This book is not without it's problems, but was still an enjoyable romance read. The writing style is good and while Lucy is a bit too in her head, and it's kind of a mess in there, I was pulled in by the plotline. Ross is funny and I loved the Seinfeld references. I imagined the characters as younger than they were and could see much of the story as an early twenties crisis of maturity and that worked for me. This is my first book by this author and I'm looking forward to reading more from her.

Lucy Masters is about to be fired. Again. The first time, she thought she probably deserved it. She’d made bad choices. But this time, she really loves her job and wants to fight for it. Being the Technology Editor for magazine Fab! had been so much fun. But now that they’re shuttering the magazine, to combine with the men’s magazine Max! and go online only, there’s only room for one technology editor. And Max!’s Ross has been in his job longer than Lucy was. It’s only fair that he get offered the job.

Lucy has three days to come up with an idea for a column that would allow her to write for Max! She goes over to her sister Amelie’s place to talk to her, and Amelie comes up with the idea Lucy should pitch—a dating advice column for men. But she can’t do it under her own name. Men will only take advice from other men, so Lucy comes up with the pen name Adam.

When she goes in and pitches it to her editors, they love it. And just lie that, Lucy is working for Max! She takes her desk across from Ross, the tech editor, and starts trying to figure out how to advise men on dating, when she knows very little about dating and even less about men. But she reads their emails carefully and does her research, and with a little help from her little sister, Lucy is able to write the Adam column with intelligence and compassion.

Lucy feels a little out of place at Max!, as all her coworkers are men. But Ross is kind and generous with help, and he makes Lucy feel like she belongs there. In fact, he makes her feel even more than that, but the last time she had an office romance, it did not go well. And when he turns up at the same club as Amelie’s bachelorette party and starts making out with one of Amelie’s friends, Lucy is disappointed. She certainly doesn’t want to come between Ross and happiness, and she can’t do anything behind Amelie’s friend’s back.

But when Lucy gets an Adam email that sounds like it could have come from Ross, a man asking how to let the girl he’s dating know that he’s not as into the relationship as much as she is, Lucy has hope again. But it’s not that easy. The magazine wants more data on the Adam column to decide whether to keep it or cut it, so they ask Lucy to go from 2 letters a week to 5. To keep up with the demand, she starts asking a bot to help her come up with advice. And her sister, who had also been helping her, gets married and moves to New York from London.

Amalie is on the other side of the world from Lucy, but when Lucy can manage to get her sister on the phone, Amalie just doesn’t seem like herself. Lucy is worried, but her concerns get worse when Adam gets a letter asking for advice from a newly married man. He and his wife had moved to a new country and he feels like she’s not the same woman he married. But he’s reconnected with his ex-girlfriend at work, and he’s thinking about starting a relationship with her. Lucy isn’t sure what to do, but she knows she needs to go to New York to find out if Zack really is cheating on Amelie, and then Lucy will have to decide what to tell her sister.

While Lucy is in New York, she’s trying to keep up with the Adam column while spying on Zack and trying to figure out how to talk to Amelie about her new marriage. And then Ross shows up in New York for reasons of his own, and things get even crazier for her. Now, Lucy’s job is on the line, but so is her family and her work crush. As it all comes to a head, Lucy has to figure out what’s most important to her and just whose advice to take on her future.

The Love Hack is the latest rom com from Sophie Ranald, and it’s a lot of fun. Lucy’s attempts to give advice to men, aside from the obvious “don’t be a jerk,” is a journey to understanding and acceptance. And the more Lucy learns to meet men where they are and help them improve their relationships, the more she finds understanding and grace for herself and the mistakes of her past. And as she fights for the future she wants for herself and for her sister, Lucy comes to see just how full her life can be. And she has a cat named Astro who tends to steal all the scenes he’s in, always an added bonus.

I listened to this one audio, narrated by Harrie Dobby, and she does a fantastic job of bringing Lucy’s voice to life. Dobby adds life and humor to this book, bringing Lucy’s thoughts and feelings to the forefront and adding so much texture to the story. The Love Hack is a delightful light-hearted rom com with sweet moments and lots of heart. It’s a great book for the pool, the airplane ride, or just spending the day on the sofa with your own cat.

A copy of the audio boo for The Love Hack were provided by Dreamscape Select and Storm Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks.

So from the blurb I assumed that this book was a romantic comedy, but it turned out to be women’s fiction with only a pinch of romance or comedy.

There is no other woman drama so to say, but the love interest, Ross, hooks up with and continues to date someone else that the FMC knows and has to spend time with (she is one of her sister's best friends and bridesmaids) right in the beginning (around the 15% mark) when they had already kind of flirted and Lucy, our protagonist, had developed a crush on him. But rather than saying something or shooting her shot, Lucy decides to put in a good word for this female acquaintance to be a “girl's girl” and it seems Ross starts a relationship with her instead of Lucy because of that. We actually don’t know how Ross feels about Lucy for the majority of the book, because Lucy just assumes a lot of things instead of communicating with Ross. This means that instead of cute flirtations between Ross and Lucy, we see Lucy lusting after Ross while he is lacklusterly dating someone else. That just turned me off. I get that that's how dating sometimes goes, but this is not what I'm looking for in a romance.

So the main focus of this book is actually Lucy's work as a columnist giving men life advice. The only problem with that is that she literally cannot do her job. She mentions that she does not understand men at least one time per page and having had one “relationship” that failed drastically, she also doesn’t really like men. While I totally understand the sentiment, why pitch this to your boss, if you are not able to follow through? Lucy has to go on this journey answering men’s queries to come to the conclusion that men are essentially also human. But it's not only that she doesn’t understand men, Lucy is such a hot mess that she probably shouldn’t give advice to anyone. But as a tech geek, Lucy knows how to help herself by priming an AI to answer the questions for her. This felt so on the nose. She later even admits to using the AI and not only gets to keep this job she is not qualified for, but also get a promotion. What?!

This book slightly reminded me of Bridget Jones (Lucy is also a hot mess, not good at dating, and there is a lot of second hand embarrassment) just without the laugh out loud moments, so maybe if you enjoyed that and don’t mind if a book only has about 5% romance in it, this might be the book for you.

This was a 2,5 stars read for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Select for gifting me this ALC of the audiobook to review. All opinions are my own. I was not paid to leave this review.

I can’t say this one was my favorite for a cute rom com. I really loved the narration and I think the narrator did a wonderful job of expressing the characters.

What I struggled with was figuring out what the main topic of this book was supposed to be. Was it about the FMC finding herself, building a relationship with her sister, proving her career abilities, getting over her ex, starting a new love life? The book was cute and short but there were so many “topics” in the book that I felt we couldn’t focus on the one. It’s almost like the author tried to shove most tropes or genres into this one book.

The potential is there for some great stories so I will be reading the author again but this book overall didn’t deliver for me. I can’t wait to see if the author focuses more on specific topics and then gives us more details.

Rating 2.5 rounded up to a 3.

This book had great potential and I love an office romance, but it was not the best for me. The Ask Adam column just had some weird things with it and they did not interest me. Parts of the relationships shown were cringy and I was not a fan of AI answering most of the questions. Just felt deceptive.

I loved this into I loved that the FMC was a columnist for a site where men could ask for relationship advise, and I adored that the MMC ended up sending in to the site to ask her anonymous advice about her even though they worked together! I loved the slow burn and loved the coworker romance! I would 200% recommend!

This book had great potential for me. I love office romances and envisioned some great scenarios. It didn't quite live up to my "mental hype," but was still a cute book.

Lucy takes on a column called "Ask Adam" in an attempt to keep her job. What starts out as an uncomfortable position for her answering questions for men on relationships as if she herself is a man ends up becoming something she takes very seriously and feels quite invested in. Of course, sometimes she finds herself distracted by her co-worker, Ross. She believes there are sparks between them but then things happen to make her doubt it. Also, she's had a bad experience in the past with an office romance and is a bit hesitant to entertain one again - - actually she's downright petrified to risk it. But Ross is so nice and then she gets a "Dear Adam" letter that feels like it might be from him.....but she can't be sure.

There was a lot to like in this book. But unfortunately, there were several things that made me a little crazy. Honestly some of the Ask Adam letters felt unnecessary and redundant. I understood the importance of several of them to the plot. It just felt unnecessary to me. Also, I understood the necessity of the relationship with Ali's sister and her husband to the storyline but it also felt a bit drawn out. I don't know - - maybe it was a me thing but I felt like I could never settle into a flow with the book and it was always jumping around.

I listened to the audiobook and the narration wasn't bad. The narration was actually fairly well done and kept me pulled into the storyline.

Thank you to NetGalley for this early listening copy.

I picked up this book because it was an audiobook title on NetGalley and I didn't have anything else that I was listening to. It said for fans of Emily Henry. Not so much. I found a lot of the book rather cringy and the relationships felt off. This is the second time recently that I found the cover image deceiving. I was expecting upbeat and light and it was not.

I really enjoyed this book! The audiobook narrator was so pleasant to listen to. I loved the different ways Lucy cared about the people and cat around her and the ways she discovered herself. There was conflict, but it was believable and relatable. Fun story.

Audiobook feedback: this was a well done production with excellent narration by Harrie Dobby. She does bring life to the writing.

The Love Hack is a contemporary romance focusing on Lucy, a rookie advice columnist, struggles with the remnants of a past relationship while developing a crush on a new co-worker. When her column goes viral and her inbox overflows, Lucy turns to an AI bot to help decoding romantic troubles, including her own. Can AI really give sound relationship advice or will it all end in disaster?

It is a cute and relevant concept but for this reader, the pacing was off. It took a bit too long for the story to get where is was going. I also did not care for the secondary characters or their development or resolutions.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Thank you, NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

This was a cute Rom-Com, even though the romance aspect was not at the forefront of the book! The audio on this book was fantastic and I felt as though the voices fit the characters well.

While it was not my favorite book of the year for this genre, I did enjoy it, although I wish that it was just a little bit shorter, as it started to kind of drag on a little bit around the 40% mark. It did eventually pick back up again, however and led to a pretty solid rest of the story.

This was okay. The story was good but the narrator was a little disappointing. For example, it took me ages to realise Ross was American and not Irish. The accent was not good. So I was a little confused with the storyline for a while. The spice was also a little confusing as it was not open door and explicit but not closed door either. It relied on you sort of getting the idea about what was going on. The way the storyline was revealed and past trauma that was impacting characters in the present was really interesting. If I had read instead of listened to this book, maybe I would have liked it more.

Big thanks to NetGalley, Dreamscape media and Sophie Ranald for this early release copy in exchange for my honest review.

The writing was easy and simple, plus the narration was so smooth that i literally finished this book in two sittings 🤌 well had to sacrifice my night sleep but it was definitely worth it.
The characters were amazing and wonderful. The plot was interesting as well. Overall, it was a good read.

The Love Hack by Sophie Ranald and narrated by Harrie Dobby was such a cute listen! Harrie Dobby did a great job narrating. I enjoyed listening to her narrate Lucy and was awed by her American English accent when she narrated the character of Ross.

Lucy has a men's advice column in an on-line publication. The problem (or let's say, one of the many problems) - Lucy is a woman, pretending to be a man. Additionally, Lucy is pretty clueless when it comes to men, and she has not dated in a very long time (since a failed "relationship" with an ex-co-worker (which led to a whole lot of problems)).

Lucy works with Ross, who she finds attractive and funny. Unfortunately, Ross hooks up with a sort-of friend of Lucy's, making him unavailable.

Lucy's sister, who has always "had it all" gets married and moves to NYC with her new husband for his job. Lucy's sister goes rouge and stops communicating with friends and family in England.

Lucy must maintain "Ask Adam", save her sister, and figure out what she wants out of life, including if she is happy with her job and if she can find her happily-ever-after.

This is a cute listen.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Select for the advance listen in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I didn't mind the narrator. I found her voice easy to listen to, and would have continued till the end of the book, had Ross and Lucy been a bit more proactive in their romance. But no, by 30%, he had slept with someone else, so I was disappointed. I might come back to this book later, but my list is very long, so it might be a while before that happens.

Forever telling you how much I love books about writers. It’s so fun to read about them and see them work through the story. I loved the premise of this one but the romance was a tad disappointing. It felt kind of clobbered together and there are other ways it could have been done that would have been much clearer. I liked the tip to remembrance of 9/11 but it felt like a forced plot line too.

🌀Synopsis
Lucy’s job is letting her go. Magazines just don’t have the traction anymore so they can’t keep her on staff. She comes up with an idea, though, and convinces them to keep her as a writer for their sister magazine- a male focused business. Ask Adam is born from desperation and turns into a huge success. Lucy is constantly getting emails and she’s starting to realize how clueless men are- only she’s clueless too. Her sister helps her formulate answers but when her sister gets married her help moves away and Lucy is on her own.
Now she’s trying to figure out her column amidst her heavy attraction to her colleague, Ross, and none of it is going well. When she gets a letter she’s sure is from her sister’s new husband, Lucy takes action. She’s using AI to help her formulate responses and she’s on a mission to save her sister from heartbreak.
When Ross lands himself in NY with her, they finally talk about the true feelings they have for each other. The situation with her sister is bad but it ends up being a good outcome for both sisters after all.

*3.5 Stars On My Instagram Account*

"Don't be a dick."

If you take anything away from the often hilarious, sometimes infuriating, a bit sad and quite sweet The Love Hack, by satirical romance author Sophie Ranald, especially for men, it's please don't be a dick!

In order to stay employed Lucy, with her sister's help, creates the advice column for an online men's magazine, "Ask Adam." Her identity is secret since it's supposed to be a man giving advice to other men. Being part of the all male staff isn't easy especially when she starts crushing on the sweet quick to blush Ross.

Besides the bad optics of an office romance, her first time with a man was with a misogynistic coworker who owned the power dynamic. But Ross is a kind person and slowly her barriers fall.

The thing is this is very much Lucy's coming into her own story more than a romance. She's self-deprecating to the point that her inner comments become more sad than funny.

There's drama in her sister's new marriage that leads her to NYC from London and a hysterical reenactment of the famous scene from When Harry Met Sally in Katz Deli. But the real turmoil is how she struggles with the advice she gives in her column, often asking others' opinions and even using an AI program.

Voice actress Harrie Dobby was funny but her tone also shows how insecure, anxious and awkward Lucy feels most of the time. It's partly through the men that ask for advice that she starts to realize most men are good, feeling humans and not all of them are dicks.

I wish we had a few POV chapters from Ross. We don't really know him until the last chapters. I think the title Ask Adam is more accurate than The Love Hack because Lucy's not a hack at love; just ask Adam...better yet ask Ross!

I received a free copy of this book/audiobook from the publishers via #NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

Unfortunately, I did not connect with this book. The writing was very repetitive, and it was difficult to read about a protagonist who makes one baffling decision after another. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the audiobook.

I was really trying to like this book but it was very hard between the self-centered main character and the blatant juvenile gender stereotypes this was a hard listen (though i really liked the narrator)...it was really hard to belive that these characters are the ages they are since they act like teenagers rather than grown adults with full-time jobs.

It's nothing against the author but I don't think I will read any of her other books in the future.

"The Love Hack" by Sophie Ranald, narrated by Harrie Dobby, is a clever and relatable exploration of relationships and human nature story.
Lucy, the protagonist, is a rookie advice columnist who's struggling to navigate her own love life after a past heartbreak. She's convinced that she'll never fall for someone in the office again, but then she meets Ross, her charming and hilarious new co-worker. As she gets to know him better, she finds herself drawn to his quirky humour and kind heart.
But things take a complicated turn when Lucy discovers that Ross is most definitely not single. And to make matters worse, she's convinced that an email in her inbox is from him, which throws her whole world into chaos. As she tries to decode the romantic troubles plaguing her life, she turns to her trusty AI assistant for help.
I admit that I was a bit sceptical about the whole AI assistant thing at first, but it ended up being a clever and insightful addition to the story. It added a layer of depth and realism to the characters' experiences and helped to illustrate the complexities of modern relationships.
One of the things that stood out to me about this book was its portrayal of women as strong, capable individuals who are worthy of love and respect. Lucy is a fantastic protagonist - she's smart, funny, and relatable, and she's not afraid to speak her mind. I loved watching her grow and evolve throughout the story, and I found myself cheering her on as she navigated the ups and downs of her love life.
Of course, no review would be complete without mentioning the narration. Harrie Dobby did an excellent job of bringing the characters to life, and her voice was perfect for this story. She captured Lucy's wit and sassiness perfectly, and her narration added to the overall charm of the book.
"The Love Hack" is a great choice for anyone who loves romance novels with a twist. It's a fun, relatable read that will keep you laughing and crying in equal measure. Just be prepared for a little bit of cringe - some of the moments can be a bit awkward, but hey, that's just part of the charm!