The FMC of Love Story is Sophie, who is a teacher and secret romance writer who writes with a pen name as she is worried about what the school and the people in her life will think about her.

I loved Love Me Do, which was the first book by Kelk that I read - but for me, this one didn't quite live up to my expectations. Because most of the book takes place within a short time frame (like 3 days!!!) I didn't really buy into their chemistry and felt the characters were a little too one dimensional for me. In addition, some of the descriptions that were given were a little too wordy and detailed and while I appreciate the authors intentions to be trendy with references to TikTok and social media phrases it was a little too "on the nose" in my opinion.

Rounded up to three stars
**thank you to Netgalley and HaperCollins for the ARC and a chance to read and review. All opinions are my own**

I read my first book by this author a few years ago and LOVED it, so I was very excited to see another new release from her! This book takes on a totally different story than before, but her descriptions and character development are just as special and really immerse you into the story and make you fall in love with them. Thank you so much for the chance to read this great book early!

Ok, this was so much fun. A school teacher who is secretly the bestselling author of spicy romances, count me in! This is an entertaining rom-com with a medium amount of spice. Author Lindsey Kelk does a great job with enemies-to-lovers and forced proximity. I did want a little bit more with the ending, but now I have to wonder if there will be a sequel.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the digital reviewer copy.

Oh my gosh!!! Thank you to NetGalley and Publishing for the opportunity to read this adorable book. It captivated me from the start and I could not out it down. The characters are well rounded and you cant help but care for them!
4/5 stars

This was hovering around a 2.5, but there's a sexual harassment situation that's played for laughs, and a lot of weird erasure of nb (and male, for that matter) romance writers that's done in the name of calling romance-writing a feminist act (which it still can be! But not if you have to pretend Casey McQuiston, for example, doesn't exist in order to make your vague point??)... and the rest of this book simply isn't good enough to make up for those aspects. The characters and situations felt cartoonish, with the main pair especially flip-flopping wildly in their motivations; both the romantic and familial resolutions were weak, with nothing actually *solved*, and, trivial but still obnoxious, every page is absolutely drowning in authorial namedrops.

Also why does everyone keep saying Charlotte is a ruthless genius when all she actually is, is a nepo-baby (who stole her sister's expensive purse)? She had the brilliant idea of... "have an author signing"? wow, a true genius. On a similar note, how on earth is the book within the book, Butterflies, the filthiest thing the world/BookTok have ever heard of? If you're going to make that claim, maybe don't have characters actually read the supposedly spiciest scenes aloud on page as if to prove it's blandly tame. This book namedrops authors of *way* steamier sex scenes constantly, and has the audacity to pretend this is getting called the filthiest book in the UK or whatever?

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I spent most of this book annoyed and rolling my eyes, and that simply isn't the way I want to read a romance. I've enjoyed books by this author before, and hope to again in the future, but this one was simply a dud for me, and I'm just not in love with Love Story.

Thank you to the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

DNF @ 67%
I felt like I couldn’t really get into the characters, maybe I just didn’t like them as people? I made it 2/3rds of the way and felt like the story didn’t progress. It honestly had a lot of potential and I can see this being an enjoyable story, I just think it may not be for me, which is fine! I loved the setting it was very descriptive.

A fun and engaging enemies to lovers battle. Love Story explores pride and empowerment and relationships in a very authentic and refreshing way. Would recommend for any rom com lovers library!

Did I liked the book, I would said more than 90% , it was funny. Down right hilarious on some parts and definitely enjoyable. The plot was cute and nice. Like the main character and her development and her sister and brother 🤌🏻. The MMC was a bit more harder to like right away but you do eventually until you want to strangle him 😅. Not fan of the third act break up but happy with how it ends.

I had loved Lindsey Kelk's "I Love" series so I was really excited to get an ARC of her latest book. Unfortunately this was rather disappointment despite the exciting premise...

Sophie wrote the newest best-selling romance book that everyone is obsessed with under a pseudonym - a secret she wants to keep, especially given how her high-brow high-literature critic parents think about romance as a genre. She meets Joe, the so-called bad-boy of the publishing world, when she is out with her publisher/old-family friend, one of the 3 people who knows her moonlighting as a best-seller romance writer secret. Of course Joe and Sophie immediately clash and of course she forgets her totebag containing the sequel to her novel, which Joe promptly finds because he also turns out to be another old family friend's son and they used to know each other as kids and he is also invited to Sophie's dad's birthday party.

I do love a 'only one bed trope' but the fact that Sophie's parents would force her to share a bedroom with Joe, someone she barely knows was terrible. To be honest, throw Sophie's entire family to the garbage (except her brother) for how they think of Sophie and how they let her younger sister walk over her.

Sophie and Joe also somehow fall deeply in love within 3 days even though their every interaction is with Sophie being judgmental towards him for no rational reason and Joe ending every sentence with mentioning how much he wants to sleep with her. Oh, there is also lots of miscommunication, blackmail, false identities, name-check of every single prominent romance author out there, BookTok, and to be honest, too many characters that are rather impossible to keep track of.

Thank you for the ARC!

“I’ve always loved the smell of books.” SAME ☺️

Haha Love Story is like taking a jump inside both the worlds of publishing and #bookstagram with a nice tea and some cookies. If you love quite literally ANYTHING about books…the cover art, smell, size, beautiful sprayed edges, limited specialty foiled book box editions, bookstores, booktok…then you will adore it. My heart swooned and I laughed out loud multiple times. What a gem of a book!

“I can never get over it, the thought of one person sitting down to write a story and all the different people who pick it up over the years and read it. The same words taking on a completely different meaning every time.”

The sibling banter is gold, the romantic interests swoon worthy, and the storyline such a clever play on the current state of books and social media. Love loved it!

Thank you to Netgalley, Harper Collins publishing, and the author for the ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc of this book. All opinions expressed are my own entirely.

Meet Sophie Taylor, a school teacher with an alter ego of sorts, Este Cox. Este is the writer of Bufferflies, an erotic debut novel that has rose to the top of the charts. Everyone is talking about the book, especially since nobody knows who Este really is, that is except for Sophie's brother/agent William and her publisher/longtime family friend Malcolm Jennings. Sophie runs into Joseph Walsh, who works at her same publishing firm, while on a secret meeting with Malcolm regarding the book's sequel. After a night of fun together she looses her laptop/sequel draft and believes this is how she will be found out.

The next day Sophie makes her way to her parents' house for her father's birthday party weekend. Parents Hugh and Pandora Taylor are well known in the publishing world and a major reason Sophie wants to keep her identity hidden. To her surprise, Joseph shows up to the party with his father Gregory Brent, a long time frenemy of Hugh's. Not only will he be staying the entire weekend, he will be staying in the backyard cottage with Sophie. This would be totally fine if the pair weren't wildly attracted to each other and Sophie's ex CJ was invited to the party and staying in her parents' house. It's not long before Joseph learns Sophie's secret, and they find themselves in quite the entanglement to keep it hidden.

If you're a fan of the close proximity and miscommunication tropes, this book is right up your alley. There's fun banter, likeable characters, and a cute story overall. It is a bit predictable and some characters are unbearable, so I give it 3.5 stars rounded up.

The cover of this book is so cute and the story itself seemed really interesting from the summary. However, I didn't love the book, it was just average and I didn't like the characters. I found myself struggling to get through it at some points and likely wouldn't recommend to others.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!
DNF @ 48%
2 stars

Let it be known that I tried. There were two prior times I nearly DNF-ed this, but I pushed on. But this is the third time, so I'm done. I'm sorry, but I can't anymore with this book T^T I love love love books about authors and readers and just writing, so much so that I'll hop on a book just for having those elements. Which is what I did here.

But every single bit of this feels so over the top, and not in a charming way. I wanted to toss Charlotte off a cliff. She was a plot device just constantly used to be utterly awful, which maybe it's a comment on the entitlement of some readers/'influencers', but I don't know. It's too obnoxious. She literally steals Sophie's handbag and the parents are like "yeah, sure." Can I say no parent is like this? No, but gaaaah. And maybe I could have handled that if it was the worst thing, but basically every character in this book was over the top in specific areas to make them suck. Like the mom absolutely trashing on romance novels. Or the dad being so obsessed with the daughter's ex. And the ex... My gosh, the ex. Then let's not forget how horrible Joe was in his intro, but obviously that wasn't the real him because he has to be one of the good ones.

I just can't anymore T^T And that honestly sucks because if everything was dialed back just 50% or something, I think it'd actually be a fun book and solid commentary on reading. I liked the idea of the book. It's why I picked it up. Not everything was horrible, and there were real moments of wholesomeness and love for what reading is. So yeah, I could see people loving the book for that, but unfortunately, I just can't with the characters anymore.

very cute just was missing something to me. i wish i enjoyed this book because everything about it was cute and sweet but it was missing something i ciuldn't figure out

Lindsey Kelk is one of the queens of romance who never ceases to amaze me with her heartfelt and entertaining romcoms. Especially when she adds obnoxious, very eccentric family members into the equation, so much is guaranteed. I have to admit I never resist the charm of my favorite tropes: forced proximity (separated by curtains is a great tribute to "It Happened One Night") and enemies to lovers! (Later it added love at first sight and he fell first tropes that I don't much enjoy, like main character Sophie Taylor does, but they still blended perfectly into the entire formula I truly enjoyed.) There's even Montague vs. Capulet-like fight between enemy families that made me guffaw a lot!

What truly made me choose this book was the fact that I love Love Story by Taylor Swift, and this book has the same name. And for that reason and also what was in this book I was not disappointed.

This book is such an addictively cute love story. (Yes I am being cheesy). The whole idea of being a secret bestselling author surrounded by an uptight book critic of a family has so much humor in it. Then adding in the idea that this big shot (and hot) marketer figures out who she is and pretends to be the author to help her hide the identity in front of her family. Comedy gold truly.

Love Story genuinely had me giggling out loud and kicking my feet around. It's been a while since a book has really had me enthralled based on its comedic timing. Then you add in the fact that the two main characters' romance was 10/10, and that's a fantastic five-star book. But does it stop there? no. The author somehow perfectly includes all sorts of modern-day references and I don't hate it?!?! Now that is a feat.

I read this book from 0% to 89% on my Kindle in one day, and I would have finished it that same day if my Kindle had not died while I was babysitting. And as a reader when I can confidently say that I read a book in a day (or in this case would have) then you know it's a damn good book.

If you are looking for a hilarious romantic book that appeals to all us book-loving swifties then look no further, because that's exactly what this book is!

Thank you to Harper360 for allowing me to read and review this book in exchange for an honest review!

"Love Story" by Lindsey Kelk is a delightful romp through the ups and downs of modern romance. The witty dialogue and relatable characters make for an engaging read that keeps you laughing and cheering them on. Kelk’s knack for blending humor with heartfelt moments adds depth to the story, making it more than just a typical love tale. The exploration of love, friendship, and self-discovery is both refreshing and inspiring. Overall, it’s a charming novel that leaves you with a warm heart and a smile.

Sophie has a big secret. To everyone she may be just a school teacher, but she is secretly bestselling romance author Este Cox. Not even her family knows of her literary success. But when roguish marketing director Joe crashes her meeting with her publisher, Sophie is not sure how safe her secret is anymore, especially when Joe turns up at her father’s birthday party weekend. When Sophie’s sister discovers her manuscript Joe covers for her by telling everyone he is Este Cox. As the two try to navigate their charade over the weekend they cut through preconceived notions and each other’s vulnerabilities. Can Sophie keep her secret or will it come out despite Joe’s help?

I’m a big fan of romance involving writers as the main characters, so this book was right up my alley. IT WAS SO GOOD! I loved how the romance genre was defended and how familial expectations were broken down. Such a fun and enjoyable read!

I really, really wanted to like Love Story, but it just didn’t do it for me. I didn’t think Sophie and Joe had any chemistry to speak of. Their will-they-won’t-they angst was minor at best. I didn’t think either MC had many redeeming qualities. The HEA was kind of just meh. The side characters were legitimately awful and only a handful BARELY redeemed themselves at the end.

I will say I thought the book was funny, and the plot itself was interesting, but those were about the only two things that saved this from being a one-star for me.

I received an ARC of Love Story from NetGalley. I am leaving my review voluntarily.

I’m a big fan of Lindsey Kelk’s books and while this one isn’t my favorite I still really enjoyed it! A rom-com about books, count me in!

3.75 stars