Flirty Little Secret is, as the title suggests, a fun and cheerful romantic comedy, yet it still manages to tackle some serious subjects while on the way to a happy ending.

As an online presence @TheMissGuidedCounselor, Lucy Galindo is able to channel all of the things she wishes she could be in person – confident, sociable, and with everything well in hand. The reality is different though, as Lucy struggles with chronic depression and anxiety while doing her best in her job as a guidance counsellor at a local school. Online she’s made some friendships, including user @BravesGuy93, with whom she’s formed a connection. In reality, she’s the professional who just managed to assault new history teacher Aldritch Fletcher’s privates with a cup of coffee in the cafeteria on the first day of school. Mortified, Lucy flees to her private hiding space to confide in her best friend, teacher Nia, leaving Fletcher to figure out how to turn his day around. Fortunately he’s rescued by gym teacher Brodie (who soon becomes a good friend) and things improve.

Fletcher used to teach at a private school but left to help take care of his mother when his father abruptly left her for his (now pregnant) secretary. Teaching at a public school will be a new experience for sure, but already the staff have welcomed him, minor incident with Lucy notwithstanding. There is one glitch; his ex-girlfriend Georgia (who cheated on him with his brother) is also a teacher at the school. With all the drama in his life past and present, one thing he can count on is his online friendship as @BravesGuy93 with @TheMissGuidedCounselor.

Despite their inauspicious start, Lucy and Fletcher soon get to have normal school interactions and gradually develop a friendship that turns into a relationship. They both have insecurities and faults but sharing these things draws them closer. Until one day Fletcher realizes that the coincidences of Lucy’s life and the things he knows about @TheMissGuidedCounselor are too many and he now knows her secret identity. But how long will he maintain the secret, and will it damage what he and Lucy have built in person when she also discovers the truth?

I enjoyed how this story played out. We learn lots about Lucy and Fletcher, both from their online conversations and their in-person interactions. Fletcher’s family is definitely a trial for him as he navigates trying to help his mother stand on her own two feet after his father’s betrayal, and dealing with Georgia again brings up the pain and heartbreak he’s never really dealt with. Conversely, Lucy is very close with her family, sharing Shabbat dinners together every week and working part time at her family’s restaurant. Her Mexican and Sephardic Moroccan Jewish background (the fusion of which is their restaurant’s cuisine) make for lively family discussions and delicious food. They are very supportive of her over her mental health problems but Lucy still feels like the odd one out, and sometimes has trouble determining how to fit in with the different parts of her background.

As Lucy and Fletcher get closer, their relationship becomes intimate and we get some sexy scenes. Fletcher is clearly enamoured with Lucy, but also has the guilty secret that he knows who she is online - and since Lucy hasn’t told him about that, he doesn’t know how to approach telling her. Naturally, things come to a head at the worst possible time, and Fletcher has to make up for his big mistake with a grovel that is super sweet and gives Lucy the happy ending she deserves. As a début story, the author tackles a lot of subjects but represents her own mental health challenges in Lucy’s persona. Overall Flirty Little Secret was a very entertaining story with interesting characters and a sweet romance both on and off line. It does get a bit overwhelming sometimes with all of the drama going on (including with an after school club that Lucy runs) which is what keeps this story out of DIK territory but I hope there will be stories about Lucy’s sisters (and her best friend Nia) to come.

I think it was very cute! It gave Abby Jimenez vibes and I reaaaaally appreciate that. I did have a hard time getting into this book but once I did, I couldn't put it down!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an e-arc!

Lucy is a well liked school guidance counselor, who also struggles with anxiety. What no one knows about Lucy is that she is also TheMissGuidedCounselor, an anonymous online personality who offers advice and uplifting messages to others. Lucy thinks of the online presence as who she strives to be, rather than who she actually is. Through her online profile, Lucy has made a few friends in the academia world, including BravesGuy93. BravesGuy has become a close friend of Lucy’s, and the two enjoy chatting every day. He’s expressed that he wants to meet her in person, but she always refuses, insisting that they stay anonymous.

Fletcher arrives at a new school as a history teacher, happy to get away from his previous school and have a distraction from his hard to deal with family drama. Fletcher is involved in a super embarrassing accident on his first day, one that also involves Lucy. Fletcher has some interest in Lucy from the start, but things get a lot more complicated when he learns that his ex girlfriend is also an employee at the school- and she wants to get back together with him. Trying to figure out how he can let his ex down gently while also getting to know Lucy better, Fletcher turns to his online profile, BravesGuy93, and seeks advice from his good friend TheMissGuidedCounselor.

As Fletcher spends more time with Lucy and continues confiding in TheMissGuidedCounselor, he quickly realizes they are the same person. Fletcher is worried Lucy will be a bit freaked out when she finds out that he is BravesGuy93, given her insistence that they never meet. Fletcher has to figure out how to tell Lucy what he’s discovered without harming their budding relationship or years- long friendship.

This book was really cute and I really enjoyed the relationship between Lucy and Fletcher. They are both genuinely good people, and it was nice to see how caring Lucy was for her students. It was also refreshing to see a realistic portrayal of anxiety and how impactful it can be. They both definitely had some good character growth throughout the book, and there were a lot of awesome side characters as well.

I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys reading rom-coms

Okay we see you and we stan! I love the mental health awareness and rep in here! It made me feel seen. I think this was a well written and well executed story and I can’t wait to read more from this author!

Witty and fun, paired with characters who you can't help but relate to is always a winner in my book. Flirty Little Secret was the perfect mix of characters with flaws trying to grow, drama, and love. There's a great bit of humor and light heartedness that happens that takes even those tense moments and topics and gives it some lightness. The dynamics between not only our main characters, but also the side, are entertaining and adds to the story rather than distracts.

Also have to give a shout out to the nuerodiversity rep in this one. It's always refreshing to see these bits added in and makes a read that much more relatable.

I loved every single second of Flirty Little Secret by Jessica Lepe and never wanted it to end. I love books like that and hope to see this in my library soon.

There was a lot of things I liked about this book.
I’d recommend this book to my book club. I love the way this book dealt with mental health.

I’m not into kids and I’m a hard sell for romcoms, so when this book was sent to me for review, I wasn’t initially sold, but I do LOVE You’ve Got Mail. That aspect of this book was well-done.
Aside the unbelievable coincidence that the main man, Fletcher, is messaging his influencer crush and they happen to work at the same school, I could suspend belief to enjoy that storyline. But, I had beef with crush, Lucy, being a guidance counselor. I’m all for mental health rep, but she seemed a little too unstable to me to be so connected with young, vulnerable kids- then all those kids were gossiping about school staff romance and it felt even more uncomfortable. I wanted her to take a step back and work through her issues, not dump them in students and spread faux inspiration on Instagram (I also have beef with the whole fake self help genre of social media these days, soooo).
I felt sad for Fletcher and his mess of a mother, but I felt like that dynamic was also in appropriate and made me uncomfortable. And, of course, his ex works at the school also. So much suspended belief to navigate here.
I dunno. I probably just shouldn’t have read this, cause it’s truly not my genre. I had high hopes and it didn’t live up. There’s lots of good diversity and representation, which is great, and overall it’s a sweet, quick read, but I had some issues that maybe are deeper than the book really means. If it sounds up your ally, go ahead. It’s probably a “it’s not the book, it’s me” issue.

Unfortunately, this was a miss for me. The main issue I had was that I didn't feel like there was truly enough interaction or communication that happened before they each were already having strong feelings for each other. To me, it just seemed more like lust and not actual interest. I also had a really hard time with Lucy as a character. She came across extremely immature, unprofessional, and hypocritical. While I can appreciate and sympathize with trying to portray and shed light on issues like anxiety and ADHD, it just didn't connect on a deeper level. The only explanation or experience I felt I got from it was solely through Lucy's chapters. And there was no outer self awareness of how her decisions and actions really were affecting those around her as well. On top of that, it was almost painful to keep reading about Lucy being someone who is supposed to be guiding and preparing teens for college and life, including their mental health when she made zero steps towards managing her own, I believed she even made statements about faking it in front of her therapist? Again, even if these are real things that people do or experience, this was a missed opportunity to address those things. Fletcher was a little boring and I didn't get a good sense of his personality from his chapters. It seemed like he was enabling Lucy at times. Lucy's family was also a little cringy at times with having no boundaries while simultaneously either not realizing or sweeping Lucy's issues under the rug.
And the ultimate kicker, are we really supposed to believe that these people ended up at the same school, coincidentally? On top of his ex girlfriend also being there? Who sounds like she would never actually be a public school teacher?
Overall, a miss for me.

DNF @ 20%

When you're almost a quarter of the way through the book and most of the novel has been about what occurs in the first few pages - it's a bit of a miss for me. I didn't mind the characters involved (even if the male MMC made some questionable life choices to end up at the school he ends up at), but I didn't believe them as a couple.

Also, there were one too many jokes about a certain "Cool Kids Club" that for some reason needed to change all of the first letters to "KKK" instead of "CCC"...which would have made more sense given TWO words start with C and not K.

Not for me. Might be for you!

This was such a cute read! I loved the romance and enjoyed the main characters and all their friends/coworkers.

Hello Fellow Reader,

I was afraid I wouldn't like this as Flirty Little Secret started a bit slow, but the more I read the more I fell in love with Lucy and Fletcher's relationship. Lucy is so loveable and real, that I immediately connected to her. On Instagram, @TheMissGuidedCounselor is self-assured and confident giving much-needed wisdom and advice to her followers, one of which we learn is Fletcher. We can't always trust what gets portrayed on social media because in real life @TheMissGuidedCounselor is Lucy. Lucy would hate it if her followers learned who she was, she feels like a mess, struggling with anxiety and depression while also trying to manage her ADHD, Lucy feels like a lie.

The romance was sweet and I liked how it progressed through the book, Fletcher was okay and I always love nice guy MMCs, but it was Lucy who made things shine, and I liked how Lepe portrayed Mental health issues, which honestly was not something I expected but appreciated. There were a couple of things that made this a little hard to read like the whole complication with Georgia felt unnecessary and not needed. Also, how high schoolers were portrayed gave Steve Buscemi's "How Do You Do, Fellow Kids' meme energy.

Overall a good mental health representation and romance.

In real life, Lucy is a hot mess - she’s shy, she’s constantly battling her anxiety and depression, and really struggles with imposter syndrome. But online, she’s confident and bold, always giving advice on her popular but anonymous account. When the new hot history teacher comes to school, Lucy can’t deny the instant chemistry between them, but she doesn’t fully trust him or herself. What she doesn’t know is Fletcher is her online bestie.

Between the You’ve Got Mail vibes and the school setting, I was all in on this book. Add in some incredible mental health discussions and representation as well as the cultural representation (Lucy is Mexican, Moroccan, and Jewish), and this book was a winner. I thought the online messages were so fun to read (especially when I knew what was happening before the characters did) and the food descriptions from Lucy’s family restaurant made me hungry. After reading this, I’m excited to see what else Jessica Lepe writes!

Thanks to Forever Publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy.

This was an adorable romcom that brings in the social media aspect of today’s world. The audio was really good! I loved the multiple POV but that each narrator voiced their own characters the entire time. I also thought this author did a great job discussing mental health issues. Lucy is very funny and Fletcher felt a little mysterious at first but I ended up really liking him. Workplace romance meets online romance where both clash when Lucy and Fletcher realize both worlds are actually the same.

The misunderstanding, miscommunication, and secrets did bother me in this one more than I expected it to. Lucy was pretty stubborn when she finally found out Fletcher had already figured out she was his online bestie. When she didn’t want to listen to his explanation I just kind of felt myself check out. The ending was cute and it did feel like we got resolution.

Flirty little secret was such a fun read start to finish. It was a quick-paced and engaging story with loveable yet flawed characters, interesting conflicts, and witty humour. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and really only had issues with a couple little moments. I enjoyed Fletcher and Lucy's romance, and found its progression to be well-paced and the stakes were predictable in a good way. The side characters didn't fall flat for me which is always a bonus.

My only real issues with this story were the way it treated its teenage characters, in mostly obnoxious stereotypes and bland characterization. The teenage girl stifling her intelligence to be an influencer was cringeworthy, and the dialogue between Lucy, Fletcher and their students was the hardest part to read, aside from one scene between Lucy and her sister when her sister made vulgar comments about screwing her sister and then proceeding to lick her? I get that it was written to be like family humour, but it was jarring and I definitely had to reread it to make sure I'd read it right.

I fell in love with the characters in this story. It was so fun to see a Jewish FMC. This was such a cute story and I had a lot of fun reading it. I think the author wrote the character so any girl can relate to Lucy! If I could I’d rate it 10/10!

Unfortunately, I'll be DNFing this one.

I really appreciate the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I struggled really hard to get into this one. The meet-disaster was comical, but it became the center of the book for the first quarter, and I was bored. There was also a lot of deep introductions to people and places and things and history and anxiety (so much talk about anxiety).

I loved the account that the FMC runs, but it didn't feel genuine to the person she was IRL, and I struggled with that a bit.

Also, being married to a male teacher, I just didn't super connect with the MMC? It just didn't speak to my own lived experiences in a way that I thought it would.

This was an excellent debut novel and I loved the Jewish representation in it! Just like's its title it is a fun read and I loved that it took place between coworkers, and I loved their messages to each other.

This was a cute book. The characters found themselves in the end even though it took a little but to get there. At times, the main female character wasn't my favorite but in the end I liked it.

I love when an author can so accurately convey the emotions and feelings behind mental health issues, not feeling like you can be yourself around the people that know you best.

I enjoy alternating POVs and when done properly… and this book did that!

Thank you netgalley for the eARC in exchange for review.