Yard wars that take competition to a new level of love and hate! A fun enemies to lovers rom com that will have you giggling into the wee hours of the morning if you like to read at night like I do! The narration really brought the characters and their angst to life. Dating as a confident, career minded woman who is confident in her body size can be difficult on a good day, but the dates our girl suffers through are absolutely hilariously bad. I love a book that delivers a strong confident woman with intelligence as well as wit and this book absolutely delivered. Our lead male character was also lovable, but the war between the characters is what makes this book so good. The neighborhood squad of older ladies is also a hoot! This author did such a great job of weaving delightfully quirky and loveable characters. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next for us. Now, you could read this book as a stand alone, but I highly recommend reading the Rom Com Agenda first as it will start building the backstory of the characters in the book and there is some overlap. I also want to point out that this book and the authors book, It's Probably You, are the same book so no need to purchase both unless you just want both titles on your shelf. Overall, fun read or rather listen in my case, and I can't wait to read the next book in the series as we absolutely need to know what is going on between Delia and Gray.

After being happily divorced for several years, Gillian is ready to begin dating again in a world where dates are found via apps and dating sites. While dodging fat shamers and men who just fall short, Gillian tends to her garden in hopes of winning this year’s small town contest. In need of a change of scene, Noah West relocates to Willow Cove and becomes Gillian’s neighbor. Noah does not make a great first impression with Gillian and soon the two clash with every encounter. Noah decides to enter the garden contest-even though he doesn’t know the first thing about keeping a plant alive. The two engage in a fiery competition fueled by small town drama and past hurts. Will the two move past their differences and accept their growing attraction for each other? Hedging Your Bets is a laugh-out-loud romantic comedy that you won’t want to miss.

Narrated by Katelyn Levering and Nick Mondelli. Both narrators are the perfect fit for Gillian and Noah. They brought the characters to life in the most entertaining way.

Gillian is a pharmacist in the adorable small town of Willow Cove. She loves her community, friends, and garden, and she is determined to win the first-place trophy in this year’s garden contest. The only thing missing in her life is someone to share it with. It’s been years since her divorce, and after much cajoling from her friends and the group of retired ladies in her neighborhood, she decides to try out the dating scene. Multiple dating apps and massively failed dates later, Gillian is starting to lose hope in finding someone extraordinary.

Meanwhile, Noah West needed some significant change in his life. After his relationship with Corinne fell flat, he decided to sell his business and move across the country to the small town where he spent several summers of his adolescent years. He buys the marina where he worked as a teen and expects his new direction in life to be smooth sailing. Unfortunately, he starts on the wrong foot with his neighbor, Gillian. He soon discovers everyone in town adores Gillian, and he’s just made himself more enemies than just his next-door neighbor.

Hedging Your Bets is a cute, enemies-to-lovers, small-town rom-com. The gardening theme and community competition were fun, and I loved Gillian’s spunky personality. Gillian, the FMC, is plus-sized, and while this is a theme of the novel, it isn’t the main focus. I appreciated Gillian’s no-nonsense attitude toward other’s unwarranted opinions.

While I enjoyed this overall, it was kind of just average to me. I don’t have any big complaints, but nothing felt overwhelmingly unique or special, either. I gave it 3.5 stars but rounded up to 4.

I switched between the audio and ebook versions. I listened to at least 75% of the story and liked the narration. I loved that there were two narrators, one for Gillian’s chapters and one for Noah’s.

Thank you @dreamscapemedia, @netgalley, and @stmartinspress, for the gifted ALC and ARC.

Read as an audiobook performed by Katelyn Levering and Nick Mondelli.

He’s looking for a new start. She’s looking for a lasting romance. Their neighborly relationship is threatened as they lock horns immediately upon meeting, yet can’t seem to stop running into each other.

This was an easy-to-read book that I flew through. The narrators of this audiobook picked the perfect voices for their characters, greatly emphasizing their on-page personalities. The story flows well and the author did a good job of giving us enough detail to understand where we were, but not so much that I felt bogged down. The book addressed some social issues with body image and fat-phobia, but it was more of a background than a main theme most of the time.

Usually, I find enemies to lovers a difficult trope for contemporary stories, but in this case the main couple were very much enemies during a large portion of the book. So much so that it seemed excessive at times, and there was a brief period where I had trouble rooting for either of the characters. Without getting into spoilers, the book did pick up for me in the second half, so that complaint soon vanished and the ending made the difficult portions more than worth it for me.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this ARC. This is my honest review.

Flowers, relationships, and garden gnomes. 4/5

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I was pleasantly surprised when I started this book to find that it was set in my favorite place in the world, the 1000 Island region in upstate NY. Unfortunately, that's about all I liked about this book. The characters had no real chemistry, and it went from a friendly neighbor conflict to a mob feel when an angry lady showed up and ordered the man into her vehicle. Come on now.

3.5 rounded up

A vitrually no-spice, small town romance with a haters-to-daters trope. With fairy godmothers coming in at the to save the day. Cute, but I'm here for the gardening.

I could have spent all day with the two MCs in the garden center, and would have rather done that than hear about all the creeps on dating apps. Surely we can do better for a plot than bashing of people?

Overall the premise was interesting, but if I wasn't a gardener I don't know if the story would be engaging enough to keep me reading.

Audiobook was well narrated with duel narrators for the two MCs. Clear and easy to listen to.

There was more back and forth of hatred and lust than I typically like in a romance novel, but it was cute.

I had a bit of trouble getting into this at the beginning. I kept starting over but as it progressed I began to enjoy the story.

Noah had just moved to Willow Cove after a nasty break-up and happened to move in next door to Gillian. A big believer in minimalist design and that the best kind of plants are non-flowering, he knew as soon as he met his neighbor that they were going to clash on just about everything.

I loved seeing them move from awkward interactions to heated arguments, to indifference, to friendship 😂 They both had walls put up from previous relationships so wearing each other down was beautiful to see.

They didn't stay enemies for long though as I had thought they would. Noah was quick to fold and tried to make amends all the while slowly developing feelings for Gillian. Poor thing also suffered from allergies so Gillian being a pharmacist definitely came in handy 😂

I absolutely enjoyed the audiobook for this one. The narrators both did an amazing job and kept me entertained. I didn't read book one though so I'm definitely going to.

Thank you to Netgalley and Publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hedging Your Bets is a fun enemies-to-lovers rom-com featuring a plus-sized female lead and a hot male lead.

They each had their own insecurities that led them to assume the other wouldn't be interested, so they engaged in verbal sparing instead. While it started out as justified anger on Gillian's part when Noah ripped out the hedge between their properties, the emotions ran the gamut after that. But I enjoyed the highs and lows they each experienced and the levity that their nosey and meddling elderly neighbors delivered as well.

Overall, a well-rounded romance with a bit of closed-door spice and backyard fireworks.

Thank you to Jayne Denker, Dreamscape Media, and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

This was an adorably sweet romance full of heart and joy. I enjoyed the relationship growth between the two main characters. The main thing enjoyed? COMMUNICATION. They communicated their problems and worked them out together. It was a refreshing change from the third act breakup in this genre. There was no *spice* but that's just a personal preference and I was able to enjoy the story for what it was. I also liked that the main character was plus sized. The problems and feelings she had were very realistic and I was happy to see that explored. I will look out for this author in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for this ARC.

3.5-4/5 Stars - I had been looking for a cute romance where there was no third-act breakup and instead the couple communicates and works together and this was exactly that! I honestly never thought I'd enjoy a book about a gardening contest so much, but this was very well done! Such a cozy enemies-to-lovers story where you get both povs!

Closed-door steam.

A great enemies to lovers romcom with characters that you just wanted to end up together. I loved the inclusion and the fight over flowers! It was a great listen (so much so I binged it in a day!) Looking forward to more like this.

Honest review. The book had so much potential. There was so much superficial randomness going on. Noah owned and ran an art dealership, yet he is the most plain, boring, humdrum, white t-shirt wearing 30 something guy. His relationship with his ex was pointless. Well, them still communicating with eachother was. Noah was just so generic.
Gillian honestly seems lost. Her whole life revolves around dating and her garden. She hates dating, doesn't want to date, but goes on dates with what feels like multiple times a day. Everyone in the town loves her, yet no one wants to date her. Her garden is never fully explained/described. For some reason she is a pharmacist. She hallucinates.
Now the character Louise Marsh is freaking ridiculous. She has body guards!? In what they keep saying is the smallest town ever!? She OPENLY hates Gillian because she has boobs. Made illegal deals about tax money that was due. WHAT IS GOING ON IN THIS BOOK!?

Jayne Denker had written an adorable enemies to lovers romance. Noah and Jillian start off on the wrong door as neighbors when Noah removed a hedge. They found many ways to agree to disagree. Slowly they find common ground, and the HEA is just totally sweet. The novel is based in northwestern NY, and they're is a particular accent known to that area, the female narrator represents that beautifully.

Thank you to NetGalley & Dreamscape Media for the ALC!

💚Enemies to lovers
💚Fat FMC
💚Divorce

❌CW: fat shaming

Hedging Your Bets is a funny rom-com. The banter and antics between Gillian and Noah were funny. I loved the group of older ladies on the street. Overall this was a pretty light read, even though there is some drama. It wasn’t too deep. No descriptive sex scenes if anyone is looking for that type of book. The narrators did a good job. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was the “Inner Betty” parts of the story. It didn’t feel 100% necessary for the plot and I don’t think it was explained well. I liked the ending of the story and how everything was resolved!

This was fine! Nothing earth-shattering, but it was easy to listen to while I was doing other things and had zero steam, which is ideal to me in an audio book. The main issue I had was that I didn't feel like I cared overly much about any of the characters. I felt like Gillian's personality was basically Ken, just swap out Garden for Beach and you're all set. Noah was kind of a dummy -- he bought a marina that he doesn't know how to run and acts like a giant jackass to everyone, but gets to coast along on his hot white man charm and somehow always comes out on top with everyone loving him and new business ventures available for him to pursue.

I love that Gillian was a lusted after fat lady, but the constant reminders of her boundless energy, clean health record, and stamina that can outpace her muscular love interest felt a little too pointedly coded to justify her joyful existence in her larger body to people in smaller bodies as "She is a *Good* Fat Person and Not One of Those Bad Fat People Who Deserve Diabetes." That said, I fully appreciate the author's intent to show fat ladies living their best lives free of shame and reiterating that body size does not equate to health. I love books with fat lady protagonists (and admit to being nitpicky when it comes to this scenario) - I just wish there'd been less (what felt like to me) pandering to a straight sized audience.

(( yet again, the audiobook ISBN is not appearing on Goodreads ))

What a cute book! I love the quaint setting of Willow Cove and loved all the residents we got to meet along the way throughout the story. Well except Gillian’s dating app guys and Louise who was the actual worst!

I don’t super enjoy the enemies to lovers trope so the first part was a bit tedious but that’s just my own feelings on that and I enjoyed the book a lot once they decided to make peace and make out. The gnome was such a cute running joke throughout the story and the scene where he dances in the window for her using the gnome in a creative and adorable way. It started as a peace offering that wasn’t quite appreciated but became the adorable symbol of love between them.

I enjoyed the whole gardening contest but also wondered if there is such a thing. I was shocked that this Louise character hated Gillian as much as she did and the lengths she was willing to go to make sure she didn’t win. These people don’t play when it comes to gardening.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book and enjoyed the two narrators that voiced Noah and Gillian. They both did an excellent job of bringing their characters to life as well as the others as well.

I would definitely love to revisit Willow Cove in the future and get an update on Gillian and Noah as either the main story or as side characters for the next couple that takes centre stage.

I received an early audiobook version of the book through NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was thrilled to be returning to Willow Cove and another love story with a gorgeous group of friends. I listened to this as an audiobook and I loved both Katelyn Levering and Nick Mondelli from Dreamscape Media. Listening to the two main characters cope with their developing feelings for each other was great. I also enjoyed the plus sized rep of the FMC. I really felt for Noah when he spoke with his ex-girlfriend's son. Ugh, I did not like the ex-girlfriend. I hope we get more from Willow Cove! Low spice was disappointing as you really feel the build up.

Big thanks to Netgalley, Dreamscape Media and Jayne Denker for this early release copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book was an incredibly cute romantic comedy! The characters were witty and had decent personalities. The group of older lady neighbors (especially Judy) added some real fun to the book. The plot was interesting, although I think it could’ve been reworked a little. The obsession with pharmacy as a career to start and then basically disappearing by the end led to some discontinuity along with the Aiden plot stopping. The time jumps could’ve been handled a little better but I really hated inner Betty making several appearances. It was completely unnecessary. Overall, I still really enjoyed this book and think it’s great for a fun read! The audiobook was a great way to listen! 3.75⭐️, 1.75🌶

What a fun enemies-to-lovers rom com! Things I really enjoyed: The banter between the main character that were neighbors. The gardening plot line. The relatability of the on-line dating and small town dating disaster references. The male narrator. The “Old Ladies Gang” characters. Things I rolled my eyes at: Inner Betty as a “character”.