This was a very cute, fast past romance with interesting characters that were easy to care about and connect to. Their fears and struggles were very relatable. Unfortunately, the ARC I got was very poorly formatted which made reading it a struggle at times, but that is very fixable.

I also really enjoyed the supporting cast, but they all entirely disappeared from the narrative at a certain point and no one else is ever even mentioned again for the remainder of the book. I get that there are writing constraints, but that felt jarring.

This book is billed as ‘second chance’ but it isn’t a second chance romance – yes, the characters knew each other in the past, and each had a crush, but they weren’t in a relationship and neither knew about the other's crush. It’s close to but not quite what I expected.

There was a conversation about coming out to older relatives that also kind of rubbed me the wrong way as a queer person - I know many people who’ve decided not to come out to their grandparents and have waited until their grandparents passed, and almost all of them regretted that choice. Both for the time it took out of them being able to live their authentic lives, but also because their grandparents never got to know them. The characters express views and experiences that it’s possible to have, I guess, but aren’t really the common experiences I’ve witnessed.

All together, though, I did really enjoy this – it took me about two hours total to read, and was very cute and fluffy. If you want something easy to read, this is definitely that. My main question at the end was “what happened to the puppies??” because they had better be okay!

This book had a lot of potential, but I didn't think it lived up to it. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't particularly good, either.

I liked both the MCs, and their backstories were intriguing. I'd have liked to have gotten to know them a bit better, though. The supporting characters had a lot of promise, too, and it was unfortunate that they fell by the wayside once the MCs got together. Even the sick puppies that were a fairly major plot point early on were abandoned—I suppose we can assume they survived, but they vanish into the ether. There also wasn't really any romantic tension to the story: it was clear from the outset that the MCs could end up together without sacrificing their goals.

I'm not fond of switching between POVs within a chapter (and the poor formatting of the ARC I received exacerbated this issue), but that may simply be a personal preference.

I recognize that Harlequin/Mills & Boon books tend to be on the shorter side, which limits the author. Still, I have to think there was a better way to present this story within the space allowed.

My thanks to the publisher/NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.