it felt like a big hug. I throughly enjoyed this and I’m looking forward to reading Amy Lea’s other books!

Such a good book from Amy Lea! I don't know what I was expecting going in but I was thoroughly entertained!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC copy.

I was pretty late to the Amy Lea hype but, after reading the other two in “The Influencer” series, I definitely put Lea on my radar.

As a content creator myself, I went into this wearily as — whether we’re trying to be or not — sometimes influencers can be a little annoying. Whilst first impressions of the female MC felt as though they were headed in that direction — by the end — you realise there’s much more to her than taking pictures.

The setting was really vivid and detailed, I’ve never been to somewhere like the place this is set but Lea painted the picture very well.

The characters were really engaging and added to the plot.

This was a really fun read and I’m looking forward to reading what she has planned next.

Firstly, I would like to say a big thank you to Penguin General UK and NetGalley for the ARC.

This was a 4⭐️ read for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and will definitely look to read the other books in ‘The Influencer’ series.

This book has a handful of romance tropes; fake dating/engagement, grumpy x sunshine, small town, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, and one bed. Despite this being a lot of tropes, they all worked seamlessly together and created a story full of tension and bubbling chemistry. Evan is definitely the epitome of grumpy, and Evan and Mel are the definition of opposites attract.

The story wasn’t rushed which was great. The author let the tension grow and build and let their chemistry come to the surface slowly without forcing the characters to admit any feelings immediately. It’s also nice to see Mel fit into Evan’s family so easily, I found this really sweet. It helped give a really homey feeling to the story.


I love the inclusion of an epilogue, and I like that this one was from both perspectives. It was good to see something written from Evan’s perspective, but it did make me wish the whole book was written in split perspective.

One major ‘Ick’ I have with romance books is them saying ‘I love you’ to one another when they’ve only known each other five minutes, which is one of the very few reasons why this book didn’t get a 5 star rating.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and really recommend giving it a read.

Very very cute, I love a good fake dating story and this one had chemistry in spades! I find this one difficult to comprehend in the sense that it was a delicious slow burn, the characters not making any kind of moves until 200 pages in, but it was also kind of insta love because by the end of the book, they've not even known each other for two weeks yet? I feel pretty conflicted about that, but I loved both Mel and Evan and I loved them together - seeing how headstrong they both are made for some really fantastic scenes together. I also loved the small town setting! I just wish that the timeline had been stretched out a lot more so that the connection didn't feel kind of unrealistic.

This is the third in a series of interconnected novels but you could definitely read this as a standalone book without missing out on too much backstory, etc.
If you liked Tessa Bailey's It Happened One Summer or rom-com movies like The Proposal, I have a feeling you will really enjoy this. I also liked the While You Were Sleeping feels too.
This was a nice small town romance that I flew through. I'm still not the biggest fan of Insta-love stories, so that did detract from it a little bit for me. I just can't get on board with people falling for each other in a matter of days but maybe that's just me.
But this would make a great easy beach/summer read.
I liked their banter and the other romance tropes (such as grumpy x sunshine and fake dating) that were explored.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is book 3 in the series, but I haven't read the previous 2 ( I want to, though)
And I don't feel it had spoilers, so it could work as a standalone.

Now I love a small town romance, and this one was so sweet, Melanie and Evan were so good together! Picture a combo of While you were sleeping and The Propsal.
I absolutely adored his family. And their team work. I know some have classed this as enemies to lovers, but I don't think they were enemies as such, more opposites attract/fish out of water- pun intended. They are just so vastly different!
All in all I loved this one.

Read if you like:
Small town
Found family
Fake dating/proposal
Opposites attract

There isn't a book of Amy Lea's that I don't enjoy, I thought the setting was really enjoyable and I really loved the characters and the plot. I was also a huge fan of the character development, which is a main thing for me. I can't wait to see what Amy Lea writes next!

This is the 3rd book in the influencer series and it was the one I enjoyed the least. Amy’s books give me a sense of nostalgia for 90s/00s romcoms, they follow a formula and even though it’s nothing groundbreaking it works! I found The Catch to be a bit tedious to get through. I liked the setting and thought this one would be a good different from the first 2, getting out of the city and going more smalltown. The plot does give ‘it happened one summer’ vibes but it was different enough to stand on its own 2 feet. My biggest issue was with the characters, I just didn’t like either of them very much. And everything happened very quickly. I’m not a diehard slow burn gal but this was a bit too instalove for my taste. There was a lack of chemistry between Melanie and Evan so it made the whole ‘enemies to lovers’ in the space of a few days quite unbelievable. I found myself getting quite frustrated with the book and it took me a few weeks to finish it.

A great romance book, I really enjoyed the tropes and found myself rooting for the couple! Thank you net galley for the review copy!

Mels fashion instgram is growing stagnant when she's invited to visit a spa in Halifax in Canada she jumps at the chance to get new content. Unfortunately, they've mixed up the booking and she's arrived a week early. With nowhere to stay, she finds a b&b to stay in at Coras Cove. But she gets off to a rough start with the owner, Evan Whaler. When a boating accident lands him in the hospital, Mel is mistaken for his fiancee by his welcoming family, who up until that point were in a massive feud. In exchange for content, she agrees to be fake engaged to him in order for his family to get along long enough for them to figure out what to do with the inn. But soon, they begin to develop real feelings for each other. Will everything come crashing down?

This was a fast-paced quick romance book. Mel was quite a good character and watching her change and grow as a person and realise that she actually had interests outside of clothes was good. The romance was good in this too I liked watching them slowly come to realise they actually liked each other and then them trying to figure out how they're going to work a long term relationship. I liked the family aspect in this and how Evans family realised they needed each other and how Mel and her brother Julian didn't need each other as much anymore. Overall a decent enough read.