An opposites attract rom com with ample angst and chemistry! Both of our main characters are carrying chips the size of the Grand Canyon on their shoulders and that makes it hard to see what is right in front of them. This book is also a grand example of how lack of communication and assumptions create massive havoc on relationships of all kinds. It was a fun read and even though I don't understand code speak or tech speak, I was able to follow along well enough to enjoy the read. If tech is your jam, you will probably enjoy the book even more than I did. Overall, it is a fun rom com with humor, angst, chemistry galore and lots of banter. Good friends make a supportive foundation for our intelligent and successful female lead, so it is a well-rounded story.

A fun and light hearted romance, I loved every second.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for a review.

As a STEM girly, I was excited about this one and how the female main character worked in STEM. And I really do appreciate the author for choosing that! Although I do not work in tech, I still enjoyed hearing some of the app/coding talk-that gave the book a little more umph and dynamic to it. I thought the romance was fine-there was cute banter but some of the fighting seemed a little immature. I also didn't think it was that steamy which isn't good or bad in my opinion. I had no problem with the cheating/married man trope, but I know that bothers a lot of people. Overall, it was a fine book. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting due to the reviews, I have already seen but it wasn't my favorite romance book.

I tried very much to get into this book but it just wasn't for me.
I'd been drawn in by the blurb and the premise of a one-night stand turned workplace romance with comedy elements.
In my opinion, this was not a rom-com. My first hurdle was the 'humour' from the MC's friend group, specifically the borderline homophobic jokes made towards Kristin who just got engaged to her girlfriend.
I did not like the love interest, Jack, at all. I didn't feel any chemistry between them and then to find out he has been married the whole time was the nail in the proverbial coffin. It wasn't even that he's been separated he was still living with his wife! The 'happy ending' felt like she was settling because the women in her life, including her 'friends' and mother, all suggested she stop being picky.
I'd personally have ran from Jack as soon as I found out the truth.
This wasn't for me. I know some people like messy relationships and the initial premise was good but I couldn't connect with the story.

I’m sorry, but I really struggled to find any redeeming factors. The romance & chemistry between the two main characters were non-existent, the secondary characters were extremely irritating and we didn’t even find out that the MMC was married until 74% of the way in.

There was way too much coding & technical language included to be effective in what is marketed as a rom-com, and I was pretty bored the entire way through. This was my first ARC of 2024, and I’m sorely disappointed with it.

----I was kindly given an early copy of this book via Netgally in exchange for an honest review----

In this story, we follow Leonie and Jack, two very different characters who experience a one time only encounter in Paris thinking they won't be seeing each other again but find themselves in a difficult situation when they have to work together in a very demanding project. I won't lie, sometimes I didn't see how these people were meant to be together but the chemistry developed throughout the story and made it believable.

I really enjoyed this book. At the begging the characters didn't feel very authentic, especially the main character's friends, I guess it took me one chapter to finally immerse myself into the story and find all characters lovable. I specially enjoyed the age gap dynamic in this story, it added a touch of novelty and it was a nice twist that made the romance stand out from the age gap stories I've read recently.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK for the ARC. I enjoyed this book very much. Our two main characters met and instant chemistry. They are brought together by an opposite attract dating app and only supposed to have one date. Turns out fate has other plans. At times the app making language tripped me up but the romance was awesome. A must read.

A delightful opposites attract romance. to be honest I found it hard to follow in some places because of all the analytical language. However, I just skipped over these and got right back to the romance! A very interesting read with some new concepts but it was an amazing romcom and I will definitely be reading more from Clara O'Connor

Im sorry to say but this was terrible.
Very difficult to get into. The "hero" was HORRENDOUS. He was just a jerk.

Once Upon an Algorithm had caught my attention because the cover is so cute and I'm a math girl. i utilize algorithms daily. I thought yes! This is going to be great!

And the beginning does give a spoiler because the male says something about how they shouldnt be together and she says what? are you married? and he says no one would care or something.

Anyway, the way the wife is portrayed and the interactions with the female main character are just not enjoyable.

I personally would skip this one.

Thank you to netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to HarperCollins UK's One More Chapter and Clara O'Connor for the arc copy of Once Upon An Algorithm to review in exchange for a fair review.

Once Upon An Algorithm sounded a great STEM romance, with a bold confident career woman protagonist and a workplace enemies to lovers scenario. As a whole, the premise delivers and I enjoyed reading 90% of the story and I thought author did an amazing job representing the dynamics of an AGILE software development environment. Top marks for realistic portrayal about the highs and lows of product management and software development.

An interesting story with a majority of likeable and relatable characters, however somewhere in the middle things got strange. I couldn't get stay with the story after it plunged into the bizarre and cringy as the skeletons came out the closet. Some of the bumps in the road got a little far fetched for me and I felt Leonie became a little too passive in the story, especially when she had been a strong lead at the start. I liked Jack as a romantic counterpart to start, but to be honest by the end I hoped Leonie would run a million miles away. I don't think the ending redeemed him enough for me as a love interest either. This wasn't the romance for me in the end.

Thank you to HarperCollins UK, One more chapter, and NetGalley for an ARC of this book, in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was my first “stem” romance novel so I went in super excited, but it just didn’t deliver for me. The story line was a bit of a tumultuous read because the two main characters were just so aggravating. Their chemistry and connection didn’t really seem to be there, and then we find out the MMC is actually married and I was just done with the story. I did finish reading because I had to see how it ended, but the ending was somehow even more of an underwhelming disaster.

Leonie is 40 and has spent so much time with her work she hasn’t found love. During a weekend in Paris her friends talk her into meeting Jack; a guy from an app, who has been tagged as the opposite of what she’s looking for. Feeling brave she meets him, and they spend the night together.

Fully prepared to never see him again, she is shocked to walk into her stepbrothers new start up company where she is helping out to find Jack working there as well. What ensues is a long and tedious timeline of them working overtime to launch the startup, her stepbrother being extremely inappropriate in his work expectations of her, and a confusing back and forth of her and Jacks feelings.

So basically she is a hard main character to like because she makes a lot of strange choices. Jack is a slime ball who is married. Her stepbrother Mike is a full fledged bully. And her Mother and friends all pepper her very questionable “advice”.

I gave two stars because I did enjoy the “stem” parts of the storyline, but the character and character development was really off for me with this book.

Gosh, I really wanted to like this one. I give it 1.5 stars and I truly debated rounding up or down. But I really couldn’t get into it.

Spoiler ahead:

And once I found out that the main male character was married, I was kind of checked out. It had the potential, until that point. It did end happily, but I would have liked it more without the marriage and cheating aspect. Even if the marriage was of convenience for a green card….

DNF - CHEATER MMC.

I’m sorry but no. When you know, you know and this is the kind of book you know it’s going to be trash just by reading the first page.

Who would even want to read a book where the MMC is a cheater? And sorry for the spoiler but, they even meet on a dating app when is freaking married!!! Also, this was boring as hell.

Firstly, thank you to NetGalley, I received an ARC in exchange of an honest review. Unfortunately, this book did not work at all for me. The writing style did not click with me, I didn't see the humor, and I had major issues with the MMC.

Standard romance story with the usual misunderstandings and withholding of essential information until the end. A lot of the story is taken up with the job she is doing and has considerable detail about the IT industry and what is involved in starting a new app, including the technical details. If you are not in this industry it can be hard to know exactly what they are talking about, however the general gist can be followed

An ARC was provided in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK for the ARC.

Going into this book, I enjoyed the premise at first, loving Leonie’s character and the plot. However, as I read further into the book I found myself highly disliking Eric and Jack, and also Leonie. Leonie never stood up for herself against Eric who constantly put her down, and both her and Jack were terrible communicators.

I didn’t enjoy how much tech talk there was because at some points it felt like I could not follow along properly.

Unfortunately, this book wasn’t for me. The writing was good and fast paced, but the miscommunication and some of the tropes let me down.

I don’t think this book was for me, the plot was a bit all over the place and was very little chemistry between the MCs. The MMC had too many questionable red flags for me to fully enjoy reading.

That moment when you finish a book and you're not really sure what you just read.

I think it was supposed to be a romcom but the *very minute* snippets of what could have been romance related were sprinkled in like you forgot to add salt in a dish you were cooking and appeared very randomly.

Supposed to be an enemies to lovers work place romance. She's a consultant in his place of work, and the entire story was work and code focused with moments of the two main characters just being plain mean and angry.

The constant mentioning of age and that he's SO much younger and how much of an issue it is. We never do find out how old either of the characters are which, truly isn't an issue, but the author put so much of an emphasis on him being way younger ended up feeling a little questionable when all was said and done. Based on the context we do have I'm guessing he's early 30s and she's late 30s, maaaaybe a 5/6 year age gap. Which given what else we know about each of their lives/work history didn't feel that bad at all. Had this plot point been removed it, the book would maybe be half as long, that's how repetitive it was.

At the end of the day, this storyline could have worked and could have work well but it was not for me. It didn't feel like a cohesive story you could get lost in, we missed a lot of details that would pull the reader in and I didn't want to root for either character (*spoiler*........the cheating aspect of the story is always going to be a no from me), and finally, the brother is an absolute douche canoe. I want to like this but I just can't get on board.

Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter for the ARC in exchange for my review!

I love the premise, but the writing leaned heavily into tech project management speak that made me think I was at work.

I like that this story had an older (mid-thirties) FMC and a younger MMC. I love that our FMC had her own 'Greek Chorus' of best friends who were always available and supportive. I also like that our FMC was capable and the story wasn't about her 'finding herself', but instead allowing herself to be vulnerable. Bonus points for referencing The Princess Bride.

I didn't like that there were many miscommunication tropes happening here between the FMC and the MMC, the FMC and her brother, and the FMC and her parents.

I work in Agile/Project Management, so maybe this book hits a little different for me than for others, but there's a lot of jargon that took me out of the story. We have MVP (minimum viable product), Sprint, Ts and Cs and even a casual reference to the EU GDPR regarding privacy and information sharing laws. Perhaps it's because of my work background, but I felt like I was working while reading this book, instead of relaxing with a contemporary romance.

Thank you to Netgalley and One More Chapter HC for providing me an advanced reader copy.

This book is best read while sitting in economy on a transatlantic flight, pressed up against your workplace crush.

For taking place over not a hugely long period of time, the book feels like a big one. I liked the characters well most of them), and I particularly particularly Max and Leonie's relationship, I wish we had seen more of Max's confidence being built up over time.
I liked the friendship, and the trip to Paris was good fun.
Jack had some good dialogue when he wasn't being a grumpy a-hole, but the whole restaurant scene after the mountain, for me, he ruined it, and I would not have ever forgiven him.
There's a lot of tech language that can get a bit mind-boggling. I found the description of the work they were doing really lost me at times, as did the explanation of silicon Valley etc, maybe to an American it is pretty well known and therefore of interest, but I could have slept through that journey across California and missed nothing.
Despite Jack being in my bad books, I did like that the relationship for Leonie and her mum and stepdad was salvageable in a small part thanks to him. It was nice to see Leonie realise that.
I'd have liked an epilogue, maybe just 6 months or so, down the line to see where everyone was. I just like a rounded ending.
The story flowed well. It kept me engaged to read fairly quickly, and I'd definitely pick up more by this author.