Love Sold Separately had me convinced it was a romance, perhaps a romantic comedy. Meister, however, has written this as a mystery with a thread of romance. Which is great. I love a good mystery. And this book delivers that.

Meet Dana Barry. An actor who works retail. Until she loses her job. When her best friend takes over as her manager, Dana finds herself at an open call for the Shopping Channel. Which she nails, and lands the coveted host role, with a bit of a push from the resident Shining Star who insists they hire "that one".

When the Shining Star ends up dead at her desk, it looks like a murder staged to look like a suicide. Meister has a talent for weaving the multi-faceted threads into a cohesive tapestry of narrative. Her characters are extremely sympathetic and captivated my interest, however, I question the fickle light in which she seems determined to show her main character. Dana comes off as a bit childish in holding on to her grudges from childhood. There were many parts where I questioned her actions. And the sudden switch of romantic interest from her co-worker Lorenzo to the detective Ari was simply too abrupt.

Still, Meister tells an engaging story that pulls you forward to its conclusion. It was a very good read overall!

[Many thanks to NetGalley and the author for a copy of this book. I was not required to write a review, the opinions herein are entirely my own.]

This book surprised me. I thought it was going to be a cheesy romance novel but it ended up being a fun cozy mystery. I'm not going to go into details about what the book is about as that is pretty much covered in the synopsis. It was funny and witty with not a whole lot of romance but that was okay. It worked here and the mystery of who killed The Shopping Channel's star host was very entertaining with a few surprising twists. I liked the main protagonist in the book, Dana Barry, what a fun character, as well as the other characters. Most of them were very likable. If this were turned into a series, I would definitely read them.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.

This book was so much fun to read! Dana made me laugh so hard I had to make sure no one was looking at me all weird, but thank goodness for these face masks, lol. So, Love Sold Separately, is a book about a young unemployed actress, who with the help pf her manager best friend, she got hired to work for a shopping network. I didn’t know that there was so much going on in that type of TV shopping industry, and I didn’t realize that most of these people are literally actors, trying to convince the audience to buy these products.

Anyway, on Dana’s first day, someone gets murdered, and she just threw herself into this case. She finally gets her break in life, and starts her new life and then POW someone is murdered, she is a huge success but then she starts to play detective with some of the employees in the company, and she starts to find out and piece together a story the story of what really happened to Kitty Todd. And let me tell you, Kitty Todd was a hot mess, and she dragged a few people down with her craziness.

The cover tells me it’s a romance novel, but then there is this mystery going on, and Dana finding herself, and finally finding real love. Its a lot, but its a lot of GOOD! Don’t let the title fool you, its more Romance, a little murder mystery, some family drama, and a lot of self-awareness.

Did I mention how much I love Dana?? Well if I didn’t imma say it again, I LOVE HER!

Thanks, Netgalley and the Publishers for giving me the chance to read this book.

Dana is a down on her luck 20 something year old who gets offered a gig presenting on the shopping channel but before she can even get her feet in the door the lead presenter is found dead. This book was an easy, quick read but I didn’t find the main character very likeable which made me struggle to engage with the story somewhat.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this title.

Unfortunately, I have decided not to read/review it. While I was initially drawn into the story, by about 20% it started to feel like nothing was happening and I wasn't looking forward to picking it up or finishing it.

When this happens, it's better for all that I don't finish the title or post a review.

As always, I appreciate the opportunity and access to early review titles and look forward to the next one!

Laura

The cover might lead you to believe that this is a romance- and it is- but it's really more of a cozy WITH romance. Dana, who has a hard time keeping a job, is happy when she's hired by the Shopping Channel and she's doing really well there. And then, Kitty, the real star of the network, is found shot to death in her office. Dana was up on the roof canoodling with Lorenzo, the sound engineer, when it happened but he's still a suspect as is she. Then Detective Ari Marks appears and , well he's the hottie here. Cozy readers know there was more to Kitty than met the eye and that there might be more than one red herring until her death is solved. This has nice characters, a fun setting, and a nice love triangle- it could easily be the first in a series. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A nice distraction.

I really hope that Love Sold Separately is the first in a series. It has everything going for it - a feisty heroine, a handsome love interest and an original setting. A plot that is a wild romp through intrigue, online sales and murder just makes you want more. Thank you, Ellen Meister.

Dana Barry is the least likely pick to solve a murder. A pot smoking, wine swilling, nearly broke out of work actor, she snags an audition at The Shopping Channel. Trust me, her audition is worth the price of the book. Kitty Todd, queen of sales for the network, endorses her and she’s offered the job. On her first day, she’s one of the people who discover Kitty’s dead body. The Shopping Channel is awash in gossip and as Dana learns how many people disliked Kitty, she starts her own investigation. Things go spectacularly wrong.

Love Sold Separately is part mystery, part romance and part comedy. All the characters are so well described you feel like you know them. The behind the scenes look at an online shopping network was fascinating. More, please. 5 stars.

Thank you to @netgalley and @harlequin for a copy of this book to read and review. Dana is a twentysomething actress who loses her day job and her life is a mess. She hears about a Shopping Channel audition and is able to get the job! Before she can get too comfortable in her new job, the star host (who is a diva) is murdered. Dana knows that the prime suspect is innocent (because she was kissing him when it happened) and gets drawn into the investigation. Then enters Detective Marks, who is tall, dark and smoldering and the sparks really fly!
Overall this was a solid read but not my favorite. I really like mysteries as a genre and this reminded me of something that I would see on Hallmark Mysteries. The cover was deceptively happy and I was expecting more of a rom com book with a hint of mystery. This didn't really fit the bill there. It was more mystery then romance in my opinion. I had a hard time connecting to the main characters in this story and the middle seemed long. Overall ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley, Harlequin, and Ellen Meister for gifting me an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
What do you get when you mix The Shopping Network, a murder and a splash of romance? A pretty decent book. I can’t say this one blew me out of the water, but I think it was me, not it. I expected this book to be heavy in romance and light in thriller. Unfortunately for me it was the other way around. The good news is there is a HUGE audience for this style of book. The writing is great and the characters are solid, I just got bored.

NetGalley needs to add a "cancel request" button because I requested this book many weeks ago for consideration for my official review gig. They require reviews submitted 1-2 months prior to pub date and to be approved for this book 7 days prior to release means that's... not happening.

I didn't download this book and I won't be reviewing it. I would love to use the "will not be giving feedback on this title" button but that means it'll count against my feedback % and NetGalley's set their system up so that I can't cancel a request when my deadlines have past.

This is of course not a reflection of the book. Please join me in asking NetGalley to add an option to cancel requests!

Fun fun fun! This was an entertaining edgy cozy mystery with a splash of romance. Dana has hit rock bottom after being fired from Hot Topic. Lucky for her her bestie/manager has just landed her an audition for a host on the shopping network. Dana seems to be born for this job. Not only does she have the gift of gab, but she also has a real attention to detail. Things seem to be looking up for Dana, that is until the diva of the shopping network is killed. Not only is Dana one of the first to find the body, but she is also the alibi for the number one suspect. Determined to prove his innocence Dana dons her detective hat and starts sussing out the clues.

This was a lot of fun, but I think the cover and blurb are a little misleading. This was definitely more of a mystery then romance. There is romance, a sort of love triangle not really kind of thing. Dana has an attraction with both the sound guy and the detective on the case, both of these relationships having their complications. Dana was likable although occasionally a bit annoying. Although it made more sense when I met her father, yikes! This was an entertaining easy breezy story, the perfect way to spend a hot summer afternoon.

This book in emojis 💁🏻‍♀️ 👜 💍 🕶 🐊 🛍 ☕️ 🎭 🎬

*** Big thank you to Harlequin/Mira for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***

Thank you so much @_Mira_Books_ & @NetGalley for giving me this eARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased review (Release Date | 25 August 2020)

SYNOPSIS | Dana Barry is a struggling actress and when an opportunity presents itself to be the new female sales lead on The Shopping Channel she obviously auditions. Whilst waiting to hear back if she has been offered the role, she hears a gunshot and finds the previous star of the show dead in her office.

WHAT I LIKED:
- the writing was very easy to read & fairly fast paced
- the mix of genres with romance & mystery

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- the love triangle didn't hook me and I wasn't particularly enthusiastic (or invested) about whether she ended up with straight-laced detective Ari or bad-boy sound engineer Lorenzo
- the mystery didn't have me on the edge of my seat
- I struggled to connect with Dana as a character & to understand her inability to hold down a job for more than 2 weeks and the repeated references of self-sabotage & drug use

This book is an example of the cover and the title not matching the description or the book itself. The cover is a romantic city-scape. The title features "love". Yet, this book is a murder mystery.

I liked this book, and I give it 3 stars because it was a likeable book, but nothing that I would be desperate to tell my friends to read.

Dana is not a likeable protagonist. She makes stupid, wreckless decisions, and then cries the blues because she doesn't like her position in life. She gets a dream job and then does drugs? I can't read along with someone like this. She hops into bed with a coworker? Has she ever heard of not crapping where you eat? This is a dream career: steady pay, recognition, easy work schedule.

This book was well written and flowed very well. I really enjoyed being on set of the Shopping Channel - that was fun! My issues were that I felt no attachment to any of the characters and the story line was all over the place! So much happening - Family drama, work drama, murder mystery, and then a love triangle thrown in. The romance was very lackluster and I didn’t feel a spark between any of them. I did want to push through this book for the whodunnit factor - but let me tell ya the end was odd....

Thank you to @netgalley and MIRA books for the eARC of this one in exchange for my honest review!

A romantic, mystery, Love Sold Separately tells the story of Dana, an out of work actress who has just recently been fired from her job at Hot Topic. Her best friend Megan, offers to be her manager and lands her an audition at the Shopping Channel for a hosting job. Dana knocks it out of the park and is given a chance to show off her skills on air the next day! During her show she meets Lorenzo, an ex-con who works as a sound tech. Dana who always loves a bad boy is immediately drawn to him and wants the job more than ever now. There's just one small problem, one of the other hosts has been found dead in her office.

Love Sold Separately was a quick read for me! Even though it was 400 pages long, I found myself flying though this one! While I do like a little more steam in my books than this one offered, the relationships were still cute. I did suspect Ollie having a part in the whole thing, but did not see it being a suicide staged to look like a murder to frame Hunnicutt. Talk about vindictive! All in all this was an easy read and it gets a solid 4 stars.

Dana is a recently unemployed actress with zero prospects as far as work goes when her manager/best friend comes to her with an opportunity of a lifetime. One of the hostesses on the shopping channel is retiring and they're holding open auditions to replace her.
Dana smashes her audition, and as she's taking a tour of the building, the biggest hostess on the channel is found dead- by Dana. Dana knows the prime suspect is innocent. He was busy making out with her on the roof at the time of the murder.
Dana loves her job, but somewhere between a part time love interest, a weirdly sexy detective, and an inherited PA with attachment issues, she discovers she's being sabotaged. Is she next?
Ok, so Love Sold Separately is not the type of book I normally read, but I did really enjoy it. There were some problems, that can't be ignored, but on a whole, I liked it. Dana was fun and the mystery was intriguing.
As for the big complaints that can't be ignored... the ending did not make sense to me. it was rushed and nothing in the story led to tha conclusion. There were plot points I had hoped she'd get back to but they were left unsolved.
3/5 because of the complaints, but if Dana returns in another adventure, I'd definitely read it.
*I received a copy of this from Netgalley in exchange for my review.

! I finished LOVE SOLD SEPARATELY the other day and was pleasantly surprised with the twists!

LOVE SOLD SEPARATELY is a romance and a mystery all in one. It was sort of like a cozy mystery but also not. It takes place in New York City and our heroine detective is Dana, an up and coming actress who just scored a dream job thanks to her attention to detail, a host on the shopping channel! On her first day, disaster strikes. The channel darling (or insufferable diva depending who you ask) is dead!

As Dana starts to unravel the mystery, she meets a few handsome men along the way that just might be her Prince Charming!

I enjoyed this book because of the different setting and I’ve never read a book about the shopping channel and what it’s like there. It was a fun behind the scenes of something new for me and I enjoyed that! It also was a fun mystery and I couldn’t predict who did it and there was a character from Finland, where my family is from, who speaks Finnish and I love the representation!!

I had a few things I didn’t like however for full transparency. First, the Finnish character was not quiet or stoic enough. Or drank enough coffee. These are key characteristics of Finnish people, I mean we drink the most coffee per capita in the world! And we define introverted! Second, the character Dana was not my favorite. A lot of her actions just didn’t make sense with her character and it made it hard to read sometimes.

Overall I though this book was different and fun! LOVE SOLD SEPARATELY comes out 8/25. Thank you to @netgalley @harlequin for the ARC!

My six word review:
Murder drama on the shopping channel

This story was such an interesting mix of romance and murder mystery! I did not know I needed this book in my life but man am I glad I read it!

First off - the cover totally makes this look like a cute little romance story. I will say there was some romance BUT it is more a mystery/detective book! It was great though and I felt it was pretty well done. I enjoyed how the story kind of flip flopped back and forth between the mystery and everything else. It kept me on my toes and I DID NOT SEE THE ENDING COMING!

I really loved the characters! Detective Ari is pretty fine if you ask me! I was very happy with how the romance ended up. The ending was tied up with a little bow in my opinion - it was perfect!

One thing I didn't really like about this story was the speed of the relationships. It just seemed way too rushed and not believable. For example, the MC meets a man and within minutes they are like a thing... I don't know, I just didn't like that. I really enjoy the lead up to a romantic encounter and all the encounters just happen and then boom, over. However, I could see this not being a problem for some people and maybe even a plus if you aren't really into all the fluffy romance stuff.

Overall, I was surprised by this book and really enjoyed it! The mystery was gripping and I liked how the MC solved the mystery alongside the police. She was a very good amateur sleuth and I loooove a good amateur sleuth so that made the book for me!

This was a fun book to read. It would make a great weekend even better with its lighthearted story. The writing is easy to follow and I would highly recommend this to any friend who likes contemporary romance.

This book reads like a lifetime / hallmark movie. I think I would like the story visually...I didn't connect with the book.