Actual Rating 3.5

This was my first Dani Mclean story and I had a fun time! I enjoyed both of our main characters Bee and Sebastian. They felt like complex and complete people in their own ways. Bee is in her 20s and worried about making a major life/career change after being content with her life for so long. Sebastian is in the process of trying to settle down and plan out a future now that he's in his 30s.

I was really intrigued by the summary and looking forward to this. It sounded like it would have some great staples to rom-coms I love - some brother's best friend, a bit of an age gap, and some sexy tattoos! Unfortunately, I think some things got a bit lost in translation. I still really enjoyed the plot but I don't think the pacing was all there. I was struggling a bit to realize where we are in the timeline and I didn't realize that the whole story takes place over six months until the final chapter.

As this is my first Mclean story, I'm not sure how her other works are but I just felt like things weren't super cohesive. I'd read an incredibly beautiful section and then be hit with a paragraph that felt out of place or messy. I do own digital copies of Mclean's Movie Magic Novellas so I'll certainly be reading more from them in the future and I do look forward to whatever comes next even though this one didn't quite do it for me.

I LOVED THIS BOOK.
- Brothers best friend ✅
- Forced proximity ✅
- Slow burn ✅
The characters are so well developed and the banter is so sweet.
Thank you to Net Galley & Set the Mood Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest content review.

I received an ARC of Mortgage of Convenience from NetGalley. I really enjoyed this book. I wished there was a bit more spice but the character development really helped me get past that.
Also it having no third act breakup really made me love it even more. I do think however it ended rather quickly. I wasn’t expecting it to end, it just did.
Over all a 3.5 star that I enjoyed and was happy to read

Thank you to the publisher, author and Net Galley for an advanced copy.

I am not a huge romance reader, but the summary sounded really cute, so I decided to give it a try. I was left a little disappointed. I did not like the FMC very much, and found it difficult to care about the characters. I did like how some of the more serious topics were handled.

For first time romance readers, or those looking to step outside their normal genre(s), I would not recommend this book. But I think romance readers might like it a bit more.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me early access to read this book.

Unfortunately this book is going to be a dnf. I like to connect with books and their characters however in this book I cannot connect with the storyline and the characters.

One comment the MMC said put me off the book and I just couldn’t click with it after that was said. I am also confused on what actually is going on.

I may return to finish the book off however at this current moment in time, I cannot finish it.

I loved Bee and Sebastian so so much. Their love is soft, tender, raw, vulnerable, tentative, but oh so heartwarming and uplifting. The way that Sebastian is obsessed from the beginning (before anything happens!) is truly the best. Bee may have had a crush on him first, but Seb truly falls harder, and he doesn’t let up until the very last page. I’m truly obsessed with everything that man is, an it’s quite rude that he can only be my fictional book boyfriend.

I loved how both Bee and Sebastian supported each other. Especially his Seb helped Bee regain her confidence with her book and actually getting it back to her editor to publish it. They may be in slightly different points of their lives, but they both seem to want to the same things, and it’s comforting that they were able to find it with each other, after so many years of just being friends/acquaintances (Seb is Bee’s brother’s best friend). I really loved how Bee was able to finally see her own worth, and could tell that her best friend was actually truly not good for her-that relationship had run it’s course and I loved how she was able to put up her own boundaries to protect herself and allow her to move forward.

Seb is finally ready to settle down and have the house and wife and family he has always wanted, but thought he cousins have for the longest of times due to his past. While he does confront his past- he does so in a way that I admire so much- just because his dad has changed for the better, doesn’t mean that Seb has to forgive him and ruin the happiness he has made for himself just because his dad is better.

I truly loves everything about this book (also, when Bee and Seb finally cut the tension between them? 🔥🔥🔥👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻) and I also loved how Bee’s brother was totally fine with their relationship (he just didn’t want to know the details haha!). I loved how Bee was able to strengthen her relationship with her brother as well.

Yeah this book was no for me no matter how much i tried to read it

Maybe for other people it would hit the jackpot with second chance romance

I wanted to love this book so badly. I love a forced proximity, second chance romance but I feel like for both of those tropes to work well there needs to be angst, and there was just none of that here. When the first smut scene hit at 40%, I honestly struggled to keep pushing through. The smut was not great, and because it hit so early on it made the rest of the book feel so long. As this was an e-arc it didn’t have page numbers so I was shocked when I looked this up and found out it was only 390 pages because it genuinely felt like at least 500 while I was reading it.

I also cringed whenever the FMC was describing the MMC because she’d always act like he was some huge tough alpha dude (his last name is Wolfe, dontcha know!) but he just…wasn’t that. And that’s okay! He was a sweet, caring guy. I don’t understand the obsession with making every romantic love interest some big possessive alpha male. It’s one of my biggest icks in contemporary romance!

I think I would have given this book a higher rating if it were 100 pages shorter, long romances (anything over 350 pages generally) are not for me. If you are a fan of them though, don’t let my low rating put you off! You may love it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Set the Mood Publishing for providing the ARC.

This book is a very big character read, and I love character reads. There was some plot, but it was so enmeshed in the characters' stories that it didn't feel like much. However, that doesn't detract from how great this book is.

Bee was a very intriguing character for me. Infantilized by her family and her brother, she fled home in a dire need to prove that she was capable of handling things on her own. What developed was an obsessive need to prove herself and an inability to handle any kind of rejection well, so much that she became reclusive and unable to put herself out there because it was deemed unsafe. She has her friend, Morgan, who by all accounts is not a healthy influence, but Bee has spent her life bending over backwards to maintain the relationship because she wasn't sure what else to do. And there is the pesky thing about her ongoing crush on her older brother's best friend, Sebastian.

Sebastian is outgoing and lives life freely with one finger in the air, as he so aptly puts. He is eight years older than Bee, but has also harbored some of his own secret feelings towards his best friend's sister. After she helps him secure a mortgage on the house he's been trying to buy, he makes it his mission to help her see just how truly extraordinary she is, and if he falls in love along the way, so be it.

Like I said, this is very much a character read. It is told from dual perspective so you get to be inside both Bee's and Sebastian's heads for the duration of the book. You get to learn all about their fears and hangups, and just how good these two are for each other when it comes to support, acceptance, and love. I would say that it drags in some places - there were a lot of times where Sebastian was talking about how Bee could never know his feelings for her because it would mess everything up, often as a way to end the chapter. But overall, I loved the journey these two went on together. Watching Bee open up to Sebastian and watching Sebastian tackle issues that he had been holding onto for years was heartwarming. I would love to see more from this author.

I thought the cover was pretty and the plot summery seemed promising but unfortunately, I was left pretty disappointed.

There was no chemistry between the FMC and the MMC, leading to some ick moments during the frequent smut scenes. While dual POV, it felt as if I was hearing from the same character.

Overall, this book didn’t work for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this ARC in return for my honest review.

I received this arc in exchange for an honest review. 🤍

honestly this just wasn’t for me. i just had no interest in it. i really wanted to enjoy it but unfortunately it fell so flat. i was so close to DNFing but i decided to push through.

the main characters buy a house together because he can’t afford it himself and she’s got money that she can use to help him. one thing leads to another and their chemistry becomes undeniable.

if you love best friends brother then give this book a go :)

Bee and Sebastian are everything. They are soft and tender and absolutely perfect for each other. Seb challenges Bee and encourages her to be brave. He believes in her even when she doesn’t believe in herself. Everyone needs a Seb in their life.

Read this if you love: roommates to lovers, brother’s best friend, he falls first (and he falls hard), age gap, and romances with no-third act break up. (I have a soft spot for age gap romances—my husband and I are six years apart. The only time it’s ever weird is when we talk about music—the songs he danced to at his senior prom were the same ones they played at my sixth grade dance.)

I love the subtle bi-rep woven into Seb’s storyline. It’s just a part of who he is—like his tattoos or his past as a stripper or his desire for a family.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND. 10/10. No notes. Dani is amazing.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. I wanted to like this a lot, but I just could not get myself into it, I feel so bad! The premise was great but the execution wasn't. I'm very much a vibe/mood reader and this couldn't grab me.

I absolutely love Dani McLean's books. This was such a sweet read and I really enjoyed the characters. The way that Sebastian quickly became a safe space for Bee had my heart melting. This book will give you all the feels. I would recommend this book along with all of Dani's other books.


Thank you NetGalley and Set the Mood Publishing for allowing me to read this ARC for my honest opinion.

This story, well.. I didn’t like it. Premise was fine, but the delivery and way of it is not something for me.

Thank you Netgalley and Set the mood publishing for a free copy for review.

Cute, swoony, and heartfelt. I was originally intrigued by the beautiful cover and I’m so glad the inside did not disappoint! I will definitely be watching for more from this author.

Loved the tropes and the pacing. Mortgage of Convenience was well written and interesting but still fell a little flat for me as, like another reviewer mentioned, I struggled to connect with the characters. They weren’t badly written at all, I just crave a pretty deep and clear inner narrative and the immersion wasn’t there for me.

I unfortunately really struggled with this book. For a romance book that had some of my favourite tropes like forced proximity, he falls first, spice etc, I couldn't connect with any of the characters and I didn't get behind the main relationship. I think my favourite characters in this was the FMC's brother.

The main characters weren't unlikeable or annoying, I just didn't feel anything for them which meant i couldn't get behind their stories. I felt like the reasons for why Bee returned home after 5 years and why she spontaneously jumped in to get the house with Seb were built up to be big things the reader was waiting to discover, only for them to me smaller things like wanted to build her confidence. I know this is fiction but I seemed far fetched that you would buy a house with someone because you view them as confidence and you want to be too.

I also felt like some things were thrown in to tick boxes, like Seb's past stripping, it didn't really add to the story, his character or the plot so it just felt like one of the numerous things that were mentioned but not needed. Similarly some of the people Bee interviewed would be brought up in her thought process just to say that she though Seb would like them. I felt that things like this didn't add to the book but took up some room.

This book tackled a lot of emotional issues like low self esteem, childhood trauma, toxic friendships etc and I think they were handled with care. I think this book would have been better if it wasn't promoted as a romance book and some of the spice was taken out. Then it could just be a nice book about people figuring their stuff out together and a relationship growing from that.
I recieved a copy via Net Galley and this is my honest review.

3.5

A cute read! I liked Bee and Sebastian's relationship. I enjoyed the roommates situation but I just wanted a bit more tension and they kind of jumped right into the relationship. I really enjoyed the writing style and it was an easy book to read and follow along with.

Bee and Sebastian have a suspenseful relationship from the very beginning of the book. Bee offers to buy a house together, which puts them in a forced proximity, without knowing each individual has a lingering interest for the other. Sebastien is open to helping Bee with becoming more confident and finding herself, in return to her having helped him buy a house. They develop a friendship with a relationship relatively quickly as they spend all of their time together.

Sebastien helps Bee understand that it's completely normal and ok to outgrow her longtime friend in order to feel better about herself and within her skin.

Bee helps Sebastien face meeting with his father so many years after having left him in his past.

The way Sebastien falls quick and hard for Bee and how she slowly opens up to letting him care for her is so sweet to watch.
This brothers best friend was a slow burn with great spice and a lot of moments that made me swoon.