Everyone knows I love a dark twisty psychological thriller. But I’m becoming rather partial to a bit of contemporary romance fiction along the way, and I’ve discovered that they’re not as light and frothy as people like to lead others to believe. There are often deeper themes and issues at play. And that’s definitely the case with The Love Hack by Sophie Ranald.
Blurb:
She’s a rookie advice columnist. He’s her office crush. It’s about to get complicated…
Landing a new job as online agony uncle “Ask Adam” Lucy dishes out relationship tips to men. But when it comes to her own love life, she’d rather spend Friday nights curled up on her sofa with Netflix and her cat, Astro.
That is, until she meets Ross, her new co-worker who makes her snort with laughter at his silly jokes and sets off butterflies in her stomach when his hazel eyes meet hers over his laptop.
After her last work boyfriend broke her heart, Lucy swore she’d never fall for someone in the office again. And she’s just about to have two more good reasons not to.
- An email has just landed in the “Ask Adam” inbox and Lucy is convinced it’s from Ross.
- He’s most definitely not single.
As her advice column goes viral and her inbox overflows with problems, Lucy turns to her AI assistant for help decoding romantic troubles, including her own. Can her state-of-the-art cupid really help her navigate her feelings for Ross? Or will the truth behind “Ask Adam” turn her non-existent love life into a hot mess?
My Review:
I absolutely loved Lucy right from the start! Before I knew anything about what had happened to her previously, or anything else about her backstory. I just identified with her feeling of never quite fitting in, and of always feeling awkward. It doesn’t help that her sister Amelie seems to breeze through life, finding everything much easier and more comfortable.
When Lucy is faced with losing her job, it’s vital that she finds an alternative to avoid being unemployed, and so “Ask Adam” is born. And with that, Lucy is launched into what seems like an alternate universe! Not only a brand new male-dominated workplace, but also an entirely different mind-shift into how the male psyche actually works. She’s not sure she’s up to the task. Because although she talked herself into this job, she actually knows nothing about men and how their brains operate (does anyone?!)
So she enlists the help of her much more knowledgeable sister Amelie … because everything seems to come so easily to her. She’s never had a problem with men, and she’s about to get married (ok, so it’s to a guy that Lucy isn’t particularly partial to …), so surely she has a much better understanding of what they want and need out of life (and women!). But as with most things in life, it doesn’t quite work out as planned. For one thing, there’s her new colleague Ross, who throws a bit of a spanner in the works. And then things get complicated when he seems to take up with one of Amelie’s best friends.
But Lucy isn’t ready for the biggest obstacle in her new job: Amelie informing her that she can no longer help her! In desperation, Lucy knows she has to find a solution … and fast! How on earth is she going to answer all the questions that have started flooding into the “Ask Adam” mailbox?
I was quite impressed with Lucy’s solution – a combination of her own frustrations with men and their issues, and a variation of AI. She feels like she’s faking it, but it’s getting the job done, and that’s what she needs right now.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Lucy’s story. The way that the chapters were interspersed with letters to ‘Adam’, all of which could have been genuine, real-life issues that men were going through. Particularly amusing, were the answers that Lucy wished she could send in response to some of those letters; the ones that she typed up that immediately came to mind when she read a few of them … before then amending them so that they were appropriate for publishing! Aaaah .. if only we could say exactly what we thought so much of the time!
The descriptions of New York were wonderfully detailed and really brought the city to life. Together with the gorgeous characterisation, it’s all woven together to create a warm and engaging read.
Thank you to RaRa Resources for the blog tour.
Purchase Links:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Hack-addictive-uplifting-romantic-ebook/dp/B0CW1JWZYS/
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Hack-addictive-uplifting-romantic-ebook/dp/B0CW1JWZYS/
Author Bio:
Sophie Ranald is the youngest of five sisters. Born in Zimbabwe, she lived in South Africa until an acute case of itchy feet brought her to London in her mid-20s.
Sophie’s first novel, It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister’s Boyfriend (Wouldn’t it?), was published in 2013. Since then, she has written over a dozen more romantic comedies, including the runaway bestseller Sorry Not Sorry.
Sophie’s books have sold almost a million copies, regularly top the charts on Kindle and Apple Books, have been translated into five languages and have been featured on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
When she’s not hammering at her keyboard on a deadline, Sophie can be found trying to lift heavy things in the gym, running extremely slowly or attempting to mix the perfect dry martini. She lives in South East London with her amazing partner and their two adorable cats.
Social Media Links:
https://www.instagram.com/sophieranald/
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