I loved this book so much! It was everything I was hoping for. I've read quite a few of Talia's books, so I had an idea of what to expect but there was just so much to love here, starting with the way Chloe was portrayed. Physically, romance heroines tend to be these perfect woman who never even get their periods, let alone deal with chronic health issues as Chloe does. Chloe is a heroine dealing with a physical body that sometimes betrays and lets her down, yet she just keeps on soldiering on. She has realistic coping strategies for the days that she can barely get out of bed, and she tries not to let it get her too down emotionally. When she realizes (due to a close encounter with a speeding car), that she has let her illness take control of her life, she promptly makes a list to try to break out of her rut, even though inside she's quaking at the thought of changing her routine.

As for Red, he is the epitome of a cinnamon roll hero, sweet, loving, and caring with an adorably gooey center. Chloe quickly becomes the center of his world, and he doesn't care that her illness sometimes means that his plans need to change - all he wants to know is what he can do to make it easier on her. He is dealing with his own issues and is trying to heal from past relationship trauma by hiding out and taking a bit of a break from life, yet he still reaches out to others and hasn't turned hard or bitter.

I highly recommend this book and looking forward to whatever Talia comes up with next.

As someone with a chronic illness, I've been looking forward to reading this book. This was one of the books I was highly anticipating and it didn't let me down at all. For me, she was the most relatable heroine I have read in a very long time. I also loved the relationship between Chloe and Red and how they each helped each other through their issues. Red is an amazing man and Chloe proved it to him. This book was so well written and spot on I truly cannot wait for Chloe and Red to be out in the wild for all to love.

After coming within three inches of being hit by a car, Chloe Brown, a thirty-one year old Englishwoman of African descent, decides it's time for her to "get a life." Despite having an (initially unnamed) chronic illness, Chloe moves out of her wealthy family's house into her own apartment, the first item on her "get a life list." Where she inadvertently achieves #7 on her list ("do something bad") by spying (then spying on) the extremely attractive building superintendent while he's painting (art, not the walls), shirtless, in his own apartment. Which is bad not only for the spying part, but because the super, Redford Morgan, has had nothing but frowns for her since she moved in. When he has nothing but smiles for everyone else in the building...

Red, a white Brit with auburn hair, comes from a very different class background than does Chloe. And as did his last girlfriend, who made him all too aware of the fact every chance she got, even suggesting that his successes as a painter were due to her talking him up rather than to any artistic skill of his own. Chloe's bossiness, sarcasm, and superiority are far too familiar; no way is Red going to let himself in for more classist bullshit, even from a girl whose lush curves he finds way attractive.

But Red is a helper ("He knew himself well enough to realize that he'd care for a great white shark if given half the chance"), and so when he discovers Chloe stuck up a tree, trying to rescue a cat, he can't help but help. And to go to her apartment to check on her later, when it's obvious (at least to him) that she must have injured herself during her tree-climbing adventure.

In the aftermath of their feline rescue, the two learn enough about each other to realize that neither is quite as awful as they had initially thought. And then Chloe comes up with the idea of a trade: she will design a web site for Red and his paintings, and he will help her check off several other items on her "get a life" list. Like "ride a motorbike" and "go camping." Definitely NOT the "have meaningless sex" one...

There's not a lot of relationship angst here; Hibbert draws both Chloe and Red with sympathy, humor, and understanding, making it easy for both characters to like each other, and for readers to like and admire the prickly Chloe and the honorable, emotional Red (the wonder of his growing feelings for Chloe, expressed in delicious metaphors, is simply adorable). It's rare for people with chronic physical illnesses to be portrayed as leads in romance, which made Hibbert's Avon debut (she's already self-published numerous fabulous books) more than a welcome addition to the romance shelves.

When Chloe Brown is almost hit by a car, she is hit by an epiphany instead - she hasn't been living her life. So she gets right on that. Step one: move out of the family home. But her new building superintendent is an artist with a kind word for everyone but her.

Talia Hibbert doesn't disappoint. I loved how funny Chloe is - her internal monologue is often hilarious, with distinct turns of phrase. I appreciated how Hibbert illustrated the reality of living with chronic pain, and how Red was able to see and care for Chloe. The characters had to move past obstacles of pride and prejudice, and did so using their words, understanding their feelings, and being grown-ups about the whole thing, which I appreciated. Not to say that the characters didn't get angry or upset, but they realized if they were being hurtful almost immediately and worked to get back in the good graces of the other.

Red helps Chloe get a life, and Chloe brings Red back into his life. It's lovely, really. Hibbert continues to be one of my top authors.

Oh, and it's not all feelings and talking - there's also some very steamy sexytimes. And a ridiculous cat up a tree. Let's not forget the cat.

I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley.

Ratings (out of 5)
Chemistry: 💥💥💥💥💥
Heat: 🔥🔥🔥
Charm: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
⠀
Chloe Brown almost died once. But was she really living before? When Chloe considers her eulogy and decides that it would have been dreadfully boring, she makes a plan: Chloe’s Get a Life Plan. Red Morgan is a brilliant painter and mediocre building superintendent who considers himself the king of fucking up and making bad decisions. They hate each other. Right? Or are they perfect together? After all, life can’t be reduced to lists and perhaps people are never really lost after all.
⠀
This book is so many things, you guys. It’s enemies to lovers. It’s trademark Hibbert: the perfect blend of cavity-inducing sweet and knee-clenching sexy. It’s a love letter. It’s a love letter to people with invisible, chronic illnesses and to the people who love those people.
⠀
But perhaps above all, this book is a tribute to healing and how messy and beautiful and nonlinear it can be. Healing from illness or bodily pain, healing from past emotional and physical abuse, healing from being left behind, healing from fear. I devoured it and loved every single moment.
⠀
I won’t share specifics because I refuse to spoil a single moment of this book for you. But know this: Chloe, while hard to like at first, is honest-to-God one of the most endearing characters I’ve ever read. She is so real she leaps off the page and so very authentic that I wanted to have tea with her. And Red? Red is everything a modern hero should aspire to be. Though flawed, he loves with his whole heart openly and honestly and I wanted a billion epilogues of these two.
⠀
If you like contemporary romance with incredible banter, fully developed characters, and off the charts chemistry, definitely give this one a read. It was infinitely charming and I couldn’t have loved it more.
⠀
Kiss and Tell: This book is an ode to the man who relentlessly chases the female orgasm (and finds it every time). Incredible kissing, hand play, oral, and p&v penetration feature and Hibbert’s writing is so sexy and immediate that you’ll feel RIGHT THERE with them.

I completely loved this one!! It is funny and compelling and will be the perfect winter read. It's set in London and features a main character living with chronic pain and a myriad of health issues and a man who is recovering from an emotionally abusive relationship. Both of these things are real and do affect actual people in the world, but they are often left out of stories, especially in this genre (contemporary romance), which makes this book extra special. Highly recommend! I felt connected to the characters early on and invested in their stories. It is also very well paced and I love that the characters were both given a chance at narration.

I work for a medical library and try to find fun reading books that feature protagonists who are patients or health professionals. This helps my students to build empathy and understanding.

This book was *phenomenal* and I can't wait to get it for my patrons.

It starts off slow and kind of dense, but once the action begins, it's hard to resist the story as it drives forward. It reads as a true epic, one that makes you feel the world really has been reshaped as you read it. Would recommend.

This was a refreshing romance story. I’m not going to go too much into a synopsis, because I figure y’all can just read the one above.

This is a bit of enemies to friends to lovers story. Red is the property manager where Chloe lives, and they definitely get off on the wrong foot when they meet. They each have assumptions about the other and haven’t spent the time to get to know each other because of those assumptions. But, one thing leads to another, and before you know it Red is helping Chloe with her ‘get a life’ list and Chloe is building Red a website to help showcase his art.

Overall, I enjoyed this one. I do think I wanted to see more of Chloe and how she deals with her fibromyalgia. We got some idea of how she copes in present-day, but I still don’t feel like I really understood how it affected her up to that point. Particularly when she’s talking about how she used to be right after her diagnosis. Her friends left, but why? She cut them off or because they found it too difficult to maintain a friendship with her?

With Red, we got some idea of what his abusive relationship was like but I think the story could have dug deeper. Also, I really wanted to see more of his relationship with his mum. We only got a little glimpse, but it was made clear that she was an important person in his life.

I did like how Chloe and Red actually talked to each other. They were truthful and open, which may be why the story feels like it lacked conflict? I know that’s like wanting your cake to be whole but also wanting to eat it, but something definitely felt like it was missing. It may be that the conflict wasn’t big enough or the resolution happened too quickly. I'm not sure.

I really related to Chloe in some ways. I have had a variety of health issues (real and imagined, to be honest) throughout my life and I can remember for a period of my life I didn’t want to make plans because I didn’t want to risk having to cancel because of a migraine or panic attack or whatever. Chloe is apprehensive to make friends because she doesn’t want to put anyone out; she doesn’t want them to have to accommodate her. And I think many people will find that relatable.

It was so nice to read a book about a heroine who was not a size 2, and that also didn’t have a problem with how she looked. A lot of novels with curvier or plus size women make the women not like themselves or doubt the attraction of the love interest. I don’t remember one time when Chloe thought Red wouldn’t be interested because of her weight and let me tell you how freaking refreshing that is. And other than being frustrated with her body’s limits due to her fibromyalgia, she didn’t hate what her body looked like. I also loved how her weight and size and shape wasn’t a ‘thing’ to be discussed and analyzed. If that makes sense. Red doesn’t like her in spite of or even because of her weight. He likes her because she’s funny and fierce and brings him joy and in turn that makes her beautiful to him. And I freaking love that.

Rounding up from 3.5 stars for positive body image, and for characters who act like mature adults. I will most definitely be reading more by Talia Hibbert.

Steaminess: 2+ open door scenes which are very descriptive.

Trigger warnings: physically and verbally abusive relationship (not shown on the page, but described some time after it occurred)

••I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.*.
I have to say that this author is versatile. None of her books that I’ve read have been the same. Which is refreshing.
This book has a lot of things I really love. British humor, snark, awkward interactions, and a woman determined to change her life.
It is not all light and fluffy. Both Chloe and Red have issues that impact their lives. Chronic pain and a former abusive relationship have made each of them hesitant. There are triggers and scars that they have to navigate.
I love that this relationship isn’t all drama or all fluff. The way it develops is authentic and Red is so sweet in his care of Chloe.
Such a good story.

SO much was going on in this book! I expected to be light and funny, which it was! But it was also emotional, fast-paced, and intense too! In all the best ways. I totally connected with the main character and I liked that the male character was realistic and dreamy all at the same time. Great read, I loved it!

This book started strong. I loved the banter between the main couple. Chloe is sassy and can dish it as well as she takes it. However, the story started to slog a bit at the middle and I could barely make it to the end. I think the switch in tone from fun and flirty to serious took my out of the story. By the end it was all melodrama. I know that real life is messy, but the juxtaposition between tone from the beginning of the book to the end was too jarring for me.

Man! Like this book looked good when I saw it. But...man! This book was a contemporary romance phrased like a fantasy novel. There is no way to describe how delicate and descriptive Hibbert is without being floofy. It's like there is one of those magic Cinderella swirls around this couple. And it's so strange, because you get into this book expecting it to be heavy because of all the mental and physical health issues the characters are dealing with. Instead those issues are completely normalized? They don't love each other despite their issues, they love each other fully, issues included. I've been reading a lot of New Adult romantic comedies lately, but this one possesses an effervescent quality. I couldn't put it down.

Seriously one of the sweetest books I’ve ever read. I adore the banter between Chloe and Red A LOT and how they come to love and support each other. I’ve got to incorporate Chloe Brown philosophy into my own life. :) And I don’t think it can ever be overstated how important it is to portray characters who are chronically ill and living their best lives.

Thank you HarperCollins and NetGalley for the ARC!

I did not finish this book. As a librarian I actively seek diverse fiction to recommend to patrons and I just didn't care for this book overall. Dialogue between Chloe and her sisters was so stilted. Everything just felt too forced with Chloe, Red, etc. Like the author was checking boxes. Final straw was the cat rescue/tree climbing scene.

Thanks to Netgalley and to the publisher for sending me an e-galley of this book!

Get a Life, Chloe Brown is a refreshing and hilariously sweet romance that will take your breath away and put a smile on your face. Like it did mine.

The story doesn't pull any punches with Chloe, who is chronically ill suffering from fibromyalgia along with a number of other illnesses that makes the simplest things much harder for her including getting out and living her life. She's written in a way which is real, witty and charming. I could relate to many aspects of her character and the longing need to push yourself out of your comfort zone to reap the rewards that life has to offer.

What I loved most about the book is that both of the characters, both Chloe and the immediately misunderstood Red have real emotional depth and a history that has left way too many marks, emotionally and in one instance, physically. There isn't a miscommunication more than a lingering self doubt that both of the characters work through over the course of the novel that makes it that much more real. Humans, not characters are flawed and carry the weight of pain, emotional and physical and the scars of those wounds will touch whoever they come in contact with.

It's so easy to fall in love with Red and wish for Chloe to be your best friend. A lovely story and a definite 5 star read for me. I'm picking up a finished copy for sure!

A fun, real, honest romance with characters who are struggling to overcome past pain and regret while falling in love. A great and enjoyable read. Thank you!

I picked this up in the middle of the most epic book slump of all time.

And I was charmed, at first. There's a lot to like here and I think under different circumstances it would have worked for me. Alas, I didn't make it all the way through. Another victim of my epic book slump.

I may circle back to this one some other time because all the ingredients are there -- I just couldn't attach or connect with the storyline the way I wanted to.

By now I should know that it is impossible for me to read a book by Talia Hibbert and not be moved to the depths of my soul. She is magic and the words that she writes, the characters and worlds that she creates seem to pluck a string within me that makes everything within me settle and rejoice all at once. Let's not even start on the fact that she builds sexual tension and chemistry and combustion in a way that is somehow simultaneously classy and dirty AF - she has a way of painting a such a vivid and real story that it all seems so very real and I'm left with a feeling of bereft disappointment when I realize that I'm not actually witnessing the goings on of actual people and therefore can not stalk them and ingratiate myself into their lives. From Chloe to Red, Dani and Eve, to Annie and Gigi - every character that graces the page is interesting, engaging, and worthy of a full on novel of their own (and apparently Dani is next in line!). As soon as I finished reading Get a Life, Chloe Brown I wanted to read it again. And I'm pretty sure I will feel that way EVERY time I read it. She gets all the stars, all the wine, all the accolades. I wonder if she's accepting applications for a slightly obsessive, mildly neurotic bestie from across the pond... 5 out of wine glasses.

A satisfying laugh out loud love story about the emotional scars we carry and putting in the work to heal. This book is must read for anyone who likes to watch characters building their confidence and stepping out into the world. Also, for any one who enjoys reading books with 'outrageously ginger' male protagonists. I found myself nodding at the cultural nuggets dropped throughout the book. A solid romance for fans of Alyssa Cole and Jasmine Guillory.