ɴᴇᴛɢᴀʟʟᴇʏ ʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ || FIRST TIME CALLER [thank you to @berkleyromance and @netgalley for my #gifted copy!]

Title: First Time Caller
Author: B.K. Borrison
Genre: Romance
Format: Digital
Star Rating: ★★★★★

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ:
When Baltimore’s romance hotline host, Aiden Valentine, goes viral for advising a young caller about her mom’s love life, single mom Lucie Stone finds herself unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight. As her dating prospects—and doubts—multiply, sparks ignite between Lucie and the moody, magnetic voice behind the mic. Torn between a public love story and a private connection, Lucie must decide if her true happy ending lies on-air or off.

ᴍʏ ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛꜱ:
My #1 most anticipated book for 2025 and it DID NOT disappoint! Seriously - I couldn’t devour this book fast enough! And I fully plan to do a reread with the audiobook because I’m sure the radio show snippets are going to be SO MUCH FUN.

This romance just feels so good. Lucie and Aiden fall fast and hard, but it also just makes sense (I mean, the forced proximity of being in the radio booth together night after night definitely pushes you to get to know someone).

Plus, the idea of finding dates on a radio show was so fun. And the cast of side characters were a delight! I can’t WAIT to read the next one as it features the MMC that I was HOPING FOR.

Just do yourself a favor — read this book. Immediately.

ʀᴇᴀᴅ ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴋᴇ:
Opposites Attract
Forced Proximity
Meddling Kids
Sleepless in Seattle
Love Stories to Baltimore
Second Chance at Love

ᴅᴇᴛᴀɪʟꜱ:
GR: 4.54 ⭐️
# of Pages: 448
Pub Date: February 11, 2025

💥 Pub Date: 2/11/2025

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

• radio show romance
• grumpy/sunshine
• relatable characters

Our FMC is what we call unlucky in love, our MMC doesn't really believe in the magic of love... this sets up a really great rom com! The banter and chemistry is on point. The plot never stalls out. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series!

🗣 Thank you to netgalley and Berkley for the opportunity to read and review this book via gifted eARC! All opinions are honest and my own.

𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐲 𝐁.𝐊. 𝐁𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧
𝗠𝗬 𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: ★★★★

This was such a fun and super entertaining story! I went into this book completely blind as I loved the cover and have enjoyed the author in the past.

The story of Lucie and Aiden had me hooked from the start! I loved how down to earth Lucie was, I enjoyed her straight forward parenting style, her career as a mechanic and I adored her close relationship with her baby daddy and his husband. Lucie’s entire life alone had me tuned in to this book and not wanting to put it down! I loved Lucie’s daughter and the way she worked her magic to help get her mom out into the dating world.

The radio station and Aiden Valentine were the perfect adventurous side to the dating scene that Lucie got herself into. Aiden was a bit mysterious and I think his contrast to Lucie’s honesty had me a bit reluctant to like him initially but I loved how he finally started to tear down his walls for her. I enjoyed the ups and downs the two went through to get to know each other and the chemistry that built up over the course of the radio show. More than anything, I loved reading and listening to Lucie’s growth and strength through all of the challenging parts of the story.

The audiobook was narrated perfectly by E.J. Bingham and Hathaway Lee. I read and listened to this book in tandem and I enjoyed all the added sounds and adjustments to the audio to make it feel like you were actually listening to the radio show.

🌶️🌶️

This book. Oh my gosh. I was listening to this in the car and the scene where the MMC called his dad had me crying in rush hour traffic. The slow burn in this was amplified by the readers are experiencing it along with most of the city that they live in, because it is happening on air. The witty banter, the emotional trauma, and the meddling families just added more to my love for this. I hope Jackson’s story is next, because he needs a little disruption to his routines 😏

❤️Tropes❤️
💋 slow burn
💋 forced proximity
💋 witty banter
💋 single mom

Aiden may have a romance show at the radio station, but he’s not sure he believes in love. He’s grumpy and in a funk, and honestly, the ratings are way down. Until a girl calls in to ask for help for her mom. Sure the mom may accuse him of inappropriate things, but to be fair, he is a grown man talking to a 12 year old in the middle of the night. And he can’t stop smiling. And it seems he isn’t the only one charmed by her, the whole city wants her to find her true love. And his radio station is going to help.

5/5⭐️
2/5🌶️

One simple call… could change it all.

Lucie’s love life is non-existent. So obviously non-existent, in fact, that she catches her teenage daughter calling a late-night romance hotline, looking for a way to help her mom figure out her love life. When the call goes viral, the city of Baltimore and the entire Eastern Seaboard are rooting for Lucie to find the love of her life. Soon the radio show that started it all offers her a deal… co-host the romance hotline with Aiden, its grumpy host, with the hopes that she finds the one.

THIS. BOOK. WAS. EVERYTHING! It gave me goosebumps, footsie kicks, stomach butterflies, the giggles, a big cheesy grin and a few tears. It was absolutely incredible and this story was too cute. The relationship build-up, the depth of the characters, Lucie’s family… I was obsessed from the drop. Our FMC Lucie is so strong, having had a kiddo so young, and has a level of emotional maturity that, quite frankly, you don’t see too often in a main character! Our MMC was flawed, but our FMC helped show him that he deserved happiness and love in the end, which he also reciprocated back to her. If I could meet Lucie in real life I just KNOW we’d be besties… and I’d absolutely love to be a part of their found family. This story was beautiful and exactly what I needed. I cannot get over how B.K. writes and an incredibly excited to read more from her.

Tropes in this story:
✨Single mom & found family
✨Down-on-love MMC and FMC
✨Strangers to friends to lovers
✨A level of yearnin’ and burnin’ that had me SQUEALING!
✨Forced proximity

Thank you for the free e-book @BerkleyRomance! I am grateful to be a Berkley Romance 2025 Influencer and given the opportunity to read this book early; my review is all my own.

3 words: Aiden freaking Valentine! Aiden has officially joined my list of favorite fictional men! I usually relate to FMC’s in books, but let me tell you, I saw a lot of myself in Aiden, and I think that made this read really special for me.

All the hopeless romantics are going to eat this book up. This is Sleepless in Seattle retelling is set in Baltimore, where Lucie’s daughter Maya calls into Heartstrings, Baltimore’s romance hotline, to ask Aiden for help with her mother’s love life. After the segment goes viral, Lucie reluctantly agrees to go onto the radio show so that Aiden can help her find potential dates. And there is a LOT of interest.

Lucie and Aiden are opposites in many ways. Lucie is honest, and wears her heart on her sleeve. She is also a badass car mechanic, which I LOVED as a women in STEM. Aiden has packaged away his heart after being affected by family illness, and turns into a bit of a cynical grump (me lol). The more time they spend together, they more they start changing. Lucie, learning what magic she is really looking for, and Aiden realizing he has been hiding from his feelings for too long.

There were a lot of heart wrenching moments between Lucie and Aiden that made me swoon. The entire cast of characters was great, but I especially loved Jackson, and I hope we get his book next! I also appreciated Lucie’s friends and family who care for her so much (her coworkers at the garage, her coparents Grayson and Matteo, and of course her daughter Maya). One of my favorite aspects of this book was its ode to Baltimore. I am a Maryland girl born and raised, and was kicking my feet over the Berger cookies Aiden and Jackson couldn’t stop eating.

This falls somewhere around a 4.25 for me. The main reason I didn’t give this book 5 stars is because it is quite long, and the pacing at some points felt a little slow to me. I also wish we got some more time with Aiden and Maya.

Thank you to Berkley Romance and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Absolutely obsessed with this book. I can’t stop recommending it. The tension, the banter, the ode to Sleepless In Seattle and the RESPECT that Thong Song truly deserves. All the stars.

This one was absolutely adorable! The perfect little romcom to get me out of my reading slump.

This follows Lucie and Aiden. Lucie’s daughter calls into Aiden’s radio show about her mom’s less than active dating life, being worried for her mom. She just wants her mom to find happiness and doesn’t want her to not feel like she’s enough. Lucie catches her and ends up on the air with Aiden, airing her true beliefs on love, herself, and whether or not a relationship is what she needs because she wants the magic.

Mind you, Aiden hosts a little tiny radio show that typically has like 10 followers. He’s also become so unattached to his emotions that their show is risking being cancelled / sold to a different producer. The call with Lucie goes VIRAL, and his boss reaches out to her to get her on the air to start a “Lucie’s Road to Love” to help her find her magical someone.

Now they’re co-anchors, she has bad luck with the blind dates she gets, and they become an odd sort of friends with some deep ass chemistry.

And can we talk about the side characters? How her baby daddy is also like her best friend, lives next door to her with his husband, and will prepared to go to war for her?! Absolutely loved this.

BK Borison has done it again! First Time Caller is now my favorite one of hers.

Inspired by Sleepless in Seattle, the author wrote about a single mom, Lucie, who ends up opening up about her love life or lack thereof, on a late night radio show, charming all of Baltimore, including the show host, Aiden.
The story has all the elements of our favorite romcoms, banter, chemistry, and a broody but sensitive hero who is rapidly falling in love but doesn’t realize it 😉 In addition, we have great supporting characters with the FMCs family and friends.
It was a slow burn, open door (but not vulgar), strangers-to-lovers, forced proximity romance; full of funny and tender moments, and mature characters (including the kid!).

Thanks so much to @berkleyromance for the free book!

if a warm cozy hug could be a book…
it would be this one.

this is the first book i’ve ever picked up from BK Borisom and i am immediately a fan. This was everything you could ever want in a romcom.

forced proximity
jaded lover boy x hopeless romantic
radioshow host x mechanic
smalltown
meddling adorable daughter
single mom

lucie hears her daughter talking in her room one night and when she enters the room, so notices shes on the phone with a strange man… that man being Aiden, who host a romance radioshow.

thus enters the plot where lucie joins aiden on the show to try and find herself a man, which dates and being stood up.. aiden is by her side.

this was everything. I binged it all in one day despite the fact i was on a trip and shopping.. every second i had, i was picking up my kindle to read more.
the push and pull, the emotions were so dang raw.

If i could erase this from my memory just to read it for the first time again.. i would.

i’m officially a bk borison stan and i will be reading her entire backlog now.


PLEASE read this.

update: it was stunning. beautiful. spectacular. everything i needed it to be and more! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️+!!!

currently reading this one and loving it. i have a feeling it’s going to be a 5+ star read for me. every word of it has been a delight to read; it’s so nostalgic, reminiscent of my favorite cozy, inspiring romcoms, and harkens back to slower times where things felt less complicated. i really, truly am savoring this one, and i have a feeling reading ‘the end’ will be heartbreaking. will update review once i have finished!

Thank you to Berkley for an ARC of this book!

Becs always leaves me emotionally devastated after reading her books. Like, just, lay me on the ground and stomp on me with the feelings. I don't know HOW she does it, but she somehow manages to convey so many emotions and feelings. She also makes things absolutely resonate with me.

Like, I am not that similar to Lucie, but we do have some of the same feelings and just UGHHH. As I was reading this I was like highlighting so many amazing quotes. Just...honestly iconic. I don't have the words.

This is a feel good romance, and I just loved every moment of it. It was adorable, and affirming and just -- soft. I don't know how else to describe it. It was like being wrapped in a warm hug. I just adored all the relationships between the characters, again, words escape me.

I loved the combination of an old style radio station love story mixed with our modern times, it felt...wonderful.

I do believe I'm not making a lot of sense, but this book left me a mess. Lots of feelings. I think it's because Borison makes the world real -- she makes it feel as if you're there with these characters. Even the side characters have dimension to them; including the ones that only have a few pages of airtime. (Hah, see what I did there?)

Aiden is likeable and relatable because of his fears, and Lucie is because of hers. In some ways Borison delves deep into the human psyche because she is able to bring up things that resonate deeply with us. But not only that, she does it in a way that is positive. She puts a positive spin on it, she shows that no, wanting magic in romance isn't a bad thing. It's not a lost cause.

And honestly, I love that hope. The hope that this story gives us. And for me, that is one of the foundations of this book. Not only that, the idea of loneliness, and even when we're surrounded by people we can still be lonely. We all need different things from life, and I love that this is acknowledged in the book. Of what we are told to do, and what we should do for ourselves.

This book definitely left me with a lot of thoughts, and I'm still digesting some of them.

I will scream this from the rooftops but this book is AMAZING and I will recommend it to anyone who loves romance. This *is* a romance.

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Heartstrings, Baltimore's romance hotline on the radio, is struggling. The show's host, Aiden Valentine, has stopped believing in love and ratings suffer for it. Everything changes one night when a young girl calls, asking for help to find her mom a date. Baltimore is charmed by Lucie Stone's story, and suddenly Aiden finds himself sharing his recording studio with Lucie as they try to find the love of her life, live on the radio. The more time Aiden and Lucie spend together, the more it becomes clear that the person they've both been looking for might already be beside them.

This book was an ode to love and to the City of Baltimore. I laughed and cried, rooting the entire story for Lucie and Aiden. My heart just felt so full reading this book. Borison always writes such real characters with deep emotions; this book is no exception. Two of the strongest tropes in this story are grumpy/sunshine and found family, which are both written incredibly well. It was truly a pleasure to read this book and I recommend it to all romance lovers.

Sometimes a book feels like magic from the very first page and leaves you full of hope on the last.

This book is everything I love in a romance: sweet, funny, heartfelt, and utterly swoon-worthy. With its charming characters, broody hero, single mom magic, and ‘if he wanted to, he would’ vibes, this story stole my heart, had me swooning and laughing out loud. HE KEEPS A LIST OF ALL HER FAVORITE THINGS IN HIS GLOVE COMPARTMENT SO HE DOESN'T FORGET. LIKE COME ON.

Also all the little invisible strings, like that had me in a puddle. First-time caller, long time listener, i about died.

Don’t walk—run and add this to your TBR. You’ll fall in love with Lucie and Aiden just like I did.

(3.5 or 7/10) I liked this even better than the film it's based on – don't come for me, Sleepless in Seattle stans. I'll admit I was first drawn in by this amazing cover and title, but the contents of this book are better even than its packaging.

Lucie is a single mom to a darling preteen. After catching her on the phone with a man late at night and (understandably) assuming the worst, she snatches the phone and starts talking to Aiden, host of Baltimore's romance hotline radio show, Heartstrings. And so begins a sweet story about finding your person where and when you least expect them.

Clocking it at around 450 pages, this book could have definitely been trimmed down; there were points where the pacing suffered as a result. Relatedly, while Lucie's themes and emotional storyline were well-fleshed out, Aiden's was crammed to the end and certainly rushed by comparison, and in a book as long as this one, that felt really off.

I also wish there was more interaction with Aiden and Maya, Lucie's daughter. They interact in-person twice (3x if you count the epilogue), but I still wish there would have been a budding-family outing as the 3 of them, and/or a scene with Aiden attending the family dinner... something that really drives home to the readers that this is a partnership that can and will integrate well into the rest of Lucie's life.

Other than that, I really did enjoy this. Aiden and Lucie are compelling characters and their story is certainly worth the read if you're interested by the premise. The dual POV is amazing in this case – much needed since Aiden keeps his cards close to the chest – and Borison's writing style is smooth and places you easily in the studio booth with them. Another favorite detail is the lovely co-parenting relationship she has with her baby daddy (AKA childhood best friend) and his husband. So lovely to witness, especially since most of us grew up with the opposite.

First-Time Caller is a lovely read, and if you're a Nora Ephron fan, run to grab your copy.

First-Time Caller has a lot of Sleepless in Seattle energy and delivers in many of the same ways. We have a cute kid who calls late night radio and the ballsy best friend who pushes the heroine out of her comfort zone. Aiden Valen(tine) is less perfect and a lot scruffier than Tom Hanks, though, which makes him all the more appealing. Just about everything about this novel is spot-on. Characters are well drawn and appealing, Baltimore shows off at his charming quirky best, and the love story has the just the right mix of realism and magic. Recommended for anyone who loves a good love story with a great parking lot happy ending.

I love rom-coms. We’ve established that.

They’re almost all I buy in the romance genre anymore. I’m not saying that the other subgenres are invalid or “bad” or anything like that – I like a nice romantasy and while the dark romance thing is definitely not my vibe, I can see the appeal with other readers. But after almost a year and a half of reading romance novels I feel like the rom-com is where I like to live.

But it is such a tricky job to pull off. I’ve read plenty of rom-coms where the “rom” was definitely there, but I didn’t laugh, chuckle or even really smile all that much. I’ve also read plenty where the comedy was there, but the romance was extremely “meh” – the sort where I wonder whether or not the couple would still be together in 5 years. And that doesn’t even begin to approach the struggles with balancing characters so that no one is too needy, too strong, too broken, too withdrawn, too grumpy, too bubbly. Too cute. Not cute enough. But that balance is so critical to pulling it off.

This is all a preamble to talking about my first five-star read of 2025 and just a perfect blend of both the rom and com that makes rom-coms so wonderful. Once again…I won’t rehash the plot in my review – the book blurb does a more than adequate job of that. But B.K. Borison has concocted a sort of magical alchemy in this novel that had me laughing loudly at one point, smiling stupidly at others, and tears at the end. She has managed to write a novel that features not one but multiple memorable characters that I wanted more of – not just our mains, but the entire “found family” around both of them. A novel that is so steeped in a city I’ve always held a soft spot for that midway I had to put the book down because I’d never read anything by her before and said to myself, “She HAS to be a Baltimore person – nobody who isn’t from Baltimore would or could write a novel more completely “Baltimore” than this.” A novel that plays with the genre while definitely loving it.

The “Sleepless in Seattle” nods were a delight, though many of them were turned on their heads or changed/modified in little ways. I enjoyed that both the lead characters had issues they needed to get over. I loved that when Lucie realized what she wanted, she didn’t hesitate. I absolutely LOVED that so much of this novel is about people freaking TALKING OUT PROBLEMS (sorry for the all caps, but I just recently listened to a novel where miscommunication was a large part of it and it drove me nuts). I loved that there was no third-act breakup – not really. I loved the ending. I loved the little snippets of the callers/commenters on the radio show and the idea that by the end, the entire city was more or less rooting for them. I loved when Aiden said he needed seven minutes before Lucie came into his home – because I realized exactly WHY he needed that extra time (seriously, folks…real tears there).

I’ve seen people say this is a slow burn. And yeah…it is. But you know what? There is such a build-up of chemistry and feeling that by the time the burn starts heating up, you’re begging them to just kiss already. Begging them to throw caution to the wind and take a chance on each other. And the flirting is so… *chef’s kiss* It works because it is a slow burn. Because they take weeks to get to know one another. It means when it does happen (and boy does it get steamy)…it feels so worth it. The ending feels earned. It all feels so earned.

I’ve said before…I’m a tough grader. My reviews tend to hover between 3 and 4 (as the law of averages says they should) and I’m not above nitpicking a book and pushing it’s rating down. That doesn’t mean I don’t like it – there have been some fantasticly awesome reads I gave only 4 stars to. And I kept looking for a reason to dock this. It got so weird that I wondered… “Should I knock it for the cover? I like the cover…but Lucie is a brunette and the girl on the cover has kind of red hair.” But in the end…I just can’t. I loved it too much.

I needed this book in my life so badly – after so many mediocre reads in the last month or so. With everything that’s about to happen next week. With choosing to do Dry January when THAT is about to happen next week. But I think about all the years I didn’t read rom-coms – didn’t accept that hey…this is what you love! I would have missed out on this beautiful book. So you shouldn’t miss on it either. 5 unreserved stars. Standing O.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the opportunity to read an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for a fair review. All opinions are my own and uncompensated. First-Time Caller is available from Berkley and all fine retailers on February 11th. You can preorder it here!

This was such a soft, precious hug of a book. The premise is a spin on Sleepless In Seattle, where Lucy’s daughter calls in to the local radio station (it gave me Delilah vibes) to ask for advice concerning her mother’s love life. Lucy manages to get ahold of the phone conversation with the host Aiden, and listeners fall in love with her, to the point where she’s invited to join the show as she searches for love. Little does she know the love she is in search for is what she’s been listening to all along. The vibes of this book were immaculate, and you really just feel for these characters as they have real problems that can be easily understood. Cozy and romantic, I wish that Heartstrings was a real radio show.

I really really enjoyed this book!!! It was a really great, sweet, fluffy romance!! It was my first B.K. Borison book, and I really like how she writes her characters — they’re all so human and individual. Every relationship in this book, whether it’s parent-child, friendship, etc, is written so well and I loved all the different kinds of banter and interactions we got!!

Lucie is a lovely character and I love seeing more single mom representation in books!!! I love that she lets herself be a romantic, that she allows herself to be so open and sweet. I also loved Aiden (of course) and the way he slowly opened up to Lucie, which led him to opening up in general, was so great!!

One thing I noticed was that the line “yeah?” showed up a lot in dialogue, and though that’s a bit nit-picky, it did show up enough that I noticed it and it messed with the flow a bit. Otherwise such a great romance!!

4.5 stars!! B.K. Borison has done it again! I loved First Time Caller so much! It felt like the perfect romance! I loved seeing Aiden and Lucie’s relationship progress and how he was a man obsessed from the start. I also enjoyed seeing Lucie learn what she wanted for herself as the story progressed and her not settling for anything less. Aiden sometimes lacked some communication skills, but I think he made up for it in other ways, especially how attentive he was to everything Lucie (the list!!!). This book also had a great cast of side characters and they really added to the story, but my favorite was probably Lucie’s daughter. Overall, this was such a great read and I can’t wait to see what comes next in this series!