This book was requested by a previous Lesbrary reviewer who did not finish or review it. In order to keep my Netgalley feedback up to date, I am submitting this review marking it as a DNF, though it was another reviewer who requested this.

This book was clever and funny, but something about it just wasn't to my taste. I think the personalities bothered me. Totally my subjective opinion.

Carla is a cupid and having trouble with her job. She has problems reading people’s chemistry and needed to be able to this to make good matches Then Leeta- a succubus- is in search of true love. But Leeta is turned away as it is believed Leeta just wants an easy meal. If Carla can help Leeta find true love maybe things will go better at the job.
This story really wasn’t for me. Carla seems to immature especially in the beginning. This was a novella and a quick read. There was not enough surprise in the story and this seemed rushed to me. It just wasn’t for me but I am sure others will like this book.

This was a very sweet read, the story was very straight forward and easily paced. I love the chemistry between the two protagonist, this was a sweet romance that can be read by all since it glossed over the sexy bits I have no problem recommending to an audience of "clean" paranormal readers. I look forward to the next book by this author, especially if it continues in this world.

I'm not a fan of novellas and I didn't realize that's what this was when I requested it...but this story is so treacly sweet and works best in a small dose, so that ended up being a positive!

Carla's a cupid who is struggling because she can't identify good chemistry between people who would make great matches - a bit of a disadvantage in her line of work! Practically every statement of hers drips in positivity and excitement and ends in an exclamation point - this would've usually annoyed me, but I viewed Carla as an anime character, bubbly, energetic and OTT so I didn't mind, but it may be off-putting to some readers as it comes across like she's practically screaming every line of dialogue.

Leeta is my faaaave, she's a succubus who actually wants a romantic relationship, which is unusual for her kind and is a desire that subjects her to some discrimination at the Aphrodite Agency where Carla works because they assume she's just looking for another victim to prey on. Of course Leeta isn't going to beg or justify herself, so she doesn't push the issue and is coolly dignified and cutting rather than trying to pander to the agency. Fortunately Carla is more open-minded and looking for a chance to redeem herself, so she takes on Leeta's case in secrecy.

What endears Carla to me is that she really does have Leeta's best interests at heart - she wants to prove she's capable of a higher position at work and helping to find Leeta's True Love (tm) would elevate her job prospects, but she knows she's not the greatest at matchmaking so she offers to put in a good word for Leeta and quietly arranging for someone else to take on her case as a favor. She had nothing to gain from that, and it was super sweet of her to make that offer. It's easy to see why Leeta would warm to Carla after that and switch off the Ice Queen persona she projects as a default in social settings.

This is the perfect setup for them to fall in love, and I really enjoyed seeing it happen even as Carla is completely oblivious. Part of this assignment involves learning more about Leeta's hopes and dreams, her hobbies and interests and so forth; they wind up meeting fairly frequently, getting together at each other's homes so often that they start to stock up on food and drinks specifically for the other person, and as they become closer, it turns into more time spent socializing for fun than trading information to find a partner for Leeta. The main reason for my reluctance to read novellas is because I often find that authors struggle to make the progression of the relationship realistic in such a short time, but Making Love excelled in that area.

The world-building left a little to be desired, I couldn't quite picture all this taking place - if you look at the cover, Leeta and Carla are quite the odd pair and I'm not sure how a winged cherub and a woman with horns & tail can walk down the street without causing a scene. I would've liked to get a bit of an idea or some backstory on how the regular humans reacted to these fantastical species being in their midst, but the story had a very narrow focus on cupids and Leeta rather than placing them in context in this society.

Despite its flaws, I have a soft spot for this novella mainly because of the wonderful LGBT+ representation. While their orientations aren't specifically labelled, Leeta is bisexual and Carla is demisexual - she previously had never experienced sexual desire with anyone, and even though she wasn't necessarily interested in sex now, she was willing to experiment with it because she loved Leeta and wanted to see if this intimacy was something they could share so she could make her happy. What made my heart do twirls was Leeta having a very frank discussion about consent and emphasizing that while physical intimacy was a biological necessity for her species, she can survive on normal food for months and she's willing to do as little or as much as Carla is comfortable with at her pace. Consent is romantic, y'all, I loved it!

4.5 stars

This was a light-hearted and very sweet read. Safe to say, I really enjoyed it, and thought it was adorable. The characters were great, although Tristen could have been a little less 2 dimensional, and while it was short, it was a good book

With just a few novellas published Aidan Wayne has already established a reputation for engaging and fluffy sweet romance, and a reliable source for a diverting comfort read. There’s a definite need for angst-free stories that give you warm fuzzies and they seem to be helping fill that niche quite well. Making Love is as sugar-spun as candy floss, and there’s nothing at all wrong with that.

Carla is an eager, friendly, sunshine smile of a character and it’s easy to see why Leeta might become enamoured with her. She’s also not shamed for being chubby, which is always a pleasant relief; however she does fall victim to another fat character trope, as she loves sweets and is always eating them. Being a cupid and literal sweetheart it does make some contextual sense, but it’s also very disappointing to once again be defined by eating habits, and reinforces harmful stereotypes that overweight people lack impulse control and our personalities must necessarily focus around food. While it seems fairly obvious why Leeta would like Carla, I had a more difficult time understanding why Carla would like Leeta beyond her normal boundless affection for everyone, but they were still a very cute and enjoyable couple.

My main issue within the narrative itself was the worldbuilding was practically nonexistent – mythical and supernatural beings are real and a part of our mundane world, but how much of a part of it are they really? Are all ‘fictional’ creatures real in this verse? Are they invisible unless they purposefully display themselves to humans? Do they live in a dimension parallel to the human world and slide in and out to fulfil their duties and live their lives in both? There was almost no interaction or mention of the human world yet all the characters seemed to live in human cities among them, which let to frequent frustration trying to understand how their existence actually worked, and a few extra lines to clarify and establish the setting would certainly have been appreciated.

Making Love is easy to read, sweet as pie, and while it might have benefited from a few revisions, it’s still a fun and frothy story to treat yourself to for Valentine’s Day, and whenever you might need a reminder that anyone can find happiness and love.

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Ruthie – ☆☆☆☆
This is a really quick and cute read. It is lighthearted, amusing, and witty.

Carla is an ambitious cupid, who is better at the shooting of arrows than the reading of chemistry. We get to see this in action, as she agrees to work freelance to help an unusually romantic succubus, Leeta, find her soulmate.

Leeta, and the reader, soon get the chemistry vibe, but the naive Carla just thinks she is failing again. As things are resolved, one cannot help but smile and sigh with relief for them both!

I read Mr. Wayne's Counterbalance back in September, and enjoyed its originality – this is very different and whilst much more frivolous, also as enjoyable.

Aidan Wayne's Making Love is literally the cutest book I have on my kindle.Read more…

Making Love follows Carla, a cupid with an initially poor grasp of chemistry, who decides to help a succubus named Leeta find her true love after the agency Carla works for refuses to even grant her an appointment. Of course, initially, it isn't just that Carla wants to lead Leeta to her True Love, but that Carla wants to prove that she's more than just a good shot.

This book is a friends-to-lovers story that is so sweet that you'll feel like cavities are imminent as you read. I kept clutching my kindle to my chest and grinning because I couldn't get enough of how Carla and Leeta immediately click – and how Carla remains clueless to that connection for much of the book. The "friends-to-lovers" trope is a BIG DEAL in fanfiction, but it works well here because of how Wayne fleshes out Leeta and Carla to where you maybe figure out before they do what's going on.

So yeah, I adored the plot and the characters, but there are also other things that I liked about Making Love that I feel y'all need to know about.

First of all, Carla is on the ace spectrum, a demisexual cupid whose experiences with sex and non-platonic love are nonexistent. Do you know how much I love seeing ace-spectrum characters in this sort of fiction (or any kind of fiction) who gets to have a great and loving relationship? It's so refreshing!

Second, Leeta and Carla are both coded as women of color. You can tell from the cover, that Carla has an afro (and in the book, wears her hair in puffs which is MY FAVORITE), but Leeta is described as having brown skin so yeah… she's coded as a WOC too. (I don't make the rules, folks).

People who aren't new to my blog should know that I'm very passionate about positive representation in the urban fantasy genre, my favorite genre.

Aidan Wayne's Making Love hits the target for me because it's a short, sweet story that centers on characters that I can identify with on multiple avenues as a queer Black woman. The characters are adorable and I found myself sucked into their story, wanting them to get together from the second that they first met outside of Carla's agency.

So if you're a fan of goopy stories with adorable romance and a slow-burn that leads to sexy (but largely offscreen) shenanigans and a happy ending, check out Aidan Wayne's Making Love!

This story follows Carla, a cupid determined on excelling at work and proving herself, and Letta, a succubus looking for true love. Needless to say, they both find what they're looking for/wanting in each other.

This was an incredibly sweet read and was certainly an easy book to get through, with very few obstacles for the characters getting together.

It was great to see demisexual and pansexual representation on page here, especially when this relates to the two main characters, even if those exact words were never used. I particularly liked that Letta was romantic and sought out true love, which went against the stereotypes of her species, and she was definitely the more interesting of the two mains for me. I would love to read this story from her POV and have a little more insight into her.

For me, I wasn't totally enamoured with Carla, and I felt she was a lot more juvenile than Letta. This may be because she was less experienced than Letta, but it just seemed like she had a little bit less personality in general, and was only solely focused on her job. The love story was also a little rushed for me and needed more time to develop, or more indication that it was developing (I know it's a novella but the jump between friendship and more seemed sudden to me).

I think I would have preferred if this story was a little bit longer and fleshed out but it was definitely a sweet, quick read and definitely good representation.

This is a cute, sweet romance. A light fluffy novella, that would be a good read for Valentines Day. While this is not necessarily to my tastes, for what this is, it worked.

This short is about Carla, a cupid, who has been having trouble in her job. While she is a great shot, she has a hard time reading chemistry to find good matches. When Leeta, a succubus, enters Carla's job in search of a true love match, Carla is shocked she is turned away. Succubus are discriminated against for belief they just want an easy meal, not real love. Carla thinks everyone should find their true match. If Carla can help Leeta, maybe she can finally get the respect at her job she deserves.

I always enjoy succubi as characters in books. Leeta, was a very easy character to like. I struggled a little more with Carla. Carla is very inexperienced and it comes across as immature. I did like how her character grew more as the book went on. But she still wasn't my favorite.

The romance is light and sweet. It was very obvious how the book was going to turn out, but I still enjoyed watching it unfold.

I had two small issues with the book. I really wish the author took a few pages for world building. I have no idea where this takes place. And while they mention humans, I don't know if the humans see these Fae walking around daily or not.

My other issue is an editorial issue. At least in the last 1/3 of the book, the use of exclamation points is way over used. Almost every other word out of our cupid, ends in one. "I'll do my best!" "I'll go get my quiver!" "Okay!" "Oh, right!" I understand using them once in a while, but every time Carla spoke she was emphatically yelling with emotion, I guess. It was a bit jarring especially since Wayne used almost none when Leeta spoke. It made Carla seem flighty.

If you are looking for a light, very fluffy romance, this book may be for you. It is a quick read that will probably put a smile on your face.

An ARC was given to me by Riptide Publishing, for a honest review

Cute little short read, nothing special or all that substantive, but cute.