I’ve been in a romance mood lately which is helpful for getting my NetGalley books under control. Well, under control might be a bit optimistic but, still, I have a lot of romances to review…

I was recently awarded with a copy of Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner, an author I hadn’t heard of before. I mostly read wlw romances from either Bold Strokes or Bella but have been discovering some from other publishers through NetGalley. It’s nice to branch out. So I loaded Mistakes Were Made onto my Kobo and got to reading.

We start the book with 21 year-old Cassie escaping the boredom of Family Day at the small college she’s attending by hitting a bar. And meeting a hot older woman. Sex happens and, at breakfast the next morning, she finds out the one-night-stand is the mother of her new best friend. We also get the POV of said MILF, Erin.

Cassie and Erin seem to fit together much better than we would expect and we get to witness lots of angsty drama while dealing with friends and family and coming to terms with their own feelings and future plans. And mixed in is lots and lots of hot sex.

I actually quit reading the book before I got to the halfway mark. The language was much more crude than I expect in a wlw romance novel. So many mentions of nice tits and fucking. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with it, it’s just not really my thing. Besides that, the overuse of “whatever” and “like” were pretty annoying. But I only quit for a few hours before the story dragged me back in. Then I couldn’t stop reading.

In the end, I really did enjoy the story. The things that bugged me when I quit reading still bothered me when I finished the book but the story was good enough that I couldn’t help smiling and feeling good.

I decided to look up Something to Talk About. I wanted to see if the “whatevers” and “likes” were isolated to Mistakes Were Made due to the ages of the characters or if it was part of the author’s writing voice. I was immediately sucked into the story and had a tough time putting the reader down when real life called.

This one was much more the typical romance novel that I enjoy reading. We’ve got an age-gap and (sort-of) ice-queen thing happening but the age difference felt more, I don’t know if believable is the best way to describe it but that’s what I’m going with. We’ve got a 27 year-old and a 41 year-old. There’s a big difference in maturity between 21 and 27.

In Something to Talk About, we’ve got Jo Jones, a Hollywood writer and producer and former child actress and her assistant, Emma. They have a great professional relationship but everything changes once rumors kick up about them having an affair. After that, we get to watch Jo and Emma each deal with their own insecurities, familial relationships, and growing affection for the other woman.

I sort of loved this book. I enjoyed both protagonists and the main secondary characters were a delight. I can absolutely see this being a re-read/funk reading list candidate. There were still a few “whatevers” and “likes” but not nearly as many and there wasn’t a single mention of anyone’s tits. So bonus!

I’ll absolutely be looking out for more from Meryl Wilsner!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for introducing me to this author.