What if the love of your life is getting married to your ex-best friend and you catch his brother rehearsing a speech to ruin the wedding?

Read The Next Best Fling to find out more. Marcela and Theo are both trying to get over people who don’t love them back. They come up with a plan to ‘Fake Date’ to take the suspicion off Theo for almost ruining the wedding. The best way to get over someone is to get under someone new, right? It can be, just make sure to not catch feelings in the process.

If you enjoy reality television or even just listening to drama while not being involved, this book is for you. This book is incredibly messy and entertaining. Gabriella Gamez knew exactly what she was doing when she wrote an ex-cowboy player love interest.

Thank you Forever Publishing and NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Gabriella Gamez, you know how to write a story. And you know how to write a story where I felt SO seen. I too had a Ben, his name was Ben too, and an Alice. I alas, did NOT have a Theo. But I did see myself in the struggles that Marcela goes through and let me tell you, this book was a therapy session for my 20-something year old self. The growth between the Marcela and Theo of their own journeys and the one they take themselves was such a fun read. I specifically loved the realization Marcela makes, it gave Wendy realizing she needs to go home in Neverland and grow up. I know this is kind of all over the place but I just absolutely loved this book. 4.5 stars!

This was such a cute debut book! The tropes are so fun and the spice was well written. I love the dynamic of a librarian and a former football player. I ate this up! I can’t wait to read more by this author !!!

Meh. Things felt like a collection of other books to me, so much of it felt vaguely recycled. I loved the body positivity and the struggles that Marcela goes through, but the best friend subplot just didn’t work, I didn’t feel like she would have put up with that shitty behavior from Ben for so long. And I didn’t care for or relate to the resolution.

Let’s see…. The Next Best Fling has romance, spice, and ex-NFL player, forbidden love- what more could you ask for? Gabriella Gomez writes a fast paced, easy, fun read & the main character Marcella is so dang lovable! Gomez knocks it out of the park with her debut work - You’ll want to read this one!

Thank you NetGalley & Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for the ARC copy of this book.

DNF, This book was not for me unfortunately. I started it because it was recommended, but it has too much spice for me personally.

***Definitely Spoilers ahead***


This was so fun and easy to read. It moved along at a fast clip without being rushed or poorly done. I really liked Marcela and Theo's relationship, which springs from their separate pining for the two halves of an engaged couple. Marcela is pining after Ben, her college best friend who gave her the better off as friends speech. Theo is pining after Alice, his childhood best friend who is engaged to Ben. Marcela finds Theo hyping himself up to confess to Alice at the engagement party and manages to convince him to reconsider and sleep it off on her couch. When they arrive at the next day's engagement event, everyone assumes that they're together and they decide to let the rumor thrive with the logic that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone. From there they embark on a rebound in which the boundaries blur quickly, and the feeling get real fast.

I liked this book a lot. As I stated above, it's fun, easy to get through and engaging. Theo and Marcela are a great couple. Theo is the epitome of book boyfriend: he's rugged and manly without fear of his feelings. What lost it the star was Ben and Alice and some of the timeline issues.

I simply couldn't have empathy for Ben and Alice because they were such terrible people. Ben clearly was keeping Marcela around in an 'if I can't have you, no one else will' way in that he bad mouths all of her relationships to sabotage them. Ben makes sure to try and bomb Marcela and Theo's relationship by painting his brother as a womanizing whore who will hurt her. He doesn't find her attractive but keeps her around under the guise of 'best friends' while carrying on behind his fiancee's back to hang with her after fights. I'm not sure that Ben didn't initially begin dating Alice to kick Theo when he was at his worst due to their already poor relationship. It seemed too coincidental that he told Theo about asking her out right when he'd received bad career news...

Alice is no better. Alice began dating Ben knowing that someone who called her 'friend' was dating him and saddened by his rejection as well as knowing that Theo, Ben's brother believed that he was in love with her. She gave out Marcela's number to Theo and then immediately told her friends, one of whom thinks that she has 'dibs' on Theo to go and spy and talk shit about their date. Alice even admits to knowing that what she did was shitty and that she should have either not dated Ben or found a way to deal with the fact that she knew Marcela still had feelings for him while he insisted that she stay in his life. I know that Marcela should be considered a bad friend for being in love with a taken man for a decade, but Alice somehow manages to be worse.

The rest of the star comes from the timeline. It's stated that Marcela and Alice met in college and became good friends before Ben rejected a serious relationship with Marcela and began dating him, yet on a date with Theo, Marcela tells him that she ditched the one high school football game she attended with a friend, but doesn't tell him that the friend was Alice. How does that work if Alice and Marcela met in college?

All in all, a good book, but man did I hate the secondary couple.

rating: 3.5

i am so here for bringing back love squares. they’re iconic and they make for the absolute best angst.

here’s the set-up: marcela is in love her best friend, ben. ben is getting married to their semi-mutual friend, alice. ben’s brother theo, is in love with alice. theo and marcela decide to fake a relationship in an effort to win their one true loves and the betrothed couple, ben & alice.

what this book did really well? it let theo be kind of an ahole without revealing too soon his reasons for being said ahole and therefore making us feel empathy for him. for a good part of this book i was kind of like, dude what is your PROBLEM? you know, besides being in love with your brother’s fiancé. we really had to peel this man open like an onion and then he did performed a gesture that made my book-loving heart cry.

this worked so well because we *only* get marcela’s POV. marcela is a librarian and she will speak to every book girlie’s soul. i felt so bad for her, but i also wanted to SCREAM at her because ben really was hot trash using her. alas, she wanted him anyways (we’ve all been there girl).

the chemistry between marcela and theo is immediate, angsty, and pulled so taut it could make you sweat. he picks up on so many of her little loves and quirks and then uses them to win her over and it’s so sweet to follow marcela as she realizes that the things she loves and the woman she is IS beautiful and should be celebrated and appreciated in the way theo says.

recommend this book for a cute lil palate cleanser and for anyone who loves a broody ex-nfl player and ate up love triangles circa 2012

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for access to this ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book had me from the get go! Our FMC (Marcela) is in love with her best friend who just proposed to his girl friend of 8 years -- she's pining. At the engagement party, the groom's brother MMC (Theo) is acting weird, is drunk, and it turns out he is in love with the bride-to-be. We get a friendship to rebound situationship with a lot of emotion, trauma, and spice. The grand gestures they make were chef's kiss!

DNF @ 50%

Big thanks to the author and publisher. I liked the writing style and I found the prose engaging. Unfortunately, I found myself continually frustrated with our main heroine and how she's allowed a singular man to manipulate her for well over 8 years and emotionally control her for his own selfish reasons. If any of you have anyone even minutely resembling Ben in your life, get rid of him now.

I'm not sure how the book ends, but I couldn't get past my frustrations with the Ben/Marcella dynamic and had to put it down.

I would definitely read more by the author, but this story just left me frustrated.

3.5⭐️
3.5🌶️
🎵Golden - Harry Styles

📚As soon as I saw the blurb for this book I was totally hooked! A love square is something that you don’t see often in plot lines and I was immediately intrigued by the ex professional football player and librarian pairing.

🏈One of my favorite things about this book was the (somewhat) open communication between the two MCs and how it felt like they really wanted the best for each other at any given point throughout the story. Even if separation was necessary, they each put the other first.

📚In some areas, I felt like the plot was dragged out a little too much. Some of the moments between Marcela and Theo felt redundant and like we had already seen things happen before. There was a lot of spoon-feeding information, more telling than showing.

🏈Overall, this was a super cute, fluffy, rom-com book with plus size rep, grand romantic gestures, and tasteful spice.

💌Content Warnings: sexual content, abandonment (father), infidelity, miscommunication

❤️‍🔥Closed-Door Modifications: Chap. 18, Chap. 22, Chap. 31

Thank you to NetGalley, Grand Central publishing, and Gabriella Gamez for the opportunity to enjoy this advanced reader copy!

Solid story and I was rooting for the couple. Definitely couldn’t find any redeeming qualities in Ben. The themes of mixed races and body confidence were a nice addition.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨/5
Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️/5

This book was messy y’all. So very messy. And I was here for the mess, but I wasn’t here for the self sabotaging behaviors. It was so fun, loved Theo and his big huge heart, and I wanted to just poke Marcela in the face repeatedly until she said three nice things about herself. It was a fun read, but definitely wasn’t the lightest of RomComs. The football date though? That was adorable.

Five Emojis to Describe This Book: 📚🫣🤡🏈😗

Honestly, I thought I was going to hate this love square but Theo 🥹 he was everything. I absolutely loved every second of his interactions with Marcela. I want more of them, hopefully we can get a glimpse of their future in the next book.

I honestly thought I reviewed this book so either I dreamt it or didn't send it. Either way, I'm having trouble recalling everything about the story coz it's been WEEKS! Apologies if I miss out something or my review isn't perfect!

So, jumping right in, this book's kind of a love square (not sure if that's what it's called) coz Marcela is in love with Theo's older brother though neither Theo nor his brother know, and Theo is in love with his brother's fiancée (Marcela knows) Basically, it's choas that doesn't make an ideal circumstance for Theo and Marcela to be in a relationship. Yet they are each other's rebounds.

Really sorry if I made the book sound stupid here, but I actually enjoyed it. I love confrontations SO MUCH (at least in books) and I'm so happy about how it went here. The MCs really understood each other, definitely not the red flag meets red flag scenario I was dreading. Theo turning up at Marcela's workplace to support her and Marcela listening to all of Theo's perspective, OMG that was so good!! The ending gave me the right closure and of course that's SO important!

As a book lover, it's always a delight to read characters who're not shy to show they love books too, so I'm super excited for the next book in the Librarians in Love series.

What a sweet, complicated love story. I loved the friendships that Marcela had with her coworkers (and am really hoping we get an Angela book next!). Theo was lovely, albeit flawed. I appreciated how the author kept him honest (I wish we got a little bit more from him but we did learn a lot either way).

Ben is the worst. Good luck to Alice in her adventures.

I liked this book but I didn't love it. The ending got really muddled and messy. I feel like nothing was fully wrapped up in the end.

This story was ok, not my favorite. I didn’t love the best friend’s brother aspect, felt a little bit like a revenge dating story. I had a hard time staying connected

I had a lot of fun with The Next Best Fling! I finished it in one sitting and it was an easy read. The male lead is likeable and it feels like a romcom a slight suspension of disbelief - I will say, Ben is definitely the type to post what happened on AITA.
What drew me to this book was that the female lead on the cover did not have "conventional" body type and it does come up but ultimately there are many more facets to Marcela's personality and it is not just about the body that she is in.