This is a love story that hinges on the theme of second chances. Leila is connected with a matchmaking agency, and she becomes entangled with a man who has been spending most of his time with younger women. What happens from there is an interesting look at relationships that can happen for people who have loved before.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

I enjoyed this title and the interaction between the characters until the end - I just felt introducing a new character in the last few chapters through the story off for me. In a way it made the story feel incomplete.

I really enjoyed this book. It was refreshimg to have main characters in a romance novel that are over the age of 40.

Leila is a smart, sophisticated woman with an amazing sense of style but she’s been alone for 5 years since her husband passed away. Her business partner and her daughter feel that it is time for her to find love again and take matters into their own hands by buying a session with a matchmaker. Leila is not pleased and is positive that she will never find love again since her late husband was her soul mate but she begrudgingly acquiesces to their plan.

Ayden has been divorced for 25 years and has used that time to perfect his technique for wooing women- particularly younger women. When Leila and Ayden meet at a mutual client’s home, there is an instant attraction but neither is going to do anything about it until the matchmaker Leila was dragged to matches them. Even then, Leila decides to wait and try dating the other 2 matches first. When they do finally go on a date, the sparks are flying. I like the rapport between Leila and Ayden throughout this book.

Parts of the story were quite predictable but there were a few unexpected twists thrown in as well. I like that Leila’s relationship with her daughter and her business partner feature prominently in the book. The characters are well developed. I wasn’t fond of Ayden at the beginning due to his arrogance but I have to say that he grew on me and in the end I think he is worthy of Leila.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a romance with more mature characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I throughly enjoyed this book. It is nice to occasionally discover a romance novel with middle aged characters. Well written plot with believable characters. I highly recommend this book. I received an advance ebook and this is my unbiased review.

A heartwarming entertaining novel of a middle aged widow who is relatively happy with her life, albeit perhaps a little lonely at times. It has been 5 years since Leila Brandt’s husband died and her daughter and best friend decide that she has been alone long enough. So, for her birthday they sign her up for a matchmaking service. Perhaps fate had a hand in matching Leila to her possible dating partners, but one of the men is Ayden Doyle, a contractor who she recently met through her interior decorating business.
Leila and Doyle begin dating, but for one of them their emotional relationship doesn’t mean the same as to the other. A decent book of hope and second chances. Thank you Netgalley and Spark Press for an Advanced Reader Copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book and the comments are my honest opinion.

Leila, a widow of 5 years, has an interior design business with her best friend, Michelle. Ayden is an architect and carpenter/woodworker/sculptor. Except for a brief marriage in his early twenties, he has been single and pretty much a player for most of his adult life. This is a sweet, sexy (but not explicit) romance about a couple of middle-aged people who meet, date and fall in love. It covers the adjustments, assurances, and compromises between a settled widow with grown children and about to become a grandmother and a man who has never had to answer to anyone but himself. I enjoyed watching the relationship develop between Leila and Ayden, although I felt the book was slightly more clinical than emotional, which made it hard to connect with the characters.

And Now There’s You is the story of a middle aged widow whose daughter and best friend decide she needs to be dating so they set her up with a matchmaker. The story follows interior designer Leila as she embarks on the journey. This new to me author definitely has a way with words...lots and lots of descriptive paragraphs that move the story, but my main issue was I couldn’t connect to the characters.

I'm happily married at 46 but knowing this book involved a "middle-age" woman who found love, I was very interested. I was drawn to these characters from the start. It was so interesting to see how widowed/divorced, middle-aged characters approached love. I loved that it wasn't insta-love and that the insecurities that most women feel were still there. All around a really good read.

Leila Brandt is a woman in her mid-fifties, living in the Philadelphia suburbs and passionate about her interior design business. With a picture perfect model home and successful daughter living around the corner one would assume Leila couldn’t ask for more. But they would be wrong. For the last five years, since the untimely death of her husband Leila has done everything possible to keep her loneliness at bay and let her predictable routine pass the time away. When she begins a project with local architect Ayden Doyle, the comfort Leila found in the mundane starts to fade. Feelings carefully hidden begin to surface and Leila finds herself opening her heart to the idea of new love. In theory I like the premise of this story filled with hope and second chances - but the painfully tedious, stilted language, immature relationships and excessive details of decor was just too much for me. Easy read but I wanted so much more from this story.

I am never happy to give a book a negative review. But this book just didnt do it for me.
The plot was not compelling enough to justify its length and drawn out narrative. At first, I thought it was just the beginning that was slow, but the entiee book lacked momentum.
The characters had great potential to become dynamic, however, thus never happened and the story felt onesided and unemotional. For a story that was so in depth, character growth was missing and the ending felt pointless, there was nothing done to instill hope for the romance of the protagonists.
I am still giving it as 3 star review as the author must have taken great pains to write such a drawn out story.
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review and all opinions are my own.
Luanna

***And Now There’s You is the story of a middle aged widow whose daughter and best friend decide she needs to be dating so they set her up with a matchmaker. The story follows interior designer Leila as she embarks on the journey. This new to me author definitely has a way with words...lots and lots of descriptive paragraphs that move the story, rather than the character’s conversations being the main movers...lots of telling rather than showing. The story of a widow attempting to find love in her fifties should have resonated with this reader, who also was widowed at a similar age, however, I found myself wanting to skim rather than becoming fully engaged. I voluntarily reviewed an advance copy of this book from NetGalley.

Second chances at love is one of my favorite motifs, so I was excited by the premise of this book. In its telling, the text was meticulous and thorough when setting each scene: background, features, thoughts, and actions were described in detail. Unfortunately, it is for that reason that the story slowly buckled under its own narrative. One passage in particular that struck me as superfluous was where Leila was evaluating potential candidates from the matchmaking service. Excessive word count was given to expounding upon the background of each minor character, and from that point forward, the story could no longer hold my interest. Tell me something, but please don't tell me everything.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and Susan S. Etkin for an ARC of 'And Now There's You' in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.