The Exception to the Rule
Christina Lauren

What a cute story. A meet cute with a misspent email, half the short story is told through emails. It spans 10 years but is a quick read. I liked Terra and Callum.

Worst Wingman Ever
Abby Jimenez

This one had a few sad moments but the ships passing in the night was a clever premise. I would have liked this one to go on.

Rosie and the Dreamboat
Sally Thorne

I wish I would have liked this one more. The couple seemed a little mismatched and I had a hard time connecting to them or seeing their spark. And Rosie’s sour attitude put me off a little.

Drop Cover and Hold On
Jasmine Guillory

Maybe it was the shortness, but I didn’t like David. I want a swoon worthy male lead that I can dream about.

With Any Luck
Ashley Poston

I liked Audrey and her story. It was a cute premise, but probably would have worked better with more development, but liked what it was.

Royal Valentine
Sariah Wilson

This one felt a little like a Valentines inspired Hallmark movie.

Ok. So in all reality I only gave 5 stars to 3 of the books. But overall I did like the collection. So maybe a 4.5 stars in overall. A few good authors. (I'm not going to list who's who because I really don't want too call anybody out.) One that I absolutely LOVE to read! I will read anything she writes! One that I will never read again because unfortunately I did not like their story at all. And a couple that I wouldn't mind trying other books by them. Also a couple that I will be buying books by them to read. I had just never heard of them before now. So now on the stories!
Overall I feel like they were cute short stories. They had really good concept ideas. (Exept for one. I'm sorry that story really bummed me out. And I had a extremely hard time trying to stay awake to read it!) Thank you for letting me read these short stories. I did post a review for the stories individually on Goodreads. So if you want the full review you can always look there.

I ultimately gave The Improbable Meet-Cute Collection four stars, which is probably a little generous. This collection of Valentine's Day novellas is such a great idea - but I either really loved them, or really disliked them. Overall, I feel like these could have been better.

My Favorites: The Exception to the Rule by Christina Lauren and Worst Wingman Ever by Abby Jimenez

Just Okay: Royal Valentine by Sariah Wilson and With Any Luck by Ashley Poston

Skip These: Rosie and the Dreamboat by Sally Thorne and Drop, Cover, and Hold On by Jasmine Guillory

Absolutely loved this format! Even though each story was short in length, I was fully invested in the outcome. I had read Abby Jimenez, Christina Lauren and Jasmine Guillory before and had the opportunity to discover new authors which is always a welcome surprise. My favorite was Worst Wingman Ever (Abby can do no wrong in my eyes!) and would love a sequel!

This collection is so stinking adorable! It was exactly what I needed to bring joy into my life.

Each meet cute is short enough that when I needed a quick pick me up, they were perfect!

I didn’t read them right away, I spaced them out so when I was in a slump or needed to put a smile on my face, the improbable meet cute collection was waiting for me.

I absolutely loved the idea of this collection and each story brought its own thing which was great- i wasn’t reading the same thing over and over again.

Definitely recommend for a feel good, happy read!

This was such a fun book of books! I loved reading it to prepare for Valentine's Day. These are such great authors and it was so fun to read through their stories. Some of them were better than others, but overall, they were all great. Thank you for allowing me to read these!

I had a fun time reading these 5 meet-cute Valentine’s Day stories!

The Exception To The Rule - 5⭐️
This was my favourite in The Improbable Meet-Cute collection! I love books with email or text banter in them and I was grinning at my kindle the entire time I read this! The email pen-pal relationship spanning over years, somehow made this novella a successful slow burn. I then went on to read more Christina Lauren because it reminded me how great they are. If you can only read one, I highly recommend this as your Valentine’s Day read!

Worst Wingman Ever - 3.5⭐️
The anonymous notes and cute gestures in this one were my favourite part. I enjoyed the admirable characters, but I wouldn’t usually pick up a book with such heavy topics for Valentine’s Day reading. Trigger warnings for sick relative, death of a loved one and grief. The ending was very abrupt, I really feel like this one would have been better with more pages. The potential was there but I wanted more from it.

Rosie And The Dreamboat - 3⭐️
Super quick, random meet-cute story. This one felt pretty unrealistic, and insta-love to the extreme. Especially when it wrapped up so quick after they actually met. The nickname he kept calling her wasn’t my favourite. It was fine, if you’re looking for a quick read towards your Goodreads goal.

Stop, Drop And Hold On - 3⭐️
I liked the premise of this one, it was unique and I’d love to see it incorporated into a full length novel someday. Hate to love so often feels forced in contemporary romance and it felt that way to me here. I did enjoy when the hero shared his side of their story and we got to see the “he falls first” that we all know and love.

With Any Luck - 4⭐️
This one had My Best Friends Wedding meets The Hangover meets Good Luck Chuck vibes and I had a really fun time with it! I’m a huge fan of My Best Friends Wedding so I liked the nods to it without being the same. Read this one to reach your Goodreads goals, or break yourself out of a reading slump!

Royal Valentine - 4.5⭐️
I really liked this one! It definitely leans towards instalove but it worked well for me here. I felt like Sariah did a great job with the tension and chemistry between these two. I knew she had convinced me when I got teary in a book with less than 100 pages. She is a new to me author and I’ll definitely be reading more from her.

Thank you to Amazon Original Stories and NetGalley for the ARC to review! All opinions are my own.

✨Improbable Meet Cute✨

Exception to the Rule
Christina Lauren
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Here they go doing it again. 👏🏻This book was adorable. The emailing back and forth and build up of the relationship over the years was perfect. I was very invested in them finally meeting!
The banter between the two had me giggling. This novella had me feeling all the emotions in such a short book.

The Worst Wing Man
Abby Jiminez
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was my favorite of the whole collection. I could not stop laughing and for less than 100 pages I thought it was the whole package.
The importance of family and their interactions were my favorite! I felt connected to the characters even in a novella, which is hard to do. Now Abby can I have the rest of this book!
Home Depot 🤣🤣 & the Tile Aisle


Rosie and the Dreamboat
Sally Thorne
⭐️⭐️⭐️

While I was working through this one I loved that most of it happened while they weren’t able to even see each other. But the more I think about it I didn’t like that she was so insecure of herself. It seemed like she was looking for his validation.

Drop Cover and Hold On
Jasmine Guillory
⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love a book where he falls first. That being said I didn’t really connect with this one. I’m not sure how he thought he was acting like he liked her while being rude, grumpy and barely interacting with her.

With Any Luck
Ashley Poston
⭐️⭐️⭐️

The storyline for this one was cute and had so much potential. I love the fact that their two best friends were getting married. I think if this one was a little longer it could have been a lot better! Love the play on their names Love and Luck.

Royal Valentine
Sariah Wilson
⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve never read a book by Sariah Wilson but would love to look into her other books. I enjoyed the small cross over with Exception to the Rule. The way these two met was far fetched but cute! Of course it had a cute ending but I wasn’t very impressed with the third act breakup in such a short book.

There were a few things I did enjoy about this series.
1. The books were quick and very easy reads. It was nice to be able to read many of them in one sitting.
2. I love the variety of authors, as well as the fact that three authors were new for me.
3. The Valentine’s Day theme made for a cute February read.

I did find the love story in some of them a bit far fetched or rushed. I think it is a bit of a stretch when two people who just met an hour ago are suddenly in love. I think that’s the hard part of short stories, being able to read along as two people fall in love. A few of the short stories in this just weren’t for me, but I’m not much of a hopeless romantic.

I absolutely loved Christina Lauren’s story The Exception to the Rule as well as Jasmine Guillory’s story Stop Drop and Hold On. I liked the email aspect in TETTR, as that was not something I had read before. At first I was worried the whole story would be in emails, so I was glad it eventually switched to changing POVs. In SDAHO, I absolutely adored Daisy and her sense of humor.

Thanks to Net galley and the publisher for an ARC!

This was a great way to read something by authors I haven't read before to get a feeling if I would enjoy their other books.

I wished I really enjoyed all of the short stories but that wasn't the case this time which is sad.

My top two was The Exception to the Rule by Christina Lauren and Worst Wingman Ever by Abby Jimenez. After reading their novels I can happily say I will read more by these authors because OMG their writing was so good and their stories was funny and made me fall in love literary from the first pages.

Thank you so much for letting me read all these short stories which lead me to find new authors to fall in love with.

This collection of short stories started off so strong but after the fourth one I lost interest, I am setting this aside for now, I may just be overdoing it on rom coms and just cannot appreciate these to their fullest. Overall I loved the concept.

What a great collection, from some of my favorite romance authors! This was a perfect warm-up to Valentines Day. The stories felt substantial and pulled out all the emotions a full novel would.

This collection of short stories is fun all the way through! Note: pay careful attention to the links between each of the stories! I’m a huge Abby J., Jasmine G. and Christina L. fan so I was psyched to read this, and the stories did not disappoint! Each story was funny, sweet, and steamy at times. Short stories are so fun when you only have a few minutes to read. These authors did a great job building interesting, heartwarming plots and resolving everything in this short format. Highly recommend!

The Exception to the Rule ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The back and forth emails were so fun. The fact that it was a novella but spanned over 10 years… I needed this one to be a whole entire book 🥹 100 pages was just not enough. One of my 2024 reading goals is to read more Christina Lauren!

Worst Wingman Ever ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Despite being only 57 pages, this didn’t feel like it was rushed or lacking anything. I laughed. I cried. I realized I would read Abby’s grocery list if she published it 🤣 She can do no wrong and I LOVE all her books so much.

Rosie and the Dreamboat ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I ignored my claustrophobia and really enjoyed this one! The humor and banter between the characters was great. And again, this one wasn’t lacking a deep storyline despite being 40 pages

Drop, Cover, and Hold On ⭐️⭐️

I loved the *idea* of this one… two people, who supposedly hate each other, trapped in a bakery after an earthquake. However, it DID feel too short, and moved a little too quickly. It just missed the mark for me unfortunately.

With Any Luck ⭐️⭐️

This one reminded so much of something that would be a romcom movie. It even had a little bit of suspense, and thought it was headed in another direction, so I wasn’t expecting the little twist. However it moved a little too quick and had too much backstory for a short story, so it wasn’t my favorite.

Royal Valentine ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was not personally my favorite type of story, maybe since it was about royalty? But it was super cute, and gave Hallmark vibes. It was well written and had a good balance of giving plenty of information, but not dragging on too much.

This same review will be posted on my Instagram page in the next few days

These were cute romance stories set around Valentine’s Day. My favorite was The Worst Wingman Ever. They all were shorts, but it was fun to read something fun from some of the best romance writers.

This was such a great collection of short stories! Here is a short review for each story:

The Exception to the Rule:
This short story reminded me just how much I love Christina Lauren! This was cute, romantic, funny, relatable... I loved it so much and was so sad when I ran out of pages! My only complaint is honestly that I want a full book with this couple!

Content warnings: death of a parent

Worst Wingman Ever:
I did not expect a 60 page story to hit so hard. This was just so cute and shows how even a stranger can impact your life in such a significant way. I am so happy these characters found each other! I also can't wait to check out some of Jimenez's other works.

This quote will stay with me for a while: “𝚃𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚞𝚗𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜. 𝙸𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚘𝚗’𝚝 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎, 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎 𝚒𝚝.”

Content warnings: terminal illness, death of a loved one, grief

Rosie and the Dreamboat:

Parts of this story were super cute and I loved, other parts were a little cringe I'm not gonna lie. The MMC's last name being husband? SUPER CUTE given the jokes between the two sisters. The FMC staying stuck in a spa pod thing with slimy goo... Not so much. Also not so cute that he calls her Rosie Clamshell... The FMC's sister ditching her to finish the spa day like that was also not cool...

Content warnings: confinement (think claustrophobic conditions), bullying

Drop, Cover and Hold On:

I love both Grumpy x sunshine and books with characters who are bakers but this one somehow didn't work for me. I couldn't connect with the characters... That being said, it did make me very hungry! I read this as part of The Improbably Meet-Cute collection and thought this was the weakest story of the bunch.

Content warnings: sexual content, fatphobia, confinement due to natural disaster.

With Any Luck:

I enjoyed this story, it gives some hangover vibes. The dislike to lovers vibes creates some hot tension and I would've read a whole book about this couple!

Royal Valentine:
This was a cute take on a classic story - the swap between royalty and a commoner. This story was pretty instalove but the couple was so cute and I got such wanderlust that I didn't care haha. As it is, the MMC's reasons for "breaking up" are pretty weak but I would've loved to read a full length book about this couple.


Overall, The Improbable Meet-Cute collection was super fun to read and perfect for Valentine's! A huge thanks to Amazon Originals and NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

This is a fun collection of cute romance short stories by a group of well-known authors. I especially loved the stories by Christina Lauren and Abby Jimenez. This collection is worth it just for those two delightful tales.The others are an okay enough way to pass the time as well.

Thank you Christina Lauren, Abby Jimenez, Sally Thorne, Jasmine Guillory, Ashley Poston, Sariah Wilson, Amazon Original Stories, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

Need a quick read for Valentine's? This is it. By far this was the most enjoyable collection of Amazon curated stories I have read. I have read them all. I think this idea of giving them same prompt to multiple current authors is so fun. This "meet-cute" theme was done perfectly by EVERY SINGLE AUTHOR! Each story is completely unique. In 100 pages or less, you meet the characters, they meet each other, and you are left with happily-ever after. It was so refreshing to read. I have already recommended this to others who have started and love it was well. If you are Prime member, it is a free read. Go get it now!!

This is a collection of short romance novellas that give you the feeling you have after you enjoyed the most decadent dessert flight.

All six stories are varied on the steam level while being connected by a Valentine’s Day theme. I usually want MORE pages, but the novella format was surprisingly satisfying. Each story was a sweet escape with some of my favorite romance authors.

An ideal read for February.

This was a cute collection. These stories were fun and sweet. An eclectic mix of authors, characters, tropes, and plots were great. The meet-cute was the theme on hand and they're intriguing that's for sure. I did want some of them to be a little longer because I wanted more from the characters. These were all feel-good romances that will hit the nice spot and a nice Valentine reads.