I decided to give Amy Spalding and her adult sapphic romances another shot because this was a butch4butch story and we don't get a lot of those. Unfortunately I ran into the exact same issue as last time: Spalding's writing is boring and the target audience are clearly fellow LA/Hollywood liberals (although this book does have some relatively interesting things at the end about pricey self-help services).

Despite this book being supposedly a romance, it's more about Max' life, her career (which is is very similar to the one the MC in For Her Consideration had, Madame Amy Spalding I know what your career is) and about influencing. Sadie as a character never stood to me in any particular way but once again I believe this is due to Spalding's writing being boring especially when it comes to characters as well as the story lacking a strong emotional hook that made me want to keep reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
I feel like I read this at the perfect time. The new year and something about this year, particularly, has really made the quarter life crisis start setting in. I’ve felt so much anxiety about how I’m not where I thought I would be and how I still feel like a kid (the dedication is something I’ve said countless times). I felt like once you’re a certain age, you’re supposed to have it all figured out because everyone else around you (seemingly) already has. Amy Spalding did such a great job of organizing thoughts like these and exploring them through our main character, Max. I couldn’t believe how relatable she was, feeling lost and pathetic being in her mid-twenties and not living the exact life she had dreamed of. Also related a lot to Max’s self-fulfilling prophecies. She was so convinced of her own shortcomings that she was unable to see all the ways people admired her. I also really appreciate how Spalding portrayed almost every character as relating to at least some part of Max’s struggle. It’s so easy to get in your own head and convince yourself you’re the only one who is “behind” just like Max did, but in reality, most people in her life also felt behind and even like Max was “outdoing” them. It’s all about perception and for some reason we’ve all been fed this idea that you’re supposed to magically have it all together once you hit a certain age.
I do wish we had seen more of Max and Sadie together. I went in thinking it would fully be focused on the romance, but I think it was more about Max coming into herself and making strides toward the life she wanted. Which I still loved, just didn’t fully expect! I still would’ve liked to see more of Sadie.
Also, the way this brings up the importance of queer spaces and community is so heartwarming.
Overall, this was highly relatable, funny, and just a really uplifting story. I’m glad it’s coming out soon because I think it’s perfect for starting the new year.

The first book of the year is complete!!

This was cute, it was a bit touch and go with how invested I was at times but ultimately It was a nice read. In the beginning, I found Max a bit exhausting, the constant putting down of herself was A LOT - but also it's a real thing a lot of people struggle with so it was nice to see an MC challenge that.

I liked Sadie as a love interest though I would have loved to actually get her POV - I think it would have really helped contrast how Max sees herself with how the world sees her.

I liked Chelsey for most of the story but think she got let off a bit too easy for her decisions near the end, not that she's a terrible person who needed to be exiled but idk I would have liked at least a bit more grovelling tbh.

The reason I couldn't give this more than 3 stars is that I just don't think it left much of an impression on me, and for a 4-5 stars It's really gotta hit me hard.

Summer of Jordi Parez was SO damn good and I've just yet to have any of Amy's adult books stick with me that hard.

Thank you to Netgally and Kensington Books for an E-Arc in exchange for an unbiased review.

I got to read this arc, and I was so excited to start reading it. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher. I enjoyed this book. Would recommend it to someone looking for a quick read.

Totally my fault for not realizing that this was a follow up/same universe to For Her Consideration, which I haven't read. However that did not affect my reading this one much at all. At Her Service is a delightful and fun Sapphic romcom filled with tons of queer rep and wonderful characters.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC!

This was a good book but I don’t think it was really for me personally. It was hard for me to get into and I think that was mainly due to the social media influencer/self-actualization journey storyline which was much heavier plot than the romance itself. I’m mid-30s so while I usually don’t have trouble connecting to younger characters in novels but I did this time unfortunately. I mostly struggled to connect with Max, but Sadie I was able to a bit more. I still think the book was good and I would recommend to others but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as a romance, more as contemporary queer fiction.

For Her Consideration was one of my favorite reads of 2023, so I was really excited to get an early copy of At Her Service.

Max is feeling like her life needs some new direction when her influencer roommate approaches her about taking on a self-actualization challenge using a new app. At first Max is skeptical, but after a particularly bad day, she decides to go for it.

One of Max's goals is regarding her love life, and the object of her affection is a local bartender, Sadie. Sadie has goals to own the bar that her uncle opened, while making it a more modern space.

I loved all the characters -- although there are times I would have liked to shake some sense in to Max, I was rooting for all of them, and I loved seeing the changes that Max was making while working towards her goals. I enjoyed her relationships with her coworkers, and the dynamic with her roommate. I also loved the cameos from the characters in For Her Consideration -- loved seeing how things were turning out for them.

I especially enjoyed the team that Max joined and what a sweet and fun community that turned out to be for her.

You can read this without having read For Her Consideration, but I recommend reading that one first. The main character has a reoccurring role in this book, and Max is in the first book as well. 

I also that Max is five-foot even because I am too! She used this in such an empowering way and I loved to see that.

I am definitely an Amy Spalding super-fan now and will be eagerly reading all her future books!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

This book was so good and so cute! A queer romcom dobe right. I love the main character and could relate to a lot of what she was going through. So excited I go to read this story.

This book was such a lovely surprise for me to read.

The main character is on a journey of self actualization and is navigating her personal and professional life. I felt as though the character was so relatable as she struggled with feelings of inadequacy, making friends and just not feeling as though she accomplished anything.

My favorite part was the backstory of the bar where our main characters meet- it’s beautiful.

This was my first book by the author and I’m looking forward to reading more!

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC!

I love a good life makeover romance and this was a fun one. That said, there were definitely points where I was mentally yelling at both Max and Sadie to get it together (and then I remembered my 20s and forgave them), and I struggled a bit with the requisite misunderstanding breakup part (but I often find them to be kind of silly so that might be just me). The ways that Max came out of her shell were sweet and fun and I loved watching her build a community and realize that everyone is struggling a little bit inside, even if it’s not always obvious. It was also fun to have Los Angeles as an important character itself. It’s great when a place is central to a story like that and has you falling a little in love with it too.

I really enjoyed For Her Consideration and I was waited for this one. I wanted to know Max better and I was not disappointed. Max is a wonderful character and I love her so much. I love Sandie too, but Max is my favorite.
The chemistry between those two is amazing. Nina and Ari (Ari my beloved!) was really good, but Max and Sandie have more sparks. I enjoyed this.
I loved the cameo too.
This book is a cuddle and I really can’t wait to have more of it, to read the other instalment of this series.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

At Her Service is an enjoyable and heartwarming read, and I loved the image of LA's Hollywood and queer scenes that it portrayed. However, there were quite a few quibbles for me - as the novel is from Max's POV, and Max is so completely in her own head a lot of the time, I was left wanting to see the other characters more fleshed out. Even Sadie, who is so charming and engaging, doesn't feel like a character we truly get to know in depth. I also found myself actively frustrated by the inevitable third-act miscommunication and fallout - though I realise it's a romance trope that usually has to be adhered to. That said, seeing all of the different facets of Max's life gradually blossom as she came to know herself more, and watching her relationship with Sandie develop, made for a lovely read that balances humour, emotion, and introspection - with some welcomed cameos from the characters of For Her Consideration.
3.5 rounded up to 4.

This was my first Amy Spalding book and it did not disappoint. This story follows Max as she looks to expand her professional, personal, and love life. I absolutely loved the characters we met through the book and was so invested in the story. I was rooting for max since page 1.

Thank you to Netgallery for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

At Her Service follows the story of Max who is trying to climb up the corporate latter at her job, find love, and find herself along the way. At her favorite local bar that she is a regular at she has a huge crush on her bartender, Sadie. Both women truly are the epitome of trying to find yourself in your twenties.

I loved this book. It was relatable in the sense that you could see yourself and the people around you in every character. I audibly laughed at some of what the characters were saying and by the end of it I felt connected to them. Definitely worth the read!

The second story set in LA settles in nicely. Like [book:For Her Consideration|61193071], the details of the jobs in Hollywood are totally convincing and I can just see the restaurants, bars, and apartments. Does anybody else actually write scenes about what happens when you are stuck in traffic? It almost makes me want to spend some time in LA, and that is saying a lot.

Also, I'm trying to think of another sex scene that actually moves the plot and characters forward as much as this one and I just can't think of anything close. Maybe that is what is missing in other books, the story comes to a halt while they are in bed.

At this point, I'll read anything Amy Spalding writes. Lucklily for me, there are a few more books in her back catalog waiting for me.

At Her Service is a companion novel for one of my favorite romances…For Her Consideration that I read and completely fell hard for earlier this year.

In this one you meet Max Van Doren who has dreams/goals for her future. With a self confidence boost she can go after the things she’s been trying to achieve… promotion, and a girlfriend… specifically one girl she has been crushing on, Sadie a local bartender who has some dreams/goals of her own. Get ready to go along on a self actualization journey with Max and the community/friends she meets along the way!

Amy writes Hollywood in a way that makes me wish I can travel back to my 20s and move to LA get a sweet job in the entertainment industry, make friendships and build community whilst eating overpriced food and visiting hole in the wall bars. Seriously I’m living vicariously through these one book at a time.

All the characters have a purpose and it’s easy to get attached to each one. I’ve been trying to be a detective and sleuth who’s book we will get next… 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻please say there’s more to come!

These moments made me pause and highlight…

“Could you blush over your entire body?”

“The only thing I do outside is brunch.”

“There is no wrong version of you who isn’t good enough for a relationship.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell us that twenty-five is so young.”

Thank you Kensington for this E-ARC

At Her Service is a standalone sapphic romance set in the same universe as For Her Consideration - while it's nice to have the context of the first book, you can read this follow up without having read the first in the series.

Max is in her early 20s and coming to terms with the fact that the reality of her life in LA is not living up to the high expectations she set when she moved there from Kansas City. She's stalled in her job as an assistant at a talent agency, she doesn't feel connected to her successful influencer roommate, she hasn't built up the found family that she dreamed of building in LA... and she's hopelessly in love with Sadie, the gorgeous bartender at her favorite hangout.

To try to overcome her challenges, Max agrees to act as a test subject when her roommate is asked to review a new self-help app. Over the following 30 days, Max leans into the advice given by the app, and everything seems to be going well. She builds up the courage to tell her boss she wants to grow at work, she joins a queer kickball team and becomes close with the team, her wardrobe improves as she reaps the benefits of becoming a social media success story, and she even starts building a close friendship with the bartender. Their evolving connection sparks and builds into a potential romantic relationship, but will things fall apart when Sadie learns about Max' publicly sharing her progress against her goals?

I love how well Amy Spalding depicts queer communities. The concept of found family is central to this story - both the isolation of feeling like you haven't found your community yet, and then the difference it can make when you build those relationships.

Sadie's backstory is also really beautifully handled. I don't want to spoil this, but learning the full history of the bar where she works brought me to tears. It's a small detail in the story, but stands out as one of my favorite moments.

I will say that the book is a little heavy handed at times when showing how clueless Max is about how others perceive her. We get it - she has low self-confidence and doesn't realize that she's actually holding herself back. I understand that Max's inability to view herself accurately is critical to the plot, but by the time I was about 2/3 of the way through, I was getting sick of her perpetual obliviousness. I knocked a star off for this, because it ended up making me almost dislike Max. She gets her redemption arc (of course - it's a HEA romance!) but it still left a slightly sour taste in my mouth.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me the opportunity to read and review an advance copy of At Her Service. I really enjoyed this book.

I often get annoyed with books with characters in their twenties because they just aren’t relatable to me as an elder millennial. But I really liked max’s voice and related quite strongly to her. She had a number of challenges, many that were limits she placed on herself, and much of the book was centered on her self-realization that the stories she was telling herself about herself weren’t all true.

The book is solely from Max’s perspective, which gives us space feom some of the other characters, where it has become more common in romantic books these days to alternate viewpoints so the reader knows everything about everyone. I preferred the single narrator first person for this book because it was so much about Max’s inner experience of herself and others.

I would have liked some more depth on Sadie - I feel like we knew relatively little about her, and perhaps not enough for Max to be in love. A bit more depth on Chelsea too - but given the limited perspective and part of it being that Max had mistaken impressions of folks, this fits with the plot.

I would have also liked mental health to be addressed with a little more nuance. Max at the beginning comes off as extremely anxious, likely in General Anxiety Disorder territory. It isn’t as easy for someone with clinical levels of anxiety to just “be bold” or “say yes”. Some acknowledgement of the mental health aspect and the struggle would have made this more accurate for me.

It was a well written and more complex read than some similar books, and I found it cute and relatable despite being a 40-something far outside of Hollywood.

I liked the general storyline of the MC expanding her professional and personal life by being more bold, and the sapphic romance was really cute! If you liked Sizzle Reel by Carlyn Greenwald, you'll like this one too!

I wish that there were more emotional conversations on page though, there were probably just a few really honest conversations between the main ship, and like one conversation between the MC and her roommate (I loved that friendship sm!!) - it's probably why I didn't enjoy the book enough to give it 5 stars.

-- ty to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy!

I liked many parts about this books but felt that the main character was too whiny for me unfortunately. I can very close to DNFing, but I am glad I didn’t because I love this author and her stories. It ended up better than I thought it would due to character development.