Genre: Contemporary Romance
My Review - 5 Stars
This was presented to me as a FF Pride And Prejudice retelling but it’s more inspired by Darcy and Elizabeth’s personality types than the plot, for which I am grateful. Faithful P&P retellings have their place but I’m much more interested in seeing the character archetypes in other settings than I am in, say, reading about an updated Wickham take off with spoiled Lydia.
In this version, Darcy is a buttoned up actuary and Elle is a social media astrologist. Darcy’s brother Brendan is Elle’s business partner—his dating app One True Pairing has just hired Elle’s company to provide an astrological component. He wants nothing more than for his sister to find love and he’s constantly setting her up on blind dates and she’s had enough of it. Darcy and Elle start off on the wrong foot and the date goes poorly and that should be that. Only Darcy decides fake dating Elle will get her brother off her back for a while. Elle’s not completely convinced but she would love for her family to think she’s not a complete mess and Darcy is exactly the kind of person they admire. They come up with rules and then it’s only a matter of time for the rules to get chucked out of the window.
This was a very enjoyable 4 star read about halfway through and then I'm not entirely sure what happened but I could not get enough of the story and tore through the rest of it. I absolutely loved it! This is entirely because of Darcy and Elle. They were so fully drawn and I really empathized with their respective hopes and fears and the way those things got tangled up in one another. Darcy is terrified of falling in love after a bad breakup. She doesn’t want to give anyone a chance to break her heart again but Elle makes her feels things no one else ever has. Elle, on the other hand, has dreamed about finding her person her whole life and she’s all in once she and Darcy to give their fake relationship a real shot, even though she’s worried Darcy doesn’t believe in love.
There were so many cute details. They have different texting styles! Elle bought Darcy a scraggly Christmas tree to cheer her up! The way Elle sees the stars! Elle drags Darcy into a thrift store! Darcy’s secret soap opera fandom! Brendan’s dreamy eyed romanticism! The cilantro plant! Plus, I loved Elle’s relationship with her best friend and business partner Margot.
There was only one aspect I didn’t like and it’s a testament to the author that I understood why she did things that way. Elle’s family treats her horribly. They think she’s a mess and her parents push her to get stable jobs with benefits, in spite of her massive success with Oh My Stars. Her siblings are alternately smug and condescending passive-aggressive jerks. I could not understand why she still spent time with them. Why put yourself around toxic people? But this speaks to Elle’s optimism and her hope for things to change. If only the people we love would magically treat us the way we want them to. Instead, Elle has to stop pushing her hurt feelings down and call them out. Only then can lasting change happen. It’s not perfect—and it’s not a chance I’d give my own family members necessarily—but it’s incredibly true to who Elle is and in the end, I respected the development of this particular arc.
A couple of last notes. First, while this is marketed as a romcom and has a breezy tone, I never laughed out loud. It’s a very cute, very enjoyable story and perhaps it’ll make other people laugh. I’m a tough customer when it comes to what I consider a romcom. Don’t get me wrong: I love books that get me to laugh out loud and I came in primed to do so here. But alas, the humor was too subtle. Second, this is set during Thanksgiving and Christmas but it 's not a holiday romance. However, it’s perfect if you want some holiday-adjacent reading.
Character notes: Elle is bisexual. I did not note Darcy identifying as a particular sexuality. They are both white. Elle's brother is married to a man and her best friend Margot is pansexual. I’m a cis-het woman so I’ll defer to LGBTQ+ readers on how the representation fared. This is set in Seattle.
CW: toxic family, past death of grandmother, heroine’s ex cheated on her, heroine’s mother dealt with depression after divorcing, heroine’s father cheated on her mother
Synopsis
With nods to Bridget Jones and Pride and Prejudice, a charming #ownvoices queer rom-com debut about a free-spirited social media astrologer who agrees to fake a relationship with an uptight actuary until New Year’s Eve—with results not even the stars could predict!
After a disastrous blind date, Darcy Lowell is desperate to stop her well-meaning brother from playing matchmaker ever again. Love—and the inevitable heartbreak—is the last thing she wants. So she fibs and says her latest set up was a success. Darcy doesn’t expect her lie to bite her in the ass.
Elle Jones, one of the astrologers behind the popular Twitter account, Oh My Stars, dreams of finding her soul mate. But she knows it is most assuredly not Darcy... a no-nonsense stick-in-the-mud, who is way too analytical, punctual, and skeptical for someone as free-spirited as Elle. When Darcy’s brother—and Elle's new business partner—expresses how happy he is that they hit it off, Elle is baffled. Was Darcy on the same date? Because... awkward.
When Darcy begs Elle to play along, she agrees to pretend they’re dating to save face. But with a few conditions: Darcy must help Elle navigate her own overbearing family over the holidays and their arrangement expires on New Year’s Eve. The last thing they expect is to develop real feelings during a fake relationship.
But maybe opposites can attract when true love is written in the stars?
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Disclosure: I received an advanced copy from Avon in exchange for an honest review.
