I overall enjoyed this book, the bi representation was great, best friend's brother is one of my favorite tropes, but I just had a hard time with Bee at certain points throughout the story. Sebastian is such a wonderful character, very much a golden retriever and a sweetheart.

One storyline through the book I found interesting was the Bee and Morgan storyline. Sometimes it didn't feel like it fit but it was a very important storyline. Sometimes as you start to get older you start to realize friendships don't work anymore, and friendship breakups can be harder than romantic breakups.

Dani McLean does it again with this thoughtful and delicious romance. Bee is a ghostwriter working on her own novel, back in town after five years working away. Sebastian runs a bar and is trying to buy his own house. There's not many lazy tropes (although Seb is her brother's bestie). They buy a house together (hello forced proximity) and it's all go.

Bee is in her 20s, a little bit lost. Seb's in his 30s and trying to get it all together and get ahead. They help each other out and it’s kind and clever and queer and funny. No third act break up, no miscommunication. Seb has some family stuff to work through, Bee has to lose a friend and ditch the people pleasing.

It’s steamy that’s for sure, check TWs but everything they do fits their personalities and motivations Lots of respect and sex positivity, basically they have fun doing all the things and it's so good to read. Dani writes a great steamy moment 😉

I’ve loved Dani's novellas and this is even better with enough space in the longer length to really expand the characters and their story. Don't forget the fabulous cover either!

Recommended!🌟🌟🌟🌟🌶️🌶️🌶️

Thank you NetGalley and Dani McLean for the ARC.

𝔹𝕠𝕠𝕜 ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨
𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐎𝐟 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐛𝐲 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐢 𝐌𝐜𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐧
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: Romance
𝙿𝚊𝚐𝚎𝚜: 390
𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: ⭐⭐⭐.5

Bee comes back to her home town after 5 years away & Crashes her first night back at her big brothers.
Her crush Sebastian who also happens to be her brothers long time best friend is also there.

Then she somehow stumbles into buying a house with him the very next day when the bank wont approve his loan unless he applies with Bee who they assume is his partner...

They move in together and literally as the title says have a mortage of convenience.

The way Sebastian speaks about his d**k in the third person just felt weird & cringe.

This book had so much potential and there were some parts I enjoyed but it also felt a bit amatuer at the same time honestly felt very YA (except for the s*x scenes.

𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐆𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄
ʀᴀᴛɪɴɢ: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
ꜱᴘɪᴄᴇ: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the ARC!

I wanted to love this book, I really did. I picked this up solely due to the cover, honestly, these cute cartoon covers are my kryptonite. To be fair, the first half of the book was good and interesting albeit it’s a little bit cliche. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill after that. I have mentally checked out by 60% and considering to DNF for the rest of 40% but I pushed through. I will just point out what I like and don’t like about the book. It’s not a bad book per se, it just failed to grip my attention until the end. There are too many side plots going on where I don’t even get the main plot, which is why can’t she just be a writer and stay with him. Last time I checked, authors work from anywhere.

𝒲𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝐼 𝐿𝒾𝓀𝑒:
✅Queer rep, Sebastian is a bisexual king who used to be a stripper, talk about sexyyyy
✅Sebastian is a golden retriever for Bee, I love him so much
✅The amount of time he carried Bee to the counter, swoon😍
✅This book had one of the sexiest shaving scene I have ever read (Bee shaved his beard)🥵

𝒲𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝐼 𝒟𝑜𝓃’𝓉 𝐿𝒾𝓀𝑒:
❌As you can see, all good things are about Sebastian, because I do not like Bee, Sebastian deserves better, hell, I think her brother Aiden is probably a better fit for him
❌I don’t get why Bee is so hesitant to choose to stay. She already helps pay the mortgage and has been crushing on him since she was 18. The job excuse doesn’t make sense, you can write from anywhere. So yeah, that frustrated me.
❌ The plot with her and Morgan, I just didn’t care

Basically, after years of avoiding commitment, Sebastian now at 36 is ready to settle down, he wants everything, a house, a partner, some kids, and preferably with Bee, though he hasn’t seen her for 5 years. And surprisingly Bee, at 28, doesn’t want any of this and is ready to leave anytime if her writing gig doesn’t work out. The smut was pretty good, and I love how it included a kink exploration (somn*). I would be interested in checking other books from this author, and if you like this trope, you might like it.

📚 brothers best friend
📚Force proximity
📚 dual POV

🌶️🌶️🌶️

|Thoughts|
There has been a lot of positive hype around this one and although it was fine, it just never really hooked me.

“One day, he’ll have someone special to lavish all that attention on. Lucky them”

Found Bee to be a bit one dimensional and although I did prefer Sebastian PoV, felt like the whole premise of him helping her with her confidence just didn’t really go anywhere.

The largest plot point seems to be with her frenemy. And it was just difficult to see the way Bee initially dealt with her friend just being a horrible person to her. Happy to say at least there is a satisfying conclusion to the tension between these friends.

Enjoyed the spice but never really fell in love with this one.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and author for this eARC in exchange for this honest review.

I was immediately hooked by the cute cover and the promise of forced proximity and crush on older brother's best friend. These were delivered but not quite in the way that I'd hoped.

This isn't a long book, but somehow still managed to be quite repetitive. The book honestly could have been shorter and it would have benefited from that. There were already quite big time jumps throughout the story, so omitting done of the repeated scenes would have been great.

Sebastian should have been a great name MMC and while he did have some great moments (for example being super sweet and patient with Bee, his love of gardening) we didn't get to see a lot of sides of him in depth. We mainly got to see his love/ lust for Bee with a sprinkling of the rest of his personality.

Bee definitely isn't my favourite FMC but she's not my least favourite either. I understood her struggles but at the same time I wanted to shake her for half the book. I just couldn't comprehend a lot of her choices and reasoning for things

Overall, a short light book that does technically deliver on its promised tropes, but not one I'll be reading again.

I really like the premise of brother’s best friend. I like the air of mystery that surrounded Bee’s return home. I think Sebastian is so good for her and we can see it in the way she slowly gains confidence throughout the book. It was a bit hard for me to get into it, but Bee and Sebastian are so cute. Also it gets steamy.

It wasn’t personally my cup of tea but I can see how others will enjoy it.

Thank you NetGalley and Set The Mood Publishing for the ARC.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC opportunity! I requested this ARC specifically for this cover… last time I will ever be doing that. It started off good and then just went down hill. There was way too much going on, everyone was just way too horny, everything was just a little messy and overall cringey. I was loving the bi rep from Sebastian. Just wasn’t for me overall. 1/5 ⭐️

More like 3.5-3.75. Thank you to Net Galley and and the Set the Mood Publishing for the read. This story is about Bee Montgomery and Sebastian Wolfe, who've known each other for 10+ years, but are living in the same area after Bee moves back to her hometown. Bee always had a big crush on Sebastian, who happens to be her brother's best friend, while Sebastian has also harbored a crush on Bee for the same length of time. Bee is a ghostwriter, but finds herself suddenly tasked with writing her first novel, after drunk emailing her agent. Writing this novel has always been her dream project, but she's starting to doubt herself, and moves back home, after five years away, to surround herself with family (her brother) and friends.

Sebastian's dream of buying his first home is finally coming to fruition, but he needs help to secure a loan with the bank. And in steps Bee, hence they form a "mortgage of convenience".

This was a very sweet story, but it took me a while to get into the characters and the plot. The beginning, approximately the first third of the book, felt heavy with all of the struggles both characters were handling: Bee - fear of rejection, not comfortable with advocating for herself, and toxic friendships; Sebastian - past childhood trauma (emotionally abusive father) and financial struggles. But once I got past this point, the characters' feelings for each other were revealed, and they each helped the other with their struggles. It was great reading about their support for each other, and to see side characters support each of them, but this dragged on a little too long.

The ending was great, though, very sweet and bright.

Okay, there is the thing this book was cute for a "brother's best friend" trope because the brother was very supportive. Overall it was kind of lacking in some aspects. It had cute moments, and slow moments. It was a cute couple.

I got an e-arc of this book on NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Picked this one straight up once I finished the book I was reading and honestly, I was sold by the cover. I wish I’d read the reviews before requesting. This wasn’t one for me. I found the FMC to be annoying and couldn’t get further into the story.

I’m not sure why, but something about this book just didn’t click with me. It had everything that I look for in a romance novel (and that swoony cover) but it never really hit the spot.

I found Bee quite frustrating lot of the time because she seemed to think in circles and nothing really came of it a lot of the time. It felt like it lacked depth at some points as well. Sebastian was a great book boyfriend but I also felt like he just gave a lot and didn’t get anything in return, except a mortgage.

I liked this touched on the idea of outgrowing friendships in your 20s but I didn’t think that the new friendships were fully explored. Nor did I think that the relationship between Bee and Aiden was fully developed which was odd because he was supposed to be a surrogate parent.

I had such high hopes and expectations for this book and unfortunately it just didn’t quite mesh with me.

This is my first ever ARC, and I am so excited because it's fantastic!! This comes out February 27th and will be available on KU. Bee is a ghostwriter homebody who is quiet and trying to find out which direction she wants to go in life while hiding the real her. Sebastian is an Ex-stripper and her brothers best friend who is more than happy to help Bee show her true personality. This is a perfect brothers best friend, forced proximity, and age rap romance. I love how kind, sweet, supportive, and respectful Sebastian is towards Bee and her boundaries. Bee is such a sweetheart, too, and she deserves everything 🥹 These two have such a beautiful relationship. I can't wait until February 27th, so you can all read too!

Exactly the kind of spicy fluff I needed. The characters were charming, the steam was steamy, and the cover was real cute. Definitely will be picking up more by the author.

This book had all of my fav tropes in it: Age gap, best friends brother, and lots of spice. The cover is what drew me in, as I have never read anything by this author. The spice was good, and Bee and Sebastian’s relationship was cute. I love the LGBTQ+ representation in this book, especially with it being the main male character. Overall, this was a cute read and I give it 3.5 stars. I would like to read more of Dani McLean’s books in the future. I am thankful for receiving this ARC.

Unfortunately, this book was not a winner for me. I had a hard time buying in to why these two people couldn't be together, like the conflict was just not convincing. There were parts of the book that were strong, like the great found family that surrounds the MMC, but overall I found it pretty forgettable and I was skimming through a large chunk. I would still read other books by Dani McLean in the future!

This should have been everything I liked in a book but unfortunately it fell very flat for me. I found myself skimming over parts and cringing at some of the convos between the characters. For me it just wasn't what I was hoping it would be. For only being around 350 pgs it took me days to get through.

Ok bear with me, I’m not much of a “review” girl but I’m going to try my best because honestly, I don’t think I have ever read a more relatable book.

Bee is a homebody and Ghostwriter whilst and Sebastian is a Bi Ex-Stripper and her brothers BFF. Need I say more. I loved that Sebastian was tender to Bee as she navigated her inner thoughts whilst also encouraging her to step out of her comfort zone and be confident in herself.

The characters and their story, whilst beautiful, cute and heart warming also has a beautiful message behind it. This story pulls from personal experiences, emotions and thoughts that the author herself has experienced and has (IMO) created a beautiful message for the reader.

Favourite Quote - “We meet some people at the exact moment we need to, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be the right people to keep with us”

I saw this cover and read the blurb and had to have this book! I liked both the main characters and felt they had great chemistry. Bee is a ghost writer that is full of insecurities and Sebastian is an ex stripper and Bee’s brother’s best friend. When he comes up short for obtaining the loan needed for a mortgage, Bee steps in and helps him out. There was a lot that I enjoyed about this book…I really resonated with Bee and her insecurities. And who wouldn’t love Sebastian with hit long hair and tattoos. He was so sweet and the perfect book boyfriend. The reason this wasn’t a five star read for me was because it seemed a bit choppy and the steamy scenes were a little cringy to me. Other than that I really enjoyed this one!

A domestic dream, seriously. A Mortgage of Convience follows Sebastain and Bee, who buy a house together. Sebastain is Bee's brother's best friend, a bartender, and an ex-stripper. Bee is a ghost writer, who decides to risk it all and write her own novel.
This was the absolute perfect amount of spice, with such sweet everyday domestic moments that I think lots of times get forgotten about in romance books. Bee and Sebastian are green flags all the way around (after reading a few mafia books, this was a good reset). They both talk things out and truly care for each other while also recognizing what is best for themselves. They both worked towards they goals and pulled each other through their individual hardships. Seb and Bee are relatable and real characters with flaws and growth.
This book also grieves the breakup of a long time friendship which was done in a mature and true way.
I'll be reading this again sometime soon!