When You Least Expect It

This was such a fun and light read ! I might be biased because I love lesbian romance way too much but although I acknowledge this book isn’t a great literature piece it was still fun and sweet.

this was so cute🫶🏾🫶🏾

5 Stars! Another excellent book by Haley Cass. I binged her three books, Those Who Wait its short sequel, Forever and A Day: a Those Who Wait story and this book, When You Least Expect It. In general I don't tend to binge read books. At first I felt left out because it seemed like everyone had read Cass before I even heard of her. However, I don't feel so bad anymore when I noticed Cass published her 3 books between April-August 2020. Now we wait for her 4th book… This book is a standalone and from the cover, I thought it was mainly a Christmas book. It truly is a "Holiday" book, spanning a year with the various holidays. Caroline Parker is a top divorce lawyer, who recently left her law office for another. She runs into her "arch nemesis's" wife, Hannah Dalton on Christmas Eve at a coffeeshop. Hanna is a barista there and Caroline is confused since Hannah didn't have to work, much less at a coffeeshop, because of her husband's salary. That is until Hanna asks Caroline to be her divorce lawyer. This is truly a friends-to-lovers story that takes place over a year. Caroline finds herself a new bestie, Hanna (who is straight) and loves Hannah's 10 year old daughter, Abbie. This book will be on my list of top books of the year. The question is, how long will I wait before listening to the audiobook narrated by Lori Prince?

It's currently two hours past my bed time and I have zero regrets about it. Hailey Cass is legit my new favorite author and I believe now owes a cup of coffee to get through tomorrow :). Seriously enraptured by this book and these characters, just as in her previous books.

Edit: May 3rd, 2021 Every once in a while, a new author appears (seemingly) out of nowhere and I fall in love with their books. This year’s book crush is Milena McKay. Last year’s was Haley Cass. Her debut novel, Those Who Wait, blew me away, I had no idea what I was getting into when I selected it from the books to review Gaby asked me to take a look at for her website LezReviewBooks. I liked the cover, I said I’d review it for her. That was it. Those Who Wait will always hold a special place in my heart because it’s the first born, the one which made Haley Cass an author to look out for, but When You Least Expect It is just as good. This is how I concluded my review of the book: “When a debut novel is as good as Those Who Wait is, there’s always this pressure on the author and this worry in me that it could be a one-hit-wonder. With When You Least Expect It, Haley Cass puts this fear to bed with panache.” I completely stand by what I wrote then, and listening to the audiobook only reinforces my certainty that Haley Cass has a very real gift. The original review is below, I'll focus on the narration. Each narrator has their own strengths. I’m not sure exactly how to explain what makes Lori Prince the perfect choice for Haley Cass’s books, but there’s no doubt in my mind that she is. Her voices are not the most distinctive (especially men’s voices or, as in this book, children’s) but her tone, her intonations, her acting couldn’t fit better. It’s especially true when it comes to highlighting the chemistry between the two main characters, you can hear all that longing in both Caroline’s and Hannah’s voices. And if you thought that scene during the weekend away with Caroline’s friends was hot when you read it, wait until you hear Lori Prince’s take on it! I loved this audiobook so much that it left me in a (mercifully short) funk, I was sad it was over. I have infinite respect for authors who can make me feel so much. ------------------------------------------------ If you’re like me, you’ll be delighted to know that what was supposed to be a Christmas novella isn’t. Sure, there’s some Christmas stuff but it’s way too long to qualify as a novella and that in itself is an early Christmas present. Caroline Parker hates Christmas. She has good reason to, since all her girlfriends seem to believe the holidays are the perfect time to break up with her. So when one Christmas Eve she comes across Hannah Dalton, one of the most gorgeous women she’s ever met, she doesn’t expect anything special to come out of it. Furthermore, Hannah is straight and married to Caroline’s former nemesis. Then Hannah hires her to be her divorce lawyer and everything changes. Falling in love with a straight woman – or a woman who believes she’s straight – is one of the most common and terrifying experience a lesbian can face. Therefore to have it as the subject of a book should be painful. And honestly, it is, but in an exquisite way. The chemistry between Caroline and Hannah is believable from the start, it’s big and beautiful, just as well-written as with Charlotte and Sutton in Cass’s debut novel. It simmers for a loooong time, real slow-burn, until fireworks finally – finally! – are let loose. And I just love Christmas stories in which at least one of the main characters doesn’t like Christmas. It’s like an enemies-to-lovers trope between them and Christmas and the anticipation of them falling in love with Christmas is a lot of fun to watch (metaphorically). Christmas and the holidays in general are not as prominent in this story as they are in other holiday romances, as it takes place over a longer time period, yet Caroline’s distaste of them – not Halloween though – hovers in the background at all times. Caroline’s inner grinch will resist valiantly but to no avail. Because it’s a romance, and because of course Hannah has a child and Christmas takes another dimension when there are children involved and of course Caroline loves children. Maybe because When You Least Expect It is shorter than Those Who Wait, the secondary characters are not as present, but when they appear, they more than do the job. The most important one is obviously Hannah’s daughter Abbie, whose admiration for Caroline is adorable. And the good news is, she really sounds and acts like a child, albeit a well-behaved one. I don’t know what it is about Haley Cass’s writing that works so well for me. It is far from perfect – though with a good editor it could be – yet there’s something, an energy, a tone, a timbre, a balance of enthusiasm and desperation that goes straight to the deepest part of my heart. When a debut novel is as good as Those Who Wait is, there’s always this pressure on the author and this worry in me that it could be a one-hit-wonder. With When You Least Expect It, Haley Cass puts this fear to bed with panache. ARC provided by the author to www.lezreviewbooks.com in exchange for an honest review.