A witty mother attempting to navigate single parenting while discovering herself more deeply through a matchmaking competition? Sign me up. Molly is a selfless-to-a-fault mother with an 8-year-old son named Ollie and a best friend named Rachel. Rachel has a complicated relationship history which ended up with her marrying her baby daddy and ex-husband Gavin’s brother. The end of her past marriage was amicable and Rachels relationship with Gavin is friendly as they co-parent their twin boys, who also happen to be best friends with Ollie, Molly’s son. Molly and Gavin have an interesting relationship, as she blames him for why Rachel and his marriage failed. Molly considers Gavin to be lazy, uncommitted, and a failure of a dad who puts all responsibilities on to Rachel. When attending Rachel’s wedding at the start of the story, there is an accident where Gavin ends up saving Molly’s son and impressing her to the point of reconsidering her feelings for him. Molly’s job as an online dating guru leads her to a competition that forces her and Gavin to spend more time together, leading to something neither had planned for. That is the start of this heart-warming and wholesome love story between Molly and Gavin as both are faced with external and internal challenges which they have to overcome before they can be with one another fully. I caught myself blushing and smiling like a goof many times while reading the interactions between our main characters. The banter is extremely comical and realistic which helps build the atmosphere and really holds my attention as a reader. The overall story left me with a feeling of warmth after crying my eyes out during the peak of the plot. Gavin successfully raised the bar of my expectations in a man in this story. What starts out as a ‘frenemy’ relationship between him and Molly, turns into a beautiful partnership. Gavin has a hell of resilience to stick through the many attempts from Molly to self-sabotage their relationship. Gavin realizes early on that Molly is irresistible and that she is the one he wants, regardless of trying to be on a ‘relationship diet’. Gavin pushes Molly’s character developmentally and causes her to become more self-aware and realize that she is good enough - which really, what else could you want? Molly is undeniably relatable for anyone with self-esteem issues. She gains this reputation amongst her friends and family that she is cursed and every first date she goes on, she ends up finding the perfect match for her date and they end up with a happily ever after, while she convinces herself that she’s okay alone. There is a clear difference between being okay alone and being lonely, which Molly uncovers with some help from Gavin and her loved ones. By the end, Molly has come to an understanding that depriving others of her company and her true self is taking away their choice in loving her back, which isn’t fair to her or them. Molly breaks down the illusion and becomes a stronger, more confident woman. In writing, Molly is a multi-faceted character that goes through deep emotional and mental development that is not unrealistic to something the reader might be experiencing and a very entertaining protagonist. After reading, I decided that I definitely would read again and absolutely recommend it to anyone who is in need of a wholesome, warm novel! I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I do love a second chance at love story. Molly is struggling in her love life. She's been bitten before and is now really shy about getting involved again - something that's impacting on her job as a dating coach! She has a reputation as a matchmaker but just can't seem to match herself. Gavin is her bestie's ex-hubby. So with girl-code fully in effect she makes it her mission to hate the man. Whish is rather weird because even her bestie doesn't hate him! So much so she invited him to her wedding - to his brother! There were plenty of sparks off of these two and I really enjoyed the barbs and snappy dialogue. I did feel that Molly stood by the principles of the girl-code a bit too much, obviously as a shield against the feelings she had for Gavin. Gavin was such a great work in progress - he recognised where he had failed before and was making great strides in repairing his relationship with Rachel and being a fun but also engaged dad. My favourite secondary characters, after the kids obviously, were a certain septuagenarian couple - they were such a hoot! Great read!