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The Love Wager
Lynn Painter
320 pages | Published by Berkley
Publication Date: March 14, 2023
Hallie and Jack meet at a wedding: she's bartending, and he's a groomsman. They end up spending the night together, but Hallie makes a quick exit in the morning. When they reconnect on a dating app, they begin platonically commiserating about the dating world and quickly become best friends. After breaking up with a man she met on the app, Hallie invites Jack to her sister's wedding to act as her boyfriend to avoid being single at the wedding, but blurring the lines of their friendship makes things a lot more complicated than they bargained for.
Lynn Painter has become an auto-read author for me. I LOVED Mr. Wrong Number and this book did not disappoint. She writes the best dialogue and banter, even when we're reading text conversations. I love books with a texting element and Painter does it really well.
What I loved about Jack was how caring and thoughtful he was, and always very mindful of Hallie's feelings. He was a genuinely good friend to have. With Hallie, I was happy we saw her pull her life together quickly. A lot of contemporary romance features girls who take the whole book to really "get it together" but Hallie was smart and felt like a very real character. She wasn't a MPDG but she also wasn't too serious.
This was also a bit of A+ fake-dating and friends-to-lovers. Two tropes that I often overlook and am always pleasantly surprised by.
Thanks to Netgalley & Berkley for the advanced e-book!
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