Alli Frank

What I loved: the great supporting characters! Toni had a fantastic support system and I loved her relationship with Mrs. Eisenberg and what they both took from it. I also enjoyed that the main characters were more mature in age. It's nice to see realistic, mid-life representation in a romance story. This feels like a rarity (outside of romantasy "midlife woman comes into her magic and enters her crone years" type stories) and it shouldn't be.
That said, I think it's a disservice and slightly misleading to call this a romance, although there's definitely a romantic storyline. There was much more focus on Toni's journey of self-growth than on her love life, which felt appropriate given the premise and description. It took me a while to get pulled into the story, Toni has a lot going on and a full life but something about the storyline just felt flat for me for most of the book. There's some conflict and misunderstandings along the way that will keep readers' interest, especially with her ex-husband. Mild spoiler: I got frustrated with her regarding the conflict(s) of interest surrounding her participation on the show, mostly because what did she think was going to happen? I kept waiting to see the conflicts of interest take more of a main focus earlier in the story and be addressed, and while some were noted they just didn't impact things in the ways I was expecting. Watching for the resolution of those took me out of my enjoyment of the story a bit. Not a bad story overall and it was a quick read, but it ultimately left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC of this story in exchange for my objective opinion.… (plus d'informations)