This was such a sweet Rom-com. It's been a while since a book made me truly giggle out loud, and this one did that. I loved the banter, the cozy environment and I related so deeply to the main character, Darcy. This is a hallmark but better story that I truly adored, I hope to return to the world of Aveline so soon. 3.75 rounded up!

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I laughed so hard when reading this book. It was even better than the first one. I love sarcastic and dry humor, and this was right down my alley.

I was given an arc of this book and was so happy to discover how talented of an author Lindsey Cord is! I absolutely fell in love with the small town Aveline and the immense sense of community this book had. There was so much attention to detail throughout the book, from the characters and townspeople, to the amount of celebrations and town rules. The writing in this book made me feel like I was also brought into the town and I’d love to be considered an honorary Avelinian! This is the second book in the Aveline series and I can’t wait to pick up the first book and fall in love with this town and its people all over again! Thank you so much to Lindsey and NetGalley for this ARC and make sure to read this book when it gets published tomorrow!

4 stars.

🔨 The vibes:
- City MMC x small town FMC
- I Love Lucy level antics
- Lies / deception

📚 My thoughts:
The main thing to know for this one is - go into it knowing this will be a wild and unhinged romcom. 😂😂😂

🔨 When Penn comes to Aveline on a mission to buy out the hardware store that belongs to Darcy’s family- he has no idea what he’s signing up for. Darcy wants to scare Penn away and have him running to the hills, so she initiates her Andie Anderson Plan. This plot pulls very much like How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days while fully adopting it into the story.

🔨 As Darcy tries to scare Penn away, she starts to see more to him than just the enemy she first anticipated; and as Penn falls for Darcy- he struggles internally with his own secrets and deception. Lies, secrets, and deception play heavily into this one and so many times I was just yelling at everybody …. tellllll. him/her. the. TRUTHHHHHH. But yes yes - it adds to the angst and the drama of it all.

🔨 Now- I definitely enjoyed this one and was invested in the story, but you have to know going in that you will hit ridiculous I-Love-Lucy level antics with Darcy. I typically don’t love when plots have silly antics- so I did have to let go and just have fun and enjoy it for what it is. And I can honestly say that once I suspended belief, I was able to have a really fun time.

🔨 It felt very different to me than Lindsay’s other books in a much more light hearted tone. If you find her other books too heavy, try this one because you may love it!

🔨 Overall- it was a good time, though I wish that we had gotten more time with Penn and Darcy in their sweet moments. I liked them together a lot, but sometimes their connection got a little bit overshadowed by Darcy’s Andie Anderson nonsense. Also there were time jumps over sweet moments that I would have loved to see.

🖤 As always - I will 100% be reading anything Lindsey writes.

Note- closed door; language.

Release date: May 28, 2024.

Thank you so much to Lindsey Cord and NetGalley for the gifted copy.

*note- posted on Instagram, goodreads, Amazon, and Storygraph. Links provided.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

As a huge Gilmore Girls fan, I really wanted to enjoy this. Unfortunately I felt no connection to the characters, I felt like everything was copy/pasted from popular shows/books, the timeline as well as the characters’ behaviors felt very random and not cohesive.

I’m glad to see others enjoyed the book, but this one was just not for me I guess.

Heads up to other readers that it is a “closed door” romance.

Somehow missed this was book 2 in a series. However it didn't really matter. It's more interconnected stories than a follow in series so while it did give away what happens in book one it's not a surprise if you are a regular romance reader as it's a standard format for books.


Now onto this one.
Definitely along the vibes of Gilmore Girls with the Quirky 30yr old woman being so quirky she is on the verge of annoying.
And the Studly Gruffmuffin who comes from out of town to change things up in his grumpy ways.
They meet and it's a mutual attraction while pretending to hate each other leads to some fun banter between them and in the end they fall head over heals for each other then the third act break up. The back together.
Honestly it was fine. And pretty predictable

The writing flowed will but the characters felt pretty flat and read as though it wanted to hit as many popular tropes into a book as it could.

This was such a cute book! I love the small town vibes of Aveline. I really liked Darcy and Penn, but I personally think nothing will compare to Lettie and Tuck’s story for me. I didn’t love the way they met, it just felt like there was no way for them to ever like each other, and so it felt a little forced between them for awhile. Obviously that was kind of the point for the storyline, but I just didn’t love that aspect of it. Over time though, they grew on me and I ended up really liking the way the book turned out! 3.5⭐️

No Vacancy is the perfect small town romcom!

This has enemies to lovers with a very strong Gilmore Girls/How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days vibe. If you loved either of those, you're gonna love Darcy and Penn. Their banter is great. They had great chemistry too. I thought Darcy's plan to prevent Penn from buying her dad's store. It's cute and funny with a good romance too. I also enjoyed the nosy townspeople/neighbors.

Would recommend!

This was a super cute romcom! I really enjoyed the bather between Darcy and Penn. I also fell in love with the crazy town of Aveline. I found the storyline intriguing but at the very end I felt it dragged a little bit. Overall I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to those that enjoy romance books with little closed-door scenes, slow burn, small towns, and enemies to lovers!

I absolutely love Lindsey Cord’s books and their easy, heartwarming stories.

Set in Aveline (from Cord’s previous book “Meet Me In Aveline”), so you get some more of the adorable little town and cameos from characters you loved, but could also be read as a standalone (but you really need to read Meet Me in Aveline too because it was fantastic)

This one is for you if you love Enemies to Lovers, Stars Hollow Vibes, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, mostly closed door romance.

Darcy has lived in Aveline her entire life - in fact her family owns the local hardware store! But now her dad is trying to retire and looking to sell the store — will Penn, a new guy from out of town, succeed in buying the store and turn it into a large hotel to profit on the hidden gem small town?

I definitely recommend this one, especially for a quick summer beach read! thank you so much to NetGalley and the author for an advanced copy!

This was a very cute read..it wasn't hard to predict, but that's ok. The characters were enjoyable and endearing. It got a bit too sexual, but still enjoyable. I was pleasantly surprised

This book is such a great romantic comedy! It is a nice, lighthearted, and funny read. It was exactly what I was looking for after finishing a heavier series. This book is set in Aveline and follows a Hallmark romance movie script. Penn, the big city guy, comes to the small town and wants to buy the rundown old hardware store for his boss and tear it down, then build a resort. He makes an enemy out of the daughter of the store owner, Darcy, who wants her parents to be able to retire but doesn't want the shop to change. Darcy and her friends come up with a plan to do what Kate Hudson does in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and scare Penn away. Penn and his boss decide he needs to take Darcy on dates and charm her into letting him buy the property. I loved this! How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days was one of my favorite movies to watch growing up, so to have this be a theme in the book had me absolutely enthralled in the story. I also loved the way Darcy felt so relatable as an FMC. She is a book nerd who feels lost career wise and doesn't know what she wants for her future. She is such an easily relatable character and so funny. I absolutely loved this book and definitely recommend it to all romance and rom-com lovers.

Four stars for this witty and captivating small town romance! The banter between Darcy and Penn had me giggling my way through this read, Lindsey has a special ability to write an entire towns worth of captivating characters, whilst still keeping you invested in the main couples storyline.

This is made for romcom fans (think How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days meets Gilmore Girls,) who love the tension between main characters who will do anything to avoid the fact they’re clearly perfect for each other.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lindsey for sending me an ARC copy of No Vacancy in exchange for my honest review 💕

This delightful small-town romance in Aveline charms with its fun and light-hearted vibe. Darcy Miller finds her quiet life disrupted by the arrival of the charming newcomer, Penn, who stirs up excitement in the town. When Penn considers buying her dad's hardware store, Darcy sets out to drive him away but discovers unexpected challenges and perhaps even more.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

The dramatics! This book had me giggling the whole time. I loved the banter between Darcy and Penn, especially when they first met. This is a cute small town romance with nosey neighbors and corporate grumps.

This book was a quick and cute read. I loved the Gilmore Girls vibes it gave and I am a sucker for small town romances. I really enjoyed the MMC Penn and loved watching him fall first. The FMC took a little more for me to get into because she was overly dramatic to the point of second hand embarrassment at times. I loved her use of race car drivers names when addressing Penn though. What I loved most about this book was the small town and all the townspeople/side characters. They are what really made it feel like watching an episode of Gilmore Girls to me.

This was seriously such a cute read! As per usual with Lindsey’s books, the banter was absolutely hilarious! This gave major How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days/Gilmore Girls vibes and I was totally here for it! I’ve seen that movie easily hundreds of times so reading a similar book was so fun! I loved Darcy in book 1 of this series and she didn’t disappoint in this! She’s so freaking funny and gives Penn a run for his money! For anyone thats interested in this super cute/funny book, it comes out May 28th!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5!

I am going to start this with total transparency by saying that I did not finish this book. I managed to read about 80% of it before I had to put it down. I wanted to give this book a fair shot so I could give constructive feedback and also because there were some entertaining aspects of this book. Unfortunately, there were a few quite glaring issues that made it really difficult to read. I am typically the type of person to finish a book in one or two sittings... I had to to pick this book up in little pieces over the course of over a week.

I'm going to start with what I liked about the book. Darcy is a really fun character. There are people that might call her childish, I compare her a little bit with Lucy from The Hating Game. She is dramatic, over-the-top and, yes, childish in some ways. But there are ways to make a character like that compelling and someone you would root for. The Hating Game is one of my favorite contemporary romances and Lucy is one of my favorite characters. Darcy can be adorably petty, but at the end of the day she is fiercely loyal to her town and her father's hardware store. There is a part of her that wants to take it over but believes that she doesn't have the ability. I think that this concept could have lead to some really interesting growth and character development. Put a pin in that, we will return to Darcy's development.

The other thing I really loved about this book was the setting. Aveline as a town and its ancillary characters were pretty well developed. I felt like these characters had history, really knew each other, and although the secondary cast is large it felt like each character was unique enough and developed enough to make the town feel whole.

It's time to loop around to the flaws of this book. I wouldn't have picked this book up if I didn't love the premise - we love a good Hallmark-style big city person goes to a small town and learns the joys of small town life and smelling the roses. I eat that shit up. I feel like the devil is in the details here which leads to my first major issue: tell-don't-show. This issue pervades almost every other issue I have with the book. While there is a lot to love about this author's writing style, it was very distracting and also frustrating to be told over and over again rather than shown our MCs liked each other, were attracted to each other, and were growing feelings for each other. For about the first 50% of the book not much happened other than Darcy saying that Penn was hot but he was trying to take her father's hardware store from her. And Penn kept reiterating that he found Darcy annoying, but endearing and also hot even though she wasn't trying to be hot. I kept feeling like I was being told how the characters were feeling rather than shown through their actions and how the story progressed naturally. It felt like the characters spent a lot of time together, technically, but during that time I never really felt like there were any sort of emotional stakes or that the characters were actually growing in any meaningful way.

Remember that Darcy pin? Let's talk about our main characters specifically. Early on in the book it is established that Darcy went to school for English with the intention of becoming an author. She stalks the publishing deal notices and gets envious when people she knows gets writing deals. By 80% of the book Darcy has not written, expressed interest in writing (short of saying that she wanted to write but couldn't for some reason?), or mentioned writing more than a few times. The vast majority of the pages in this book are dedicated to this How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days subplot where Darcy is trying to drive Penn away and Penn is being encouraged to seduce Darcy to close the hotel deal. Short of being told Darcy wants to be a writer, we have no evidence here that she has ever actually written or enjoys writing. There are no scenes of her staring at a blank Word doc or agonizing over plots. Nothing.

Penn has a similar lack of development. We are made to believe that, prior to Aveline, he lead an empty, meaningless life of sex and helping his boss take down small, local businesses to build hotels. Again, we are told that this was the case. And the 3rd act conflict where Penn returns to the city is the part of the book where my interest disappeared. There are a few lines when he's back in the city about how cold and lifeless his apartment is, how he doesn't want to just randomly hook up with women, and how much he misses Aveline. He expresses how much he enjoys Aveline while he's there but even though he's saying it I don't believe him. There are situations early on where Penn is interacting with his boss where he doesn't seem to have his heart in it. Pretty early on he pretty much states he's half-assing the attempt to acquire the hardware store. There is not a moment in this book I truly believe that Penn was ever the "heartless corporate shill" that got converted by love (of Aveline and Darcy). Penn just seemed made for Aveline to start. All the locals love him. Nobody is suspicious of him except for Darcy. Everyone talks about how hot he is. He fits in great. There was no space between him being a city boy and becoming an Aveline local, no tension short of Darcy's solo mission to ruin him. He just fits in perfectly to start and Darcy is left looking like a crazy person for trying to drive him away. This means that Penn effectively has no growth. It doesn't feel like a big triumph when he eventually quits his corporate job and tells his boss to fuck off. He's been more or less there the whole book. Triumph hasn't been earned.

I really love the concept of this book, its main characters, and the story it was trying to tell. I think there is something amazing here, but when I reached 80% the only thing I really felt like was that this was an underdeveloped manuscript. With more time and work this could truly be an amazing love story, but as the story stands in its current form I can't say that I would recommend it. I hope this author continues writing and working on their craft.

In the interest of fairness I will wait until after publication to post this review and it will only be on Storygraph and GoodReads.

✨“IN KATE HUDSON WE TRUST!”✨

I knew going into this book that i was going to enjoy it. I loved tuck & Lettie’s story in Meet me in Aveline so i went in to “no vacancy expecting nothing but the best from Lindsey cord.

Darcy & Penn’s story is quite different than that of Tuck & Lettie’s and i think…no..i KNOW that i enjoyed that so much more. Starting from an accidental “you hit me with your car” & “you killed my gold fish!” Going to a “let’s how to lose a guy in 10 days him” this book has everything in between.

⭐️ awesome pop culture references
⭐️don’t move im on my way/touch her and you’re done
⭐️vampire diaries references (wouldn’t be Lindsey cord without them!)
⭐️frenemies to lovers
⭐️sprinkles of Tuck & Lettie
⭐️a cute sidekick pet hedgehog named Bernie

This book was everything and more than i expected! Comes out officially may 28th!




Thank you to NetGalley and the author Lindsey cord for allowing me to read this arc for honest review

This book was so cute! It had me laughing out loud! It had a heart of Dixie small town romance feel!