Author: Arielle (Page 1 of 35)

Synopsis:

An ambitious wedding planner must work with her grumpy florist ex, whose heart she broke, on the most high-profile wedding of her career, in this spicy and emotional romance from popular fanfic author Julie Soto.

He loves me; he loves me not...

Ama Torres loves being a wedding planner. But with a mother who has been married more times than you can count on your fingers, Ama has decided that marriage is not the route for her. But weddings? Weddings are amazing. As a small business owner, she knows how to match her clients with the perfect vendor to give them the wedding of their dreams. Well, almost perfect…

Elliot hates being a florist, most of the time. When his father left him the flower shop, he considered it a burden, but he’s stuck with it. Just like how he’s stuck with the way he proposed to Ama, his main collaborator and girlfriend (or was she?) two years ago. But flowers have grown on him, just like Ama did. And flowers can’t run off and never speak to him again, like Ama did.

When Ama is hired to plan a celebrity wedding that will bring her business national exposure, there's a catch: Elliot is already contracted to design the flowers. Things are not helped by the two brides, who see the obvious chemistry between Ama and Elliot and are determined to set them up, not knowing their complicated history. Add in a meddling ex-boss, and a reality TV film crew documenting every step of the wedding prep, and Ama and Elliot's hearts are not only in jeopardy again, but this time, their livelihoods are too.

Review

Because this is Julie’s FIRST EVER PUBLISHED BOOK(!!!!) I’m going to try to keep my flailing about her as a person to a minimum and stick to the actual book so give me until the end of this paragraph and then I’ll get into the actual review, lol. I was introduced to Dramione fanfiction in April of 2021 and Julie’s (or better known in that fandom as lovesbitca8) Rights and Wrongs series was the 2-4th fics I had ever read. When I tell you that the quality of these first few fics blew me away and were better than over half of the published books I read that year, I’m being 100% serious. As I continued to become more ingrained in that fandom, interacting with authors (Julie herself included) in comments, Facebook groups, and the RoR discord, I told myself that if any of them ever wrote original material, I would (if possible) snatch up any and all ARCs that my librarian powers tend to provide me with and book talk the ever living SHIT out of them to promote them in all the ways I know how to as many people as I can. So here I am, doing just that. I feel so lucky to have snagged a copy of this and I WILL be reading this again before it comes out. (See there, I didn’t go too crazy, did I?!)

Alright, y’all let’s do this. Let’s get into why I am so utterly obsessed with this book that I’ll probably end up buying a ton of copies and making sure every acquaintance, friend, and library patron who asks me for a romance recommendation knows about this book. #1 is obviously the writing. I went into this very curious to see if I could recognize her style from what she’s done in fanfiction to a traditionally published work and I think her voice still shines through. Julie has a very specific brand of witty, hilarious banter, main characters that always seem to develop such DELICIOUS but also AGONIZING tension between them, a great supporting cast, and writing that quite honestly has the ability to take your breath away. I highlighted a ton of lines that I will probably wait to share until the book is actually published but just know..there are some real treasures in here.

Second reason why I loved this book so much? Ama and Elliot. Naturally. They both might be flawed, as normal human beings are and especially those that have unusual upbringings in the form of your mom being married and divorced over 10 times. I thought that Ama was a super relatable character, one that any number of readers could see themselves in, for so many different reasons. Elliot was indeed a grump but a sweet, caring grump that made the most beautiful structures and creations with flowers and got tattoos of the ones that are rare. I loved seeing their interactions from the past through Elliot’s eyes and I actually thought was genius that we got his POV from before and Ama’s while in the present. Most of all I loved how the two of them worked together and in working together, they brought out the best in the other person. If that’s not romantic as hell, I don’t know what is.

To wrap this review up, I will say that if you ARE a Dramione fan reading this, especially one who has read Rights and Wrongs and has listened to the podcast and been around on discord or the Facebook group–so basically DEEP in this world with Juls, Mar, and Cat, there will be a few little things that will make you snicker bc they will remind you of things that have been said or joked about before and that made this story all the more special to me, honestly. I am SO, so happy that Julie was able to publish original work that we can actually pay her for and I hope that she continues on to give us so much more. HIGHLY recommend this one.

Huge thanks to Edelweiss and Forever for a copy of this eARC in exchange for my honest review!♥