Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Books for the ARC!

“The thing no one ever tells you about losing someone you love is how guilty you’ll feel about every single moment you spent with them where you could’ve been more attentive, more loving. Where you would’ve soaked up more of their presence. If you’d known you’d lose them so soon.”

I’m glad to have found another author that I would immediately pre-order their next book. I definitely did not guess what the initial conflict was going to be so I was surprised when it was revealed, which is rare. While I do wish Andie would have opened up sooner, and Jack would have apologized and explained sooner, it’s mainly because I wanted more of them together. I could feel Andie’s sadness about her Dad like I was going through it with her.

Andie has landed her dream job, except for one big thing. The first author she has to work with is a man who almost destroyed her. Having moved to NYC from England after this incident and the sudden passing of her beloved Dad, Andie has spent the last five years running from her past. And now suddenly she has to confront it. Jack is a best selling, gorgeous man who broke Andie's heart and destroyed her life. And now she needs to spend weeks with him as his publicist throughout Europe. She will not let him stand in her way of her dream job and they decide to call a truce. She will successfully publicize his tour and they will remain at arms distance - or will they? On top of a stressful tour, her Mother throws a new bombshell at her. Will she actually be able to handle all of this without losing her mind? A great first effort by Biana Gillam. Thanks to Bianca Gillam, Bloombury Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Themes:
👫Forced Proximity
💫 True Enemy (just one) to lovers
🗺️ Europe & New York Based
💔 Grief
🥈Second Chances

Review:
I went into reading Bad Publicity thinking this was a contemporary romance where exes are forced into close proximity and a delicious slow burn, and all of that was true ,but this novel explored some really heavy topics later (done well in my opinion) in the book that really changed my perception from Contemporary romance to literary fiction.

I think the topics of grief, the aftermath of loss, the issues that affected Jack and Andie were so well done and honestly I haven’t read a story line like theirs ever. It was a refreshing take, but also a deep and real take on “enemy to lovers” and forced proximity. Andie's distrust and lack of warmth towards Jack in the beginning was completely warranted once you go back in time and learn what trauma happened in their lives at university. I felt that their slow evolution to finding peace with one another was well crafted and natural, not forced. And finally, I thought the friendship issues between Andie and her best friend Sarah were also realistic and I appreciated not having a “perfect friendship” displayed in a storyline. Characters who don't always get it right but because of real, relatable issues is always a strong read

There are some negative reviews about the pace being slow, and some sentence structures being off- I agree to some parts on pacing, but I think both of these takes are largely due to this being an advance reader copy and it being an uncorrected proof. Some editing will likely clean these issues up and overall I would not encourage readers to take those reviews to heart. I highly recommend this book!

Thank you to Net Galley and Penguin Books for the opportunity to read and review this advance copy. All opinions and reviews expressed are my own

Andie and Jack have a tempestuous past. Now, thrown together on an international book tour five years later, they have the choice of calling a truce, or facing their past.

This story is heavily centered around grief and personality growth. While the love story between Andie and Jack is another main storyline, the book felt heavy.

The writing style was easy to read yet comprehensive at the same time. The characters were well developed.

While this did feel like a very "run of the mill" romance, I really enjoyed the travel aspect of the book. This helped to add a little something to set it apart from some similar romances I've read in the past. Would recommend to romance readers looking for something a little more adventurous.

I was instantly on board for the premise of this book: two exes on a book tour together, an author and his publicist. It had a lot of potential.

And…I think it lived up to that potential.

The tension built to a boiling point. I think the author’s choice to keep the source of their falling out a mystery was actually well made. It took me a while to find my footing as I’m used to dual POV and flashbacks with this type of book. However, when those were finally implemented, it packed the proper punch.

I appreciated that the conflict was actually a conflict and not just a little tiff. If anything, I think Andie underreacted to what she believed happened.

Jack seemed like a bit of a pushover at first but over the course of the book he became one of my favorite male love interests ever. Sweet but with a backbone.

The subplots held my interest as well. I found myself actually caring about what happened with her mom and best friend. It didn’t feel like a distraction from the main plot and it all wove together well.

Overall, this is about as good a debut as I’ve ever seen from a romance author! Can’t wait to see more from Bianca Gillam.

I did think that the premise of the book was interesting, I love romance and I especially love a little enemies to lovers. I felt like perhaps we were moving a little too fast and at times it fell a little flat. I just found myself not completely invested into the characters. But thank you Netgalley and thank you to the publishers that allowed me to have this arc.

An easy read that followeda plotline. I felt the story itself, about the publishing, was good, but the better part was when grief over the father's death, was dealt with.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for early access to this title. I will be recommending it to friends, once it is published

Set to be published May 13, 2025

This was a cute book, but not one of my favorites.
It was a slow burn for me.
Ex lovers from college, to working together touring as publicist and author.

Thank you Netgalley for giving me a opportunity to read first hand and give a review.

Bad publicity captures the essence of romcom perfectly! The fun characters are vibrant and relatable, with witty banter that keeps the dialogue fresh and entertaining. The swoon-worthy romance unfolds with just the right amount of charm and tension, making every moment a joy. I loved it.

I devoured this book! Now you must be thinking if she devoured it why only 3 stars. For 2 big reasons but we will get to that. Before I do a brief synopsis. Our book follows Andie, a publicist who is forced to work on an author release tour with her ex-boyfriend Jack. As you can imagine will lead to all sorts of complicated feelings and emotions.

Which leads to my biggest issue in the book. The miscommunication trope. If you’ve been following me for a while you know I loathe this trope. And regrettably this trope has a central role in the plot. And not just between the MMC & MFC. But also with the MFC, her mother and best friend. Honestly they all need therapy. It got so frustrating that I too was banging my head against the wall just like the main character.

My second let’s say gripe, was the ending. I enjoyed the ending. However, I wish we could have been given another bonus epilogue or just have the book be longer. And that’s mainly because I wasn’t ready for Jack & Andies story to end I wanted more of it.

Overall, the book is quick and easy read for any romance reader, and I do recommend it.

Thank you so much to Netgalley & Penguin Group Publishing for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.

Bad publicity, I really enjoyed this book and the characters they all flowed really well in the storyline. It's kind of a slower book but I still liked it.

Bad publicity - what a fun ride. It's a little slow burn but not too bad. I was rooting for Jack and Andie the whole time. When Andie discovers she will be her ex-fing's publisher, she loses her mind. We don’t find out what caused the pushing until the end of the book, but I’m glad they worked it all out. Throughout the tour with Jack, she goes through it. She lost her dad around the same time she and Jack split, and she’s been holding onto guilt and pain for five years. I felt terrible for her but also wished she would talk to someone and talk about her feelings instead of keeping it all in and having all this anger. Finally, at the end of the book, they confess their feelings. The talks finally happened, and all was well. I don’t want to give too much away cause I want people to experience it themselves. This book was a fun, quick read, pulling me in on each page.

Thank you, NetGalley, for this ARC.

2.7
I had a tough time with the deeply narcissistic main character, to the extent that it was difficult to believe any of the other characters really liked her either.

A very cute enemies to lovers set in the world of publishing. It does lean toward a miscommunication trope, but is really Andie’s refusal to work through her grief after her father’s death and process any hard situation. I do like that her growth to dealing with that and the situation between her and Jack was no magically solved, but that she did do some of the hard work to process and be ok. I do wish we had gotten more of Jack’s point of view rather than only at the very end.