At First Spite A Harlot's Bay Novel

OML - I wanna be Athena when I grow up (might be a bit late wishing for this - I'm 48!). Athena has superpowers - buying a house to spite her horrible ex, tangling with unemployment, money worries. And then there is Matthew. Older brother of said duplicitous ex and her neighbour on the other side. She is now sandwiched between the brothers Vine!

Athena and Matthew are blooming brilliant together. They have sparks from the get-go, all whilst trying to avoid that same attraction. Matthew puts up this façade of uptight, serious Doctor but that man is a worshipper (IYKYK) - he gets on his knees many times for Athena! He also scales a building like Spiderman, even though he's scared of heights, just to check on Athena.

Athena is an icon for bigger girls everywhere.

This is a contemporary romance where the heroine moves into a house between her ex-fiancé and his brother (who actively got their wedding and relationship cancelled), and her romance with said ex’s brother! I also want to say that from the outset there is some content warnings in this one including grief and clinical depression – So worth bearing in mind if you are interested in picking this one up.

Athena is engaged to Johnny and when the story starts, she is at their engagement party and bumps into a man there who she ends up connecting with quickly. They both love information and looking things up on google and kind of banter and hit it off quickly. Shortly after her fiancé shows up and Athena is introduced to the mystery man who ends up being Matthew, her fiancé’s brother! Athena ends up overhearing the two brothers arguing shortly after with Matthew trying to talk his brother out of the relationship.

This Book is full of a lot of heart, steam and humour but I struggled to jell with this one, I can’t pinpoint if this was the writing style or just the relationship with her ex’s brother and then the seeing and watching her from the house next door, it was a little much for me, I think. Having said that I did enjoy the author’s realistic portrayal of depression and how she was able to weave in this sensitive topic while keeping the story light-hearted. I also enjoyed reading about a plus size main character where the focus was not on her body image but just described in a way so readers can paint an image as they read.