I'm not sure how to find the words for how much I loved this book but here goes. I was excited about the premise because in this day and age, yes, we love queer love in historical romances. Now, I did read the first book of this series but didn't finish it because I was a little squeamish about the main couple ending up as stepsisters... I still felt parts of that in this book because the main couple are cousin-in-laws ?? but I warmed up to it really fast. Especially, when in the end, everyone came to the exact conclusion I pulled within a couple of pages. (and don't get me started on the epilogue, I squealed so much, I almost cried.) One thing, I want to say is that I definitely don't think this counts as enemies to lovers. The term 'enemies' in a non-fantasy/sci-fi setting usually isn't fitting at all and even then I'm not sure I would call James and Bobby rivals. They just simply don't agree on a couple of things and misunderstand each other. Nevertheless, I very quickly got attached to all of the characters and read this book a lot faster than planned. I also could've done with an entire book about them 'conning the ton' but that's neither here nor there!

I had to wait for the library hold on Don’t Want You Like A Best Friend, even though the stories are stand alone I wanted to read that!

I loved this story immediately, miscommunication tropes can be a bit much but this was perfect!

I also loved the Taylor reference in the title! Such a great queer story, can’t wait to see more of what this author puts out!

I don't know man. I know the previous book suffered from the insta love but I felt it with this one. It felt worse cause James and Bobby had an enemies-to-lovers situation that bugged me (they weren't technically enemies but there was a miscommunication thing which I hated). I guess I didn't care about the two characters unfortunately which led to a very meh story.

Also thought James and the one villain dude were the same characters cause their last names were so similar.

beautiful cover
slightly better than the one before it
once again, too modern i don’t know why but like when i’m reading a book like this i’m not expecting the wording to be millennial ? if that makes sense
anyway lovedddd the anger part like that’s THE foreplay
thank you netgalley and publisher for an opportunity to read and review this
review is my own!

Mein Leseerlebnis

Beim Lesen des historischen Liebesromans habe ich mich durch das gesamte Buch hindurch etwas schwer getan, in einen guten Lesefluss zu kommen. Das lag primär daran, dass beide Helden auf mich etwas schwer zu greifen waren und ich mich auch mit dem historischen Setting nicht immer leicht getan habe.

Die Geschichte war an sich frisch und außergewöhnlich. Es gibt eine interessante Mischung aus humorvollen Szenen, aber auch ernstere Themen werden angesprochen. Dabei wirkte der Humor auf mich teils, aber nicht immer komplett überzeugend.

In der zweiten Hälfte des Romans habe ich einige Szenen vermisst, in denen die beiden Helden ganz in Ruhe und ohne Drama im Hintergrund Zeit für sich hatten. Gefühlt war immer etwas los, was die Liebesgeschichte etwas überschattet hat. Darauf aufbauend bin ich mit der Liebesgeschichte zwischen den beiden Helden nicht so ganz warm geworden.

Rückblickend hat die interessante und frische Geschichte meinen Geschmack leider nur teils getroffen. Ich konnte mir die Hauptcharaktere nicht immer als echte Personen vorstellen konnte und habe zudem mit den Umständern der Zeit gehadert. Ich weiß schon, warum ich eher selten zu historical romances greife.

🖤🖤🖤 1/4

Für wen?

Wer historische Liebesromane mag, in denen viel los ist und sich zwei eher gegensätzliche Männer ineinander verlieben, für den könnte das Buch eine schöne Sache sein.

A Modern Twist on Historical Romance

As someone who generally shies away from historical fiction due to the often confusing hierarchies and plethora of titles, Emma Alban’s series has truly been a delightful surprise. I first dipped my toes into this world with the audiobook of “Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend,” but quickly realized that these books are best savored through a good old-fashioned reading. The audiobook serves wonderfully as a supplemental experience, enriching the novel’s charm.

I ended up reading both books back to back, and it made a world of difference, especially since the second book picks up almost immediately where the first one ends. Alban’s approach to historical romance is refreshingly modern, giving her stories a new adult vibe of inclusivity during a period in time that is all about exclusivity.

Emma Alban does a fantastic job of making her characters feel alive and engaging. Bobby Mason, always the overlooked second son, and James Demeroven, the newly minted but deeply insecure Viscount, are both incredibly compelling. Their dynamic is fiery and intense, with their constant clashing and undeniable chemistry making for a page-turning read.

The meddling cousins, Beth and Gwen, add a delightful touch of humor and mischief, ensuring that Bobby and James are continually thrown together in the most entertaining ways. The added twist of an extortionist targeting their families ups the stakes and keeps the plot moving at a brisk pace.

You know you have a great novel in your hands when you find yourself shaking the book in frustration or excitement because of the characters’ actions. Emma Alban’s “The Enemies-to-Lovers Queer Victorian Romance Follow-Up” is a perfect example of this. It’s a story that demands to be read, enjoyed, and revisited. For fans of historical romance with a modern twist, this duology is not to be missed.

Thank you Avon and Harper Voyager, NetGalley, and Emma R. Alban for this eARC!

This queer Victorian romance is a follow up to Alban's "Don't Want You Like A Best Friend," and as such includes many of the same characters. If you enjoyed them last time, get excited to jump back into their world! The story follows Bobby Mason and James Demeroven, two Victorian gentlemen who have everything they could want on the surface, but a lot of disappointment underneath. Not the least of which is their inability to live as themselves in a restrictive, largely homophobic society. Can the two put aside their differences to protect their families from an extortionist? And maybe even fall in love along the way?

This was a very fun book, with a sweet plot and a bit of spice, plus plenty of drama. For me, it felt a bit slow, but I do think that's fitting with the Victorian era it depicts. I think it will probably resonate more with avid romance readers.

DNF at 60%

I really tried to like this book since the premise and cover were SO good. Unfortunately this book was not for me. I didn’t particularly enjoy the writing style and wished there was just a bit more to it. The plot didn’t feel like a whole storyline and perhaps if a third book comes out in the series it’ll continue on, but for me it fell flat. I did enjoy James character but I think the setting wasn’t right for his character.
I think my main issue was that I wanted these characters to be able to love each other. The author decided to keep an accurate Victorian Period which means that queer relationships were not accepted publicly. But I feel like that didn’t make this necessarily feel like a romance novel. It would’ve been cool if maybe she did a twist on the Victorian period and made the idea of queer relationships being public just a normal thing instead of the characters being in hiding. I do think that one change would’ve made me like the book a lot more, but I do give her props for making it historically accurate. I just like when my characters get to be themselves everywhere and not just in private. It’s a me problem, not this books problem.
Other than that, it just wasn’t for me. I think I was expecting something different going into this story and when it didn’t deliver I felt meh towards it.

A huge thank you to Netgalley and Avon Romance for allowing me an arc of this book and the chance to review it.

Torn between 2 and 2.5 stars but let me preface by saying I loved this author's debut novel. This one fell flat for me. I'm not going to write a novel on everything I disliked but I will give a short list:

Characters seemed 2 dimensional and oftentimes just unbelievable
I overlooked some of the modern language use in the first book but it really bothered me in this one.
The plot is relatively the same
I had to talk myself into reading it/finishing it

Now for some of the things I enjoyed:

Some great introspective lines
Funny moments
Relatively cute romance
Diversity in a time that lacked diversity

My favorite quote:
"Home isn't somewhere he belongs. And he wants to belong somewhere." 🥺
The above quote really encapsulated the heart of this story. It's about finding your place, in a way that is true and authentic. James and Bobby's journey was so sweet and relatable, there were multiple times where I had to drag my eyes away and just breathe through the emotion. It is hard enough to be queer NOW. I can't even imagine how hard it was 170 years ago. Alban is a new author, and her books will be ones I am going to look for moving forward. 💖 Highly recommend!

You're the Problem picks up where the final scene of Don't Want You Like a Best Friend leaves off, but from the perspective of Bobby Mason, a side character from the first story that is also gay. At the beginning of the story, he’s feeling disconnected from his brother and sister-in-law due to his brother taking over the family title and sister-in-law facing a difficult pregnancy in the country. Beth’s cousin, James, has also come to town after inheriting the viscount title from her father. Beth and Gwen start scheming to set up Bobby and James after seeing the looks between the two at the first ball of the season, but things don’t go quite as planned when their very different personalities, backgrounds, and values collide.

When compared to the first book, I did enjoy this one more. There was more relationship buildup and a lot more spice. I also felt like the stakes were higher with the final solution being less obvious (from the character's perspective). However, it was very difficult for me to sympathize with James’s actions and frankly horrible personality for 80% of the story. I think being around Bobby’s family throughout the first book helped me sympathize with him more, even when I thought he was being stupid. James was just downright mean at times. This story also suffers from a similar issue as the first. The romantic feelings appear at the flip of a switch. Besides the sudden change, I enjoyed James's character growth and the relationship building for the polycule, not just the main couple of this story. The ending was very cute and sweet and just what I wanted for our 4 LGBTQ characters.

A good follow up to Don’t Want You Like A Best Friend, and a good Victorian era romance. I really enjoyed the relationship between Bobby and James for the most part, but I did find that it got frustrating at times. I actually love miscommunication in books because it causes tension and tension moves the story along, but at some point it becomes repetitive, and that happened here. It got to the point I felt it was keeping me from seeing them ever truly bond, which was a bit of a bummer. This also impacted my opinion on the pacing of the book. I felt it started slow, then was going ok, and then got choppy as it went back and forth over and over again. Overall, I did enjoy this but I had some large opinions. I’d still recommend it and I’m really happy to see that we have books with this kind of representation. I also found the intimacy was done well and the rep was handled well. I’m still going to purchase a physical copy for my personal collection and I’m interested in reading further work from this author, so overall I would rate this 3.5 stars.

I want to start off by saying I think I would have enjoyed this one a lot more if I had realized up front that it was the second book in a series. I thought maybe they were supposed to be interconnected stand-alones, but there was definitely a lot I missed out on from the first book in terms of the world bulding and character relations. This made the pacing of the novel a bit slow for me, and it took me a bit to get into the story.

Once I was able to get into the story, I did enjoy it! We follow Bobby and James, who desperately want to find where they belong in their society. James struggles to step up to the responsibilities he has in parliament while living in the shadow of his stepfather. Bobby struggles to find a name for himself as the second son in his family. While initially Bobby and James thought they could bond and become friends, some miscommunication makes them rivals. Thankfully, their cousins Gwen and Beth see what they are pretending not to and not so subtly force them together again and again.

Quickly, the quad became inseparable and realized together, they can take on pressures of society and find their happily ever afters.

Definitely check this one out if you enjoy:
Historical Romance
Dual POV
Rivals to friends to lovers
Found Family
Meddling matchmaking

Thank you, Netgalley, for an eARC of this novel in exchange for a review!

Thank you NetGalley, Emma R. Alban, and Avon and Harper Voyager for this ARC. As someone who read and enjoyed (for the most part) the first in this series, I was excited to see where the story of Bobby and James would go. The tropes – like enemies to lovers – were executed wonderfully, and overall it was just a really sweet book. Much like the first book, it is well-written and has a little bit of something for all kinds of readers. Would certainly recommend, especially as a duology!

3.5 (Rounded up for my girls Gwen and Beth <3)

The drama, the yearning, the self doubt and never relenting fear of becoming the very thing you hate. I ate this book and what it served me right up BUT I did leave some crumbs.

James and Bobby were equally frustrating and captivating to watch dance around each other in this book. The push and pull between them made me want to take little voodoo dolls of them and make them hug or something (a sentiment I’m sure Beth and Gwen relate to). The big bad of this book (namely the man blackmailing our duo) fell a bit flat to me but still I felt the stakes for these two rise. And though I ADORED Jame and Bobby together, I do wish we could have seen them falling for one another more clearly. Really give me that desperate pathetic yearning that Gwen and Beth got to experience, ya know?

This being the second of a duology I must admit it was difficult to jump into having had some time passed since reading the first - This is a duo meant to be read together lest you spend a great deal of this book going “who is that?” and “what is their title?” or even “Oh - I did not realize that was the same character - why do people of the Ton have so many different names for one person!?”. Once I’d given myself a refresher it was incredibly rewarding to revisit my favorite characters from “Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend” and see how they were faring this next season!


All in all, this little found family that Alban brought to life has wormed their way into my heart. I’ve been charmed by each of them and though I’m sad to see them go, I am so grateful to have their stories concluded in such a beautiful way that did justice to the individual characters and their stories.

As a final note: The first of this series was titled with Taylor Swift lyrics and this one is as well … I see your play on “Anti-Hero” and I raise you “Long Story Short”. Do with this information as you will.

Special thanks to Netgalley and Avon for the ARC - I am leaving this review voluntarily!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I really enjoyed this book! Like the other book in this series, the author gives so much attention to the nuances of the characters lives and the challenges that faced queer people in the past (and still experience in the here and now). I love the fine line that exists between attraction and antagonism. And then it grows into a beautiful love story! I wish the ending had focused a little more on the main couple in the book, but it a good happy ending that really highlights the importance of found family.

Im not huge on cutesy romances but this was definitely worth the read and super cute! I loved the dynamics between the characters and the way the story unfolded. I think this is a great little queer romance for all ages over 13.

Thank you NetGalley, Emma R. Alban, and Avon and Harper Voyager for the opportunity to receive an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Emma R. Alban once again knocks it out of the park. I was riveted and engaged, my heart was torn and then put back together again… multiple times.. But all for good reason. Getting to know Bobby Mason and James Demeroven as the main characters after having had the wonderful privilege of seeing them first in Don’t Want You Like A Best Friend was beautiful and magical and this duology is one I will recommend far and wide. The meddling family members, standing up for themselves, the self discovery, and my goodness the commitment to finding a way to live authentically in a world that wouldn’t have allowed it- I LOVE! Gosh, there were so many pieces to this and getting to know each Bobby and James and their enemies to lovers arc with their meddling cousins and complex family history while also trying to handle potential blackmailing- there so much to unpack. And I didn’t even mention the absolutely epic closure giving Bobby, James, Gwen, and Beth the opportunity to each live with their life partners but in a publicly facing acceptable charade. While this is connected to Don’t Want You Like A Best Friend it absolutely can be read independently! I finished and thought- there could not be a better happily ever after in this context and historical setting, what a joy to witness.

The enemies to lovers was executed with so much angst and pining and (eventually) wholesomeness, and I really liked the hea! While book 1 did have a hea on its own, this book rounded it out really well with a conclusion, and the epilogue was everything I wanted 🥲

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

This is a very fun follow-up to Alban’s Don’t Want You Like A Best Friend, I would definitely recommend reading that title first since the characters and stories overlap!

A lively queer historical romance with a lot of heart, these characters are a joy to spend time with and root for as they find their way forward together. Both main characters, Bobby and James, have had past trauma around their sexuality and “worth” in society, and both do face harassment and cruel words from people close to them, so be forewarned. There is a great deal of tension between the two at first, with excellent payoff when they do realize their true feelings for each other. A fun, quick read that left me smiling.