As the chief of staff of Berkley’s mayor, Alexa Monroe lives her life by the rules. So when she’s stuck in a hotel elevator with a hot guy, she’s surprised to find herself agreeing to go to a wedding with him that weekend. Drew is in town for his ex-girlfriend’s wedding, he’d lied about having a new girlfriend and his date had cancelled on him last minute, so on the one hand, it’s really her good deed of the year. Yet on the other hand, Alexa has to admit Drew Nichols is hot, and she’d love to see a lot more of him. The wedding weekend turns out better than expected, and to Alexa and Drew’s surprise, they find themselves finding excuses to hang out every weekend afterwards.

The Wedding Date is such a fun and entertaining romance. It’s in the vein of many romantic comedies — fake date turned true love — and is a great example of why this trope is so popular. The chemistry between Alexa and Drew crackles from the moment they notice each other in the elevator. I love the realism in the initial awkwardness of their fake coupledom, as they’re pretending to know each other much better than they actually do, and I love the real attraction just sizzling beneath their cover story.

Both Alexa and Drew take turns narrating the story, which is a device that so often goes wrong, but in this case works wonderfully. As far as they both know, the other is interested only in a short-term fling, but because we see both their perspectives, we know how they’re both slowly falling in love with each other despite their best efforts to convince themselves otherwise.

I also enjoyed the subplots about both characters’ careers. Alexa is chief of staff to the mayor of Berkley, and she’s advocating for her boss and city council to support an arts program for at-risk youth. It’s a project with personal significance to her and I love how supportive and excited Drew is about her work, even before their relationship even got off the ground. Drew in turn is a paediatric surgeon in LA, which is really a romance hero profession straight out of a Harlequin novel. But what I really love is a scene when Alexa goes with him to check on one of his patients, and ends up bonding with the child’s mother by offering to connect her to some valuable resources like victim’s advocates and financial aid. I love how both characters have high-powered jobs that they love, but more importantly, and they both find a fit with each other’s world even on a professional level.

Finally and probably most significantly for me, I love how realistic Guillory’s depiction of an interracial romance is, and how she centres our point of view on this primarily from the perspective of her Black heroine. Often, authors signal that a character is non-white by mentioning their skin colour, but in this book, Guillory starts by having Alexa notice Drew in the elevator as a white man. This twigs the reader on to the realization that Alexa herself isn’t white, and more importantly, removes the idea of white-ness being the default. Alexa refers to her own skin colour in the next scene when, in a conversation with her sister about dying her hair blond, she says she may have the same skin colour as Beyonce, but that doesn’t mean she can pull off blond hair. Again, comparing herself to Beyonce not only lets the reader know she’s Black, but gives us a concrete idea of her skin colour.

Later, Alexa asks Drew if she’ll be the only Black person at the wedding. Drew is taken aback and admits he never really noticed, but yes she will be. He’s horrified at his admission, and Alexa lets him off the hook by saying she doesn’t mind, she only wants to be prepared. And Drew actually learns: later, on their way to another event, he awkwardly tells her there will be some Black people at the event, which Alexa then appreciates because even when she enters as the only Black person in the room, she knows she won’t be the only one for the entire evening.

Throughout, we see Drew’s friends through Alexa’s eyes, mostly through her self-consciousness that his female friends all seem blond and slim, and they’re wearing dresses that won’t at all suit her curvier figure. I can relate so much to this experience of walking into an event and realizing I’m either the only person of colour in the room or one of a bare handful. I can also relate to the experience of being curvier than many people in the room, and of seeing dresses that were designed for slim frames. I can only imagine how Alexa must feel when all of your boyfriend’s exes (and there are a lot) fit a certain type, and you’re the only one who doesn’t fit the mould.

Finally, there’s a cringe-worthy moment where a man asks Alexa where she’s “really from” and not accepting her answer that she’s from Berkley. Again, this scene feels taken straight out of my life, and I could very much relate to Alexa’s emotions as she knows exactly what the man is after, refuses to give it to him and still has to deal with his stubbornness in continuing to ask. I can feel her struggle to shut the conversation down while still remaining polite, and I love how Drew stepped in to rescue her and — more importantly — immediately believed her when she said the guy was being offensive.

I absolutely adored Alexa and Drew and The Wedding Date. It’s a fantastic romantic comedy for February and I especially love how real Alexa’s and Drew’s perspectives felt. Also, how beautiful is that cover design (by Vikki Chu)?

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Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Surprise Me is such a funny, sweet and romantic novel about keeping the romance alive after marriage and sustaining the happily ever after for the rest of a potentially long life. When a doctor tells Dan and Sylvie they could end up living another 68 years, they realize that’s 68 more years of marriage, which in turn sparks an existential crisis that starts of hilariously blooperific and turns out to become the sweetest thing ever.

Sylvie is hilarious is signature Sophie Kinsella style — similar to Becky Bloomwood, she approaches life with balls to the wall over the top emotion, but, also like Becky, with a sense of innocence that makes it all understandable. Unlike Becky, Sylvie has had more life experience and so has a bit of a more measured look at things. I love that I feel like I’ve grown with Kinsella’s books — while Becky’s take-no-prisoners adventures were an utter delight to read in my teens and 20s, I feel like I relate more now with Sylvie’s more career-oriented and domestic-life long-term concerns.

And Dan — OMG, I may be in love with him myself. He’s the sweetest man and Sylvie is lucky to have him. I love his awkward attempts at romantic surprises (his idea of a sexy surprise was definitely more surprise than sexy!), and I especially love all the actual surprises Sylvie learns about him. He has a quiet and steady kindness that pales in comparison to Sylvie’s own strong personality and rosy memories of her rich and powerful father, but that turns out to be a real and lasting treasure in the end.

I also love the subplot about Willoughby House, a heritage site where Sylvie works as a development officer. I love how its traditions and quirks make it a safe and comfortable place for Sylvie, but with the entrance of the kind elderly owner’s nephew, even this safe haven may have to face the harsh reality of impending change.

Finally, I like how Kinsella showed us Sylvie’s utter devotion to her father and her grief over his untimely death, but gave just enough hints about his imperfections. I’ve had an uncomfortable feeling about him and the seemingly perfect veneer of his legacy from the start, and I like how Kinsella gradually unfolds the story to show that while he may have treated his daughter as his princess, not everyone has had such a rosy experience of him.

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Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Peppermint Cocoa Crushes is the cutest, sweetest middle grade romance I’ve read in a long while. The second in the Swirl Books series after Pumpkin Spice Secrets, Peppermint Cocoa Crushes is about Sasha, an ambitious and driven seventh grader, who learns about herself, her friends and family, and how a crush really feels, while preparing for a school variety show competition. Adult readers, and likely many middle grade readers as well, will know how the story will turn out long before Sasha does, but it’s so much fun seeing her figure things out. The family and friendship pieces are moving, and the romance is, as we say in the Philippines, super kilig.

The Holidaze Spectacular is an annual school variety show competition that raises money for a cause in the local community. This year, Sasha has convinced the organizing committee to use the proceeds to support a local seniors program she volunteers for. She and her best friends, twins Karly and Kevin, are also performing a dance routine for the show, and the stakes are incredibly high this year, with the director of a prestigious art high school judging the show and awarding a scholarship to the winner. But Karly is too busy with quiz bowl to attend practices, Kevin is hanging out too much with their toughest competition, and Sasha is becoming overwhelmed with all the organizing duties she volunteered for.

I love how realistic this scenario feels. I can completely understand Sasha’s mom, a divorced single mother who went back to school to get a better paying job, pressuring her daughter to attend a STEM high school in order to get into a college with a strong technology program and launch a stable, high paying career. I can equally understand Sasha’s desire to focus on the arts instead, and pursue her love for dance, no matter how impractical. Karly is probably the character most similar to who I was in seventh grade, and I can relate to the challenge of telling your friends that you’ve developed new interests and may no longer enjoy an activity you’ve shared since you were children.

The romance comes into the story when Karly also confesses to Sasha that she has a crush, and since Sasha can’t relate, she begins confiding in other girls who have crushes too. Wanting her friend back, Sasha decides it makes sense to get a crush herself, and that Kevin is the most logical choice. Ever a planner, Sasha uses internet research to come up with a list to determine whether or not he likes her back. Sure he doesn’t make her knees go wobbly like the internet says crushes do, but how plausible are wobbly knees anyway?

In the meantime, Sasha’s happy to have found a new friend in Pete, a new boy in her math class who works in his grandfather’s market and makes an incredible peppermint cocoa. Oddly, she often exhibits flu-like symptoms around him, but he’s fun to hang out with anyway and he’s always around when she needs him.

Again, all of this is absolutely relatable. I love that Sasha is such a geek she actually writes out a list to prove whether or not Kevin likes her back, and I love how, despite all her logic, she fails to see some really obvious signs about Kevin’s true feelings. I particularly love that Sasha and Pete get along right from the start, and the conflict is mostly in Sasha’s laser focus on only Kevin as a crush prospect rather than in any jerk-like attitude in Pete. While I sometimes enjoy the frenemies-to-lovers trope, it can get tiresome to see a guy act like a total jerk or a girl act like a total drama queen in the beginning only to know they get together in the end. I much prefer having both parties actually like each other from the start, even though thoughts of romance may not develop until later.

Drink Pairing: Chocoholic’s Delight

Nothing makes for a better treat than a cup of hot cocoa and a good book! Check out a fun drink recipe below, treat yourself to a cup with this book and indulge!

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Thank you to Thomas Allen & Son for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you as well for the card design of my favourite drink recipe!