I had so much fun falling in love with this book. It was You’ve Got Mail, While You Were Sleeping and The Proposal all jumbled together into a sweet love story. The writing style had a good flow, and the romantic tropes were well executed. The characters were the right amount of sassy, complex and loveable. When Ellie Greco’s father passed away, she packed up her life as a theater costume designer in New York and moved back to her small town to run her family’s deli. Greco’s Deli has been a part of the town for over 100 years, so when a property management firm run by the town’s wealthy and elite Taylor family plans to rent out an old department store to Mangia, a gourmet food department store, Greco’s Deli’s survival is at stake. Ellie decides to reach out to Theo Taylor, an old high school acquaintance, to see if there is any way she can stop the deal. When a stray ceiling tile hits Theo on the head abruptly ending their meeting, a panicked Ellie lies to the paramedics and says she is Theo’s fiancée so that she can make sure he’s alright. What ensues is trope filled goodness. I don’t read a lot of romance books so I can’t tell you all the cool trope slang, but I had fun and fell in love with Ellie and Theo. This is a perfect summer read that will leave you with the warm and fuzzies.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
This was a cute rom-com premised on the fake dating trope. I have read a bunch of these lately and this book was not a stand-out, while it was enjoyable.

Ellie's life is about to be overturned by a big box store threatening the existence of her family deli. When she goes over to chat with the owner, the ceiling caves in and the (spoiler alert) love interest suffers from amnesia. This is where it almost lost me. Ellie's childish and questionable decision to pretend to be his fiancee was so ick. Luckily, he remembered soon enough and the "fake dating" that ensued became mutual.

After that initial ick, it's quite a cute, clever, and feel-good romance and if you like the fake dating trope, this is for you!

Love You, Mean It is a rom-com, full of playfulness and sharp humor. Ellie Greco has been managing her family's deli after the death of her father. After the residents and the Greco family learns that a gourmet food department store is looking to move into the neighborhood, concerns rise for the longevity of the family legacy.

Ellie approaches Theo, the landlord of the vacant building. Although they attended high school together, they ran in very different circles, and she has trouble keeping her prejudices at bay despite aiming to persuade him to reject the tenancy of the big-time competition, allowing her family's deli to continue to flourish.

Gagnon uses a mesh of familiar tropes in fun and engaging ways — you know where this is going, but the journey there is definitely a ride featuring tiny unexpected turns and bankable charm. With enemies-to-lovers and grump-to-sunshine paving the way, I enjoyed this gem from beginning to end.

Ellie and Theo meet while Ellie is trying to save her family business. The ceiling collapses, which leads her to get amnesia and claim that Theo is her finance. The meet-cute happened pretty early in the book and hooked me. After that, the book's pace slowed but was still enjoyable. There is a bit of business rivalry, drama, dislike to love, business deals, and lovely, heartwarming friendships. I liked the romance, especially because I felt like the characters had a lot of time to develop their friendship and the relationship. Definitely read this if you like sweet romcoms with good characters and a smidge of steam.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Dell for this e-arc.*

The perfect blend of food and fashion with a twist of a fake relationship trope! I enjoyed this story and the characters were realistic and thought out. I read this in about 24 hrs.

I don’t usually read rom coms, but a friend recommended this, so I thought I would give it a try. Ellie Greco wants to help her family’s business (a deli) survive despite a property manager’s wanting to rent a nearby building to a ritzy gourmet food store, and such serious competition could mean the demise of the deli. After a bizarre accident, Ellie pretends to be the fiance of the property manager’s son, who is injured in the accident, and the two hope that this fake arrangement will somehow help save the deli. The story started out at a good pace but moved very slowly as of about a third of the way through, and I really had a hard time relating to some of the characters, especially Ellie. Nonetheless, this was sort of a cute read . . . but it did not persuade me to read more rom coms.

4 🌟

I love a good fake dating troupe!
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This was such a cute romcom. Both main characters were enjoyable and I loved the growth out of Ellie. I think one of my favorite parts was when an ex gf entered the scene, I was expecting cattiness between the two women and there wasn't any! The ending was a hit abrupt but overall enjoyable.

Thanks, Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

I found this book unputdownable. The banter was delicious, the flirting was scrumptious and the spice was peppered in nicely. While I enjoy a happy witty back and forth in a book, it also hits really hard when the words that come out are hurtful. Jilly Gagnon did that in this book at the perfect time, in the perfect moment. Aaaand that’s also when one of the main characters becomes shut down and unapproachable.

Sam is my favorite character in this book. She is chaos and calm rolled into one. I found myself wanting Ellie’s (the FMC) friendship with her to work out more than her romantic relationship with Theo (the MMC).

Town deli 'meets' behemoth shopping experience in battle🍠🧀

This is a good, small-town romance with very engaging principal characters. It's got emotional ups and downs that made the couple's ultimate future unpredictable and I liked the suspense.

It's the story of the Ellie, manager of her family's Italian deli, and Theo, son of the big property owner in a traditional New England town, I loved the start and the accident that brings them together initially, later morphing into a full-blown fake engagement situation to save the deli and the town's other small businesses from a huge shopping complex called Mangia that's got its eye on a large vacant department store (owned by Theo's family) as an optimal site for their expansion out of Boston.

The plot had more character complexity than I had expected. And I liked that, that both main characters have made compromises for family considerations and have some dreams that didn't pan out. Their relationship, which does contain heat, I felt developed realistically once they had settled on a scheme to keep Mangia out of town. As for Sam, Theo's long ago ex, she added a lot of anxiety and drama to the mix.

Yes, initially this had 'While You Were Sleeping' vibes, but that was a brief interval and it drew me into the story. The writing's good and makes for an entertaining romance.

Thanks to Random House, Ballantine, Dell and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

This review will be shared on Amazon, kobo, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads and Bookbub.

I could not finish reading this.. and I feel so bad. But it was pretty difficult to follow.. descriptive sentences that were too long.. weird thesaurus type words.. I read 2 chapters but had to stop

This quirky rom-com was such a fun change of pace in my reading.
Ellie returns to her hometown after her Dad passed away, to run the family deli. Soon, a huge chain Mangia wants to move into a historic building in town, which would prove disastrous to the small family deli.
After an unusual chain of events, Ellie finds herself fake-engaged to Theo, the real estate heir who is brokering the building’s sale. The banter and chemistry between Ellie and Theo is amusing and well written. Most of the supporting characters are well fleshed out. There is an open-door scene that some readers may want to skim or skip.
For me, Jilly Gagnon’s debut adult romance is a huge success and I look forward to seeking out her future books. I will be recommending it to fellow readers and followers.
Thank you # RandomHouse for sending me the eARC and #Netgalley for access.

This was a cute fake-dating story! I loved the dueling deli's and how the main characters realized how much they actually had in common. The ex-girlfriend turned to friend plot line was so interesting and I'm glad it was included. Overall not very memorable though.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for my review.

Ellie and Theo are in a fake engagement - I suspect most of us have seen that trope in books and movies, likely because it's a fun one. And Jilly Gagnon does a great job showing how their relationship develops, and how many problems might arise. One of the things that I liked about this story is that the characters didn't minimize other factors in their lives - work, dreams, ambitions and friends. It was a nice, quick-to-read romance!

I really enjoyed Love you, Mean it. There's a cozy familiarity to it with elements of great romcoms,. I can see why it would remind people of While you were Sleeping and the plot revolving around saving Ellie's small business reminded me of You've Got Mail. While it shares the DNA of these romcoms, this book also stands on it's own. I loved Theo and got very frustrated with Ellie and her self-sabotaging decisions, but still rooted for her. it was a very fun read.

I’m not quite sure what happened with Love You, Mean It, but it wasn’t my favorite read.
The premise sounded interesting and I was ready to jump in.. except it’s taken me multiple times just to try and finish it.
I found myself disliking most of the characters and Ellie was just annoying. Theo didn’t seem bad at times but really, I just couldn’t find anything interesting about him.
The title really seemed to bother me as well. Maybe I’m clueless and didn’t see why it’s called Love You, Mean It. But I just couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be a phrase said or something else. Such a small thing to fret over but I unfortunately do judge books based on covers & titles occasionally.

Thanks to NetGalley for the early copy.

I found this to by a little too cheesy. I also didn't find the characters very likable. Thank you, NetGalley.

I’m pretty disappointed that I didn’t enjoy this book more … I kept giving it chance after chance and it just wasn’t hitting home for me. I’m so glad so many others enjoyed it though! Maybe it’s just me, I hope not. I couldn’t get into the storyline or the characters. After seeing so many post their likes on this book. I won’t post any negative reviews against it.

I can say I throughly enjoyed this book from start to finish. If you looking for a fun rom com to lift your spirits that you and binge read in one sitting pick this book up asap. The story of Ellie who runs her family’s deli and Theo who running his father property management team colloid to try and save their town from a mega store from moving into a new property. This book is filled with some amnesia, fake dating/ finances, and a cute Italian grandma named Mimi. I loved the chemistry and banter between Ellie and Theo in which i was rooting for them and their endeavors the entire time! Excellent read!

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Overall I would say it was a quick enjoyable read.

Love You, Mean It follows Ellis the purveyor of a family-owned deli that is struggling to survive when a developer announces that Mangia (think Eataly) Italian market will be opening nearby. The development is headed by Theo, Ellie's new nemesis. That is, until a construction accident at their first meeting leads Ellie into rushing Theo to the hospital and pretending to be his fiance in order to get updates.

Once Theo is released from the hospital he and Ellie fake date in order to prevent Mangia (which turns out was Theo's fathers development idea) from opening in the neighborhood.

All of our favorite elements in a romance :)

Thank you to NetGalley, Randomhouse - Ballantine / Dell for the advanced ecopy for review. Love You, Mean It is released this month if you want to check it out!