Thank you for my eARC of this book. I had heard so much hype for this book that I was really intrigued. I did enjoy it but it wasn’t a stand out for me. I would read this author again though

"Fake dating always leads to true love. Fact. I don't make the rules."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Book: The Catch
Author: Amy Lea

i have loved reading amy lea’s influencer series over the past couple of years! she is such a fun writer and i adore her characters, but this one wasn’t my favourite out of the series. It was just a bit too insta-lovey for me, i really wish we had more of a build up to the relationship. The characters were great but the romance didn’t wow me at all.

i have been trying to find a book that gives me the same feeling “It Happened One Summer” by Tessa Bailey gave me, and i thought that this one might be the one, and i will say, it was very similar, but i just didn’t have the same “oh my god i need to pick this up NOW and find out what happens next” feeling that i had with IHOS 🤷🏻‍♀️

Read if you enjoy:
🩵 enemies to lovers
🩵 fake dating
🩵 small town
🩵 grumpy x sunshine
🩵 forced proximity
🩵 fish out of water
🩵 Single POV

Series ranking:
1: Set on you
2 The Catch
3: Exes and O’s

(thank you so much to Viking UK for the EARC in exchange for an honest review 🫶🏻)

I'm such a sucker for Amy Lea's books and this book DID NOT disappoint. It was such a fantastic book.

Although I tend to love Amy Lea's plots, I fell in love with the relationship in this book. It was so different yet so similar to her other books and I absolutely loved it.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loved her previous 2 books and romance books in general.

A huge thank you to Netgally, the publisher and author for sharing copy of The Catch with me - so very appreciated.
I was absolutely thrilled as one of the authors prior books ‘Exes and O’s had been a standout favourite of mine.
The Catch was a lovely read for me - I’m not usually a fan of grumpy x sunshine BUT I do love a fake dating scenario so I ate this up.
Small town vibes were immaculate too. It was giving ‘Chesapeake Shores’ - for anyone who might’ve seen that show.
Thank you once again for this lovely comforting and escapist read.
I look forward to more of Amy Lea’s work.
Bonus points if we can get any more firemen MC’s :)

I really enjoyed The Catch and I didn’t even realise that it was part of a series until after I’d finished. I now have the first two books on my TBR list!

Mel, a fashion influencer, meets Evan, a grumpy fisherman. Yes, what happens next is predictable but who cares. You can’t help but fall in love with all the characters in this book, not just Mel and Evan. The story focuses on love, family, friendship and grief and it felt like a big hug. I throughly enjoyed this and I’m looking forward to reading Amy Lea’s other books!

Such a good book from Amy Lea! I don't know what I was expecting going in but I was thoroughly entertained!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC copy.

I was pretty late to the Amy Lea hype but, after reading the other two in “The Influencer” series, I definitely put Lea on my radar.

As a content creator myself, I went into this wearily as — whether we’re trying to be or not — sometimes influencers can be a little annoying. Whilst first impressions of the female MC felt as though they were headed in that direction — by the end — you realise there’s much more to her than taking pictures.

The setting was really vivid and detailed, I’ve never been to somewhere like the place this is set but Lea painted the picture very well.

The characters were really engaging and added to the plot.

This was a really fun read and I’m looking forward to reading what she has planned next.

Firstly, I would like to say a big thank you to Penguin General UK and NetGalley for the ARC.

This was a 4⭐️ read for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and will definitely look to read the other books in ‘The Influencer’ series.

This book has a handful of romance tropes; fake dating/engagement, grumpy x sunshine, small town, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, and one bed. Despite this being a lot of tropes, they all worked seamlessly together and created a story full of tension and bubbling chemistry. Evan is definitely the epitome of grumpy, and Evan and Mel are the definition of opposites attract.

The story wasn’t rushed which was great. The author let the tension grow and build and let their chemistry come to the surface slowly without forcing the characters to admit any feelings immediately. It’s also nice to see Mel fit into Evan’s family so easily, I found this really sweet. It helped give a really homey feeling to the story.


I love the inclusion of an epilogue, and I like that this one was from both perspectives. It was good to see something written from Evan’s perspective, but it did make me wish the whole book was written in split perspective.

One major ‘Ick’ I have with romance books is them saying ‘I love you’ to one another when they’ve only known each other five minutes, which is one of the very few reasons why this book didn’t get a 5 star rating.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and really recommend giving it a read.

Very very cute, I love a good fake dating story and this one had chemistry in spades! I find this one difficult to comprehend in the sense that it was a delicious slow burn, the characters not making any kind of moves until 200 pages in, but it was also kind of insta love because by the end of the book, they've not even known each other for two weeks yet? I feel pretty conflicted about that, but I loved both Mel and Evan and I loved them together - seeing how headstrong they both are made for some really fantastic scenes together. I also loved the small town setting! I just wish that the timeline had been stretched out a lot more so that the connection didn't feel kind of unrealistic.

This is the third in a series of interconnected novels but you could definitely read this as a standalone book without missing out on too much backstory, etc.
If you liked Tessa Bailey's It Happened One Summer or rom-com movies like The Proposal, I have a feeling you will really enjoy this. I also liked the While You Were Sleeping feels too.
This was a nice small town romance that I flew through. I'm still not the biggest fan of Insta-love stories, so that did detract from it a little bit for me. I just can't get on board with people falling for each other in a matter of days but maybe that's just me.
But this would make a great easy beach/summer read.
I liked their banter and the other romance tropes (such as grumpy x sunshine and fake dating) that were explored.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is book 3 in the series, but I haven't read the previous 2 ( I want to, though)
And I don't feel it had spoilers, so it could work as a standalone.

Now I love a small town romance, and this one was so sweet, Melanie and Evan were so good together! Picture a combo of While you were sleeping and The Propsal.
I absolutely adored his family. And their team work. I know some have classed this as enemies to lovers, but I don't think they were enemies as such, more opposites attract/fish out of water- pun intended. They are just so vastly different!
All in all I loved this one.

Read if you like:
Small town
Found family
Fake dating/proposal
Opposites attract

There isn't a book of Amy Lea's that I don't enjoy, I thought the setting was really enjoyable and I really loved the characters and the plot. I was also a huge fan of the character development, which is a main thing for me. I can't wait to see what Amy Lea writes next!

This is the 3rd book in the influencer series and it was the one I enjoyed the least. Amy’s books give me a sense of nostalgia for 90s/00s romcoms, they follow a formula and even though it’s nothing groundbreaking it works! I found The Catch to be a bit tedious to get through. I liked the setting and thought this one would be a good different from the first 2, getting out of the city and going more smalltown. The plot does give ‘it happened one summer’ vibes but it was different enough to stand on its own 2 feet. My biggest issue was with the characters, I just didn’t like either of them very much. And everything happened very quickly. I’m not a diehard slow burn gal but this was a bit too instalove for my taste. There was a lack of chemistry between Melanie and Evan so it made the whole ‘enemies to lovers’ in the space of a few days quite unbelievable. I found myself getting quite frustrated with the book and it took me a few weeks to finish it.

A great romance book, I really enjoyed the tropes and found myself rooting for the couple! Thank you net galley for the review copy!

Full review details can be found on my bookstagram account - @nice_to_read_ya

Book: The Catch
Author: Amy Lea
Gifted: Penguin UK

Aww. I think this is the last book in the series. And I think it was my favourite by far. If I had to rate them, I'd actually rate them in series order! I really loved the found family, small town and grumpy x sunshine kind of vibes in this one. It was cute, made me giggle and had me cheering Mel and Evan on! I also felt like this one had a lot less pop culture references and that made me enjoy it more. Whilst I don't mind them, I felt the other two books were a little too heavy on them (not to mention, I didn't always understand them!).

I think The Catch was a great finish to the series and the ending was just too sweet. Don't we all just love a good happily ever after?

Mels fashion instgram is growing stagnant when she's invited to visit a spa in Halifax in Canada she jumps at the chance to get new content. Unfortunately, they've mixed up the booking and she's arrived a week early. With nowhere to stay, she finds a b&b to stay in at Coras Cove. But she gets off to a rough start with the owner, Evan Whaler. When a boating accident lands him in the hospital, Mel is mistaken for his fiancee by his welcoming family, who up until that point were in a massive feud. In exchange for content, she agrees to be fake engaged to him in order for his family to get along long enough for them to figure out what to do with the inn. But soon, they begin to develop real feelings for each other. Will everything come crashing down?

This was a fast-paced quick romance book. Mel was quite a good character and watching her change and grow as a person and realise that she actually had interests outside of clothes was good. The romance was good in this too I liked watching them slowly come to realise they actually liked each other and then them trying to figure out how they're going to work a long term relationship. I liked the family aspect in this and how Evans family realised they needed each other and how Mel and her brother Julian didn't need each other as much anymore. Overall a decent enough read.

Amy Lea has a romcom formula that just works. Her writing is so fun, so witty, so heartwarming and heartfelt... I just love it.

The Catch is the 3rd in her influencer series, and it works perfectly as a standalone (whilst also being a standout in the series!). The plot is like a mix of 'While You're Sleeping' and 'The Proposal' (Sandra Bullock fans, gather round), with a whole bunch of tropes chucked in: grumpy meets sunshine, opposites attract, forced proximity, and the absolute classic, 'fake-dating'. Like I said - it's a winning formula.

I'll definitely be recommending this one!

Thank you to NetGalley & Amy Lea for a copy of this.
Honest review…

This was a bittersweet conclusion to the influencer series. I’ve enjoyed every single Amy Lea book I’ve read so far and this is no exception.

We’re talking city girl in a small town, forced proximity & fake engagement with a sprinkle of grumpy x sunshine - so all the good stuff. The characters are always charming & fun and you can’t go wrong. Whilst this is an interconnecting standalone you can absolutely read this without reading the others (but I recommend you do).

The premise of this book took place over a short period of time and usually I don’t click with these kind of stories I didn’t feel like the time was an issue. I do think the “conflict” could have been dramatised a little more but it’s nothing to really complain about.

My additional point is the grief rep was incredibly well done and the way it was done throughout the book wasn’t overwhelming either!

The catch was an enjoyable end to the influencer series! I didn’t enjoy it as much as the other two, but I love Amy’s writing style and the vivid characters that she creates. I think this book would be a perfect spring or summer read for small town romance and grumpy sunshine fans!

I look forward to continuing to read Amy’s other books!

(Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review)

I loved the atmosphere and outdoorsy, small-town vibe of this book, it created a really good setting for a cute romance. The big family and how close but also kinda crazy they were was fun and made for some feel-good moments. The characters were fun but there wasn’t a huge amount of development (apart from maybe Melanie but it was kinda predictable).

My biggest annoyance though was how quickly the two main characters caught feelings for each other. It had barely been two weeks since they first met and already they were pulling out the L-bomb and this insta-love is just something that always bothers me in romance books (though it could be other people’s cup of tea).

Overall, the plot wasn’t anything too special and was a little predictable, but it was a fun and cute, classic small-town romance.