Author: Kate O’Keeffe
Narrator: Tialhi Martin
Publisher: Kate O’Keeffe
Publication Date: September 2019
Genre: Contemporary Romance / Women’s Fiction
Buy the Book: Amazon | Audible
Description: Twenty-five-year-old Sophie McCarthy’s career is virtually nonexistent, her family expects her to “do something important” with her life, and she’s totally sick of dating the wrong guys: the self-absorbed, the arrogant, the borderline criminally insane.
After she’s unceremoniously dumped during the vows at her boss’s wedding, she and her two equally disappointed-in-love best friends agree to help each other find decent guys to date. Together, they form the No More Bad Dates Pact: stop dating the wrong guys and start dating the right ones—weirdos and jerks need not apply.
When Sophie’s roommate Jason Christie—a.k.a. doctor-in-training and serial nurse-dater—joins the pact, he vows to weed out the bad ones for her. But with his rejection of every guy Sophie meets, she begins to wonder if he’s got an ulterior motive. And anyway, why does she always have so much more fun with Jason than with the guys she’s actually trying to date?
While desperately seeking her “happy for now,” could Sophie stumble into her “happily ever after?”
The High Tea series is a spin-off of Kate O'Keeffe's bestselling Cozy Cottage Café series. Escape to New Zealand in this fun, feel-good chick lit series!
My Thoughts: First time reading this author and I found this story to be completely charming with relatable characters. This story is a spin-off of the author’s Cozy Cottage Café series so characters from that series are present but I didn’t feel lost or that I needed to read that series first.
I really liked Sophie and her friends and empathized with her frustration with bad dates. I am probably in the minority here, but I didn’t see how a pact and the vetting process would ensure that Sophie dates only good guys. Even after passing the approval process, Sophie found that the guys weren’t that great, at least not for her. To each his own, I guess, but I have to side with Sophie that living the mermaid lifestyle or being hand-fed like a baby is just too twisted and bizarre.
In the end, Sophie finds herself having feelings for her roommate, Jason, so no vetting or approval really needed to be done, obviously. I can only wonder if either of them had the courage to confess their feelings sooner if it would have worked out as well as it did. Though I was totally rooting for Jason, I was intrigued about the Clark Kent lookalike.
I paired my reading of this book with the audio format narrated by Tialhi Martin. Her performance brought the characters personalities to life without making them sound or feel like cardboard. I enjoyed meeting all of the secondary characters, Sophie’s family and prospective dates and though I liked some more than others, I could see myself enjoying spending time with them. I also shared Sophie’s frustration and irritation with her siblings getting on her case about her career choices.
My Final Verdict: Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would like to read the rest of the series to see how Darcy and Erin do with the no more bad dates pact. I highly recommend this book to readers of contemporary romance, chick-lit and women’s fiction.
Thank you to the author, Kate O’Keeffe who provided an advance reader copy of this book via NetGalley.
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