Rating: 4/5
I received an eARC for my honest opinion.

This book is about Chelsea and her freedom of commitment when it comes to love, and life choices. Her therapist suggested that she make a list of things that she wouldn’t normally do and slowly work on checking them off. With the help of her best friend, she can get more than she would have ever thought, and with the help of her bff who supports her she adds things onto the list that she wouldn’t normally do. This has them going to a bar and picking up two very sexy men and from there you will watch the story unfold.

This book was a fun read. I liked the plot, the characters were interesting, it was dual POV, romance, he falls first and a sexy Greek male. The pace of the book was consistent, I really enjoyed the titled chapters, and they were always something to do with the list and checking. I thought Marlowe’s writing style was great and flowed.

The characters were great alone, but I did feel that it with Chelsea and Basil was a little off, and only at times. Other times I loved their story and I love the growth that both of the characters had by the end of the book and throughout it as well. Chelsea was really annoying to me at the beginning, and I just hated her attitude but the more and more that I got to know her character I could understand why she acted the way that she did. You will come to see Chelsea is just really a stubborn, hardheaded FMC. Basil was a great choice for her because he had so much patience and understanding but he still had things to work on in his own life. I liked that they both were there helping and pushing each other to be the best version of themselves.

If you love rom coms, with a strong FMC, banter, laughter, learning to heal past trauma, travels and a sexy Greek male you should read this book.

I want to thank NetGalley and Entangled for the opportunity to review this book.

I love Mary Ann Marlowe, her books have the perfect amount of adventure, spicy, humour and romance.

This book follows the story of Chelsea and Elizabeth and their quest to complete their list and challenge each other out of their comfort zones. Enter Bas, a handsome stranger that Chelsea hooks up with one night as part of crossing something off of Chelsea and Elizabeth's list.

As I previously stated I love Mary Ann Marlowe's books, however as much as I did enjoy this book, it didn't hit the mark like her previous books. What I loved about this book was the lists and friendship between Chelsea and Elizabeth. I loved how they could challenge each other and be so supportive of each other.
Unfortunately for me I couldn't get onboard with Basil's and Chelsea's relationship, I didn't really 'believe it', I think it was the fact it was very 'insta love'.

Overall I did enjoy it, it was a nice easy read.

Thank you to the author for a copy of this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Sometimes You Just Need A Push

“[R]unning away would never solve anything. Wherever you go, there you are.”

Thoughts:💡
This was a slow and easy paced novel with hints of spice. It explored the way a traumatic past can haunt someone in an authentic way. The FMC was an extreme commitment phobe but as the story progressed and she revealed more of the way she thoughts and stories from her past it was easy to understand why she was the way she was. It was still really frustrating, but it was understandable.
I loved the friendships in this book and I feel like it redeemed it in a lot of ways. There was open and honest dialogue among all the characters and when they misbehaved the characters didn’t give up on each other. They felt like very realistic characters with all their follies and it was refreshing to read characters that had real jobs and side hustles.

Fun Bits:
⚜️ Great Friendships
⚜️ Funny Banter
⚜️ Chapter Titles
⚜️ Soo Many Greek References

✨Note:✨Standalone

Full Content Warning:⚠️
Description of past neglect and emotional abuse of a child, Mentions of domestic violence in the past

Stats:📊
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Characters 💙💙💙💙💙
Contemporary Romance: Commitment Issues, Friends With Benefits, He FallsFirst, Travel Obsessed, Found Family, Grumpy Sunshine 📘
First Person, Present Tense, Dual POV

uggest this book will feature some greek elements. I haven't read a book by this author before, but I loved the greek vibes this book gives. I was really excited to start reading, but what will this book have in store?

"When it comes to love, it’s all Greek to her…"

Mary Ann Marlowe has a nice but slow paced writing style. In addition she uses some multiple complicated words, making that this could be a though read for non native english readers. There are many details in this book and lots of character development, making it a rather slow read. I did like the storyline, but felt like the pace could have been better.

Both Basil and Chelsea grow a lot during this story, which I really liked to read. I was hoping to read more about Elizabeth since I liked her character most in this story. I feel like both Basil and Chelsea have major issues and yes, they are trying to work on it but it just screams red flags through out the story. Basil just want Chelsea to pick him and will go very far for this, like he is obsessed with her. While Chelsea doesn't want a normal love life, but only hook ups, since she is traumatized and her therapy doesn't do anything to improve as it seems.

Since I had some trouble with the difficult writing style and the main characters personalities, I didn't enjoy this story as much as I hoped I would. I felt like this story could have been better if there were less details about the characters and more of a romantic spark in a slow burn way. Therefore I am able to give 3 stars to Holding Out for a Gyro.

I loved the premise of this and wanted to love everything about it.

I ADORED Basil and his family. He seemed like a great guy. Chelsea just rubbed me wrong through most of the book. The book seemed to drag a bit and then the ending seemed hurried.

I did love the friendship of Chelsea and Elizabeth. That seemed genuine and they seemed a good balance for each other. And I thought their bucket list was so fun and interesting.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Entangled Pub for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Holding Out for a Gyro by Mary Ann Marlowe is a Greek romance and the story of Chelsea and Basil.
 
Chelsea has some trauma and as a result hides away from life a little bit. This topic could have been shown a bit more in depth, but it rather focused on how to live with it. Chelsea is an interesting character whom you get to know and understand better with each page. I also liked seeing her friendship with Elizabeth and the two push each other to become better versions of themselves and that’s an aspect of the book I really appreciated.
 
At first, Basil seemed almost too perfect, and he has it all. He is a gorgeous model like Greek man who is also a chef. That premise is also very appealing to me, and you only get little glimpses through his pov and therefore it took me some time to warm up to him, but in the end it definitely happened.
 
I liked how the chapter headers always included a little challenge that pushed the characters to take some risks and look past their comfort zones. But the biggest challenge of all is love itself and the smaller challenges kind of lead up to it and that was brilliant in terms of storytelling. Furthermore, the spicy scenes felt very intimate and fun, and the characters definitely had a good time and I like seeing that. The romance is very lighthearted and sometimes the characters act a bit immature for their age, but I liked the story regardless.
 
Overall, Holding Out for a Gyro is a fun summer romance with very supportive and loving protagonists. 4 stars.
 
(ARC kindly provided in exchange for a review.)

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun book. I enjoyed it a lot!

Steamy, rom-com with some very real-life background to overcome
If you like witty humor, clever banter, passion and steam, you will want to read this book. The premise of the book is fascinating too. Because of Chelsea’s family, she has had difficult times dealing. Her therapist suggested that she make a list of things she wants to conquer in the upcoming year. Her bestie is Elizabeth and as a best friend, she performs the list with Chelsea but they take it one step further. They make it a challenge between them. If there is a loser, the consequences are not wanted…at all! Chelsea sees an opportunity to strike an item off their list when she sees two strangers sitting at the bar. Her challenge is to be perfectly honest with her stranger and Elizabeth is to lie to hers. What happens next is the “rest of our story.”
Chelsea is as surprised as Bas when he enjoys talking to the strange girl with so many hangups. He wants more. What he didn’t account for was her past predicting her future. She couldn’t trust her father so she doesn’t put much stock in trusting any man. Until Bas. He makes her want to trust and love. Can she overcome years of her own expectations? Does she become her own worst self-fulfilling prophesy? Read this book to find out. Even the author’s “Acknowledgments” was entertaining. I volunteered to review an ARC of it through Entangled and NetGalley.
My only issue with the story is Chelsea. Is she supposed to be so irritating? If so, this author should get 5 stars. In most places she is more bratty than uneasy in this new situation with Bas. The irony is that her behavior toward Bas is what is causing him to act just as she had expected him to act. She CAUSES it herself! Once she gets over herself and is not so selfish, she becomes a likeable character.

I wanted to love this due to the description of the blurb, but it was too cringey for me. The dialogue didn’t flow naturally, and the characters irritated me I didn’t like any of them. There was too much drama and miscommunication for my taste.

Thank you Entangled for this ARC!

I was drawn in by the description for this book. The idea of traveling and checking off a bucket list while finding love seemed great, but this was not great.
Overall I didn't like the characters. Chelsea was inconsistent and Bas was pushy. So much of their dialogue internally and externally was so repetitive.
This could've been trimmed down by 100 pages and then it would've been a reasonable story. But instead we got reminded that Chelsea is scared of relationships, Chelsea had a bad childhood, Chelsea doesn't want anything permanent, and then Bas is butthurt that Chelsea doesn't want a relationship, Bas pushes Chelsea to be in a relationship, and so on. The time they spent traveling was kinda weird too. If I had trust issues and my best friend dropped the dude I'm scared of being in a relationship with into our trip, l'd go home. That didn't make sense.
On the positive, the descriptions and the concept of the list Chelsea and her best friend check off for her therapy was interesting. I liked the little excursions that were built into the story via the list.

After seeing this beautiful cover and reading the synopsis I was so excited for this one! And it started off strong! I love lists, I loved the premise, I was invested in characters, I was rooting for Chelsea and Bas from the start. And then it quickly went downhill from there!

Let me quickly clarify that I don’t expect my characters to be lovable or even relatable! But I do expect them to be consistent within their character. And this is where biggest disconnect happened for me. I was hyper aware that I was reading about imagined characters because even messiest humans are not that erratic in their thought process. It read as forced in order to create friction.

On that note the whole drama between Elisabeth and Evan was completely unnecessary. The two of them trying to figure out their career paths was sufficiently relatable. I think it would’ve made more impact if the two had a healthy, functional relationship to have something to inspire Chelsea and Bas to make better decision.

I loved the food and cooking aspect. I loved Bas’s family. I wish their relationship was less toxic - that they slept together than tried to stay away from each other but kept running into each other accidentally and then it feeling like circumstances are pushing them to try. And then they arrange for a trial period of 60 days. It would give opportunity for steamy scenes without all the forced conflict! I am giving such detailed feedback because a number of readers in our bookstagram chat DNFed book because of similar reasons unfortunately!

I say all this because I feel like there is still so much potential in this story with lots of editing and things being shuffled around. I would love to see this book succeeded!

In the spirit of honesty I will post a book feature on my Instagram but I won’t share a negative review because I do not want to cause any damage to the title!

As someone about to embark on a month long summer journey to Greece I couldn't think of a better book to read, thank you to Netgalley for the ARC

I was hoping this would be such a fun romance and I just struggled to get into it, I'm not sure if it was the formatting or if it was the MMC's name being basil but it was just difficult.

I did not like this. Seemed liked a romance book from someone who doesn’t know how to write one. I found myself pretty bored. Rating one star because it was set in Virginia and where I live. But other than that not for me.

I was hoping for a little more from this book. I really didn’t care for either character. For 30 something’s they had quite a few hang ups. Basil was trying to find approval from his parents and Chelsea having a negative outlook on relationships. Crossing off amended items on the yearly challenge helped them grow closer. I wouldn’t categorize this as a romantic comedy but there were some parts that made me chuckle. Thank you to good reads for this free advanced copy in exchange for my honest review

I genuinely enjoyed this book. The book follows a girl who has completely closed herself off relationships. She has a great relation with her bestie and has made a list of things to pushed them out of their comfort zone. It eventually leads to her finding love even if she tries to fight it. Basil is sweet and patient.
It was full of the raw truth of dealing with past trauma that many women struggle with even if they like it or not. Although at times it seemed over dramatic, it was the reality of how past trauma can affect relationships. I loved watching basil and Chelsea grow together. I also really enjoyed the duo love story with the best friend.

Wow, I did not intend to read this book in one sitting but I genuinely couldn’t put it down. It was funny, witty, and romantic and it held me captive. I love a book where the guy loves the girl so much that he will do anything to be with her. The world building and story line of this book was so well executed and the romance between Basil and Chelsea was *chefs kiss* (pun intended). I will say that reading this book made me so hungry for all the food that Basil was cooking and also a little jealous of their trip to Greece. I absolutely loved the writing and overall plot of this book and the title was very clever which drew me in initially, but the content made me stay. And to think this whole book started with a dare that took Chelsea a little out of her comfort zone. I love how the author portrayed someone working through trauma to get where she needs to be in the end. I highly recommend this book if you want a cute fast paced book with some steamy romance and some delicious sounding food.

Ok, I have to admit that this book was cute and funny, but far too predictable. It was not one of the best books I've ever read, and I don't feel like I need to read anything else by this author. There wasn't enough angst between the characters. I like a good fight in a story. I'll admit, full discloser, I'm not a fan of romances, but I'm attempting to explore other genres from what I usually read. I gave this book a 3.5 stars because it was a quick and somewhat fun read.

Reading one of Marlowe's books always feels like having a conversation with an old friend. I love her rich, deep prose, interesting characters, and unique plots. Plus, the food! Her food descriptions throughout left me hungry for more. A well-deserved five stars.

This book was amazing. It’s been so long since I’ve encountered a book that made me laugh, cry, giggle, and kick my feet in glee. This story has so many wonderful elements and moments, I can’t recommend it enough. I was so sucked into it, I felt like I was experiencing the story in a surreal way.

Chelsea was such a complex character that spoke to me in such a raw way. I found myself connecting with her through the pages, as she slowly grew and became more aware of her capacity for the life she truly wanted. I found myself wiping tears in moments of sheer vulnerability, and giddily smiling and giggling at her crazy shenanigans. Her chemistry with Basil was so evident, without being overdone. Watching how they both developed together and apart, was such an incredible experience.

I honestly couldn’t have imagined a better story for these two. They were raw and messy, but beautiful and heartwarming characters. They had authenticity in the writing, and I loved how real it was. I loved how it wasn’t just another cliched story, but rather one that was realistic, while still being alive and extraordinary.

I can’t imagine how it would have been better, because it was completely perfect in the way it was presented. Thank you to Mary Ann Marlowe for writing such a brilliant story and crafting this gorgeous experience.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!
A super fun rom com that makes me miss good Greek food. Well done and entertaining!