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TEST
Are you a fan of The Hating Game-style enemies to lovers shenanigans? Fool Me Once combines politics with lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers romance, creating quite a zesty if flawed story.
Communications director Lee Stone – known as ‘Stoner’ to her friends for her party-hearty ways – just ran face-first into some amazing news. Texas’ new governor is considering going green, which means that Lee will be able to sell them on the women-run electric car company where she works. It’s long been her plan and dream to replace the state’s gas guzzling vehicles with electric ones. Now all she has to do is get her bill to the governor’s desk.
Then she learns that the governor’s new assistant is Ben Laderman, and therein lies the tale. For Lee and Ben definitely share a past together – one that happened in grad school and was a true disaster. Ben broke Lee’s heart, and then left the state. The last thing Lee wants to do is spend time with Ben again–she suspects he’s going to ruin everything she’s hoped and dreamed of for so long. But fate has plans for Ben and Lee.
Of course the two spend time together–the reason for this is initially political. And the more time they spend together, the easier it becomes for Lee to believe that Ben might be ‘the one’. But can they both accept themselves enough to realize it?
Fool Me Once puts the ‘com’ in romcom; it’s very funny and silly and slapstick, so if you’re not into this brand of comedy you might want to avoid it.
I liked Lee a lot more than Ben, who is a bit more reserved than she is. Lee struggles to accept her party side and her serious side, to combine them into a single body; I liked that she has to learn how to be vulnerable again with another person. I respected her struggle and I enjoyed watching it unfold. Ben, meanwhile, has to learn to accept Lee for who she is, which can be difficult enough when you’re not processing years of betrayal. He has a harder row to hoe as a character.
As for their romance – for those for whom cheating is a no-thank-you, one of the barriers Lee and Ben have to get over is the cheating they committed against one another in their younger days, and there’s a minor character who is hooked on a bad relationship with a cheating ex. There is a lot of double-deals and falling-in-love-in-spite-of-yourself in this one, and you should come to the book fully prepared for that.
The general tone of the book is happy-go-lucky, which makes it a quick, fun romp to read through. I’d never tried reading Winstead’s work before, but judging from this book I’m definitely going to give her another chance.
Fool Me Once is funny enough to beat away those late-spring doldrums. It’s a good bet for those who like laughter in their contemporary love stories.
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Grade: B
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 13/05/22
Publication Date: 04/2022
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
I liked this book a lot. I didn’t find it slapstick at all. It is funny AND I think it’s insightful about how couples struggle with real life flaws they each bring to the table. My only complaint about it is that I think Lee took too long to be honest with herself about what she wanted.
It would get an A- from me.
Different strokes!
(also I would argue that the opening scene, where our heroine tumbles into a fountain while dressed as a Disney Princess, is definitely a moment of slapstick).
Agreed. I think the book went uphill from there.