This book had everything I look for in a modern rom com. Witty banter, a little heart break, and an enemies to lovers story line always makes for a good story.

While I loved the journey for Christopher and Katharine some of the other non romantic relationships in the story are what stood out to me.

Katharine’s relationship with her best friend Lainey I felt like was an honest portrayal of how friendships change during big life events. But her brother showing up when she needed him most and always have her back in an honest way only family can do shows how family always is there for you.

Mostly though I loved her relationship with Fiona and how clearly Fiona adores her role in the family. From the moment Katharine is back she goes out of her way to make her feel welcome and take care of her while never overstepping and in turn Katharine and Adam show their gratitude in the best ways they know how.

I’ll read any romance based in London and loved the writing in this one. It was a quick light read but wasn’t cheesy or over done and will definitely checkout more of Belindas books.

When Katharine is passed over for a deserved promotion at a London art gallery, she decides to take a huge risk and move back home to open her own art gallery. Where she meets Kit, an artist who hasn’t shown his paintings anywhere for years, and who doesn’t seem to like her very much.

Accidentally in Love is a fun romance filled with witty banter, and a journey to restart her life. She learns to demand more for herself, that she has some not easy to acknowledge faults, and that some relationships don’t survive the uprooting of an old life to a new one. A fun and enjoyable read!

Thanks to the publisher for providing me a free copy via netgalley in exchange for my honest review!

Accidentally in Love by Belinda Missen | review.

Genre: Romance.

Rating: Four stars.

I read this book after a stack of dark thrillers and it was PERFECTION. Seriously, I spent one entire Saturday cuddled up with this book enjoying it’s sweet and carefree story.

Katherine is at a crossroads in life when within a week she quits her job, moves home and decides to start her own art gallery.

Of course, there is a fun romance in Accidentally in Love, but it also focuses a lot with Katherine’s other relationships- her brother, her step mother, and her best friend. I think they were my favorite part!

I also really enjoyed reading about the opening your own art gallery and I appreciated how good Katherine was at her own job.

I enjoyed Accidentally in Love!

Thanks you to HQStories and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

I was taken by surprise by this book; it starts off being about a woman in her 30s in London who is at a crossroads—personally and professionally—and ended up making me cry with its look at family dynamics and art.
Kate is a curator at a gallery in London. When she’s denied a promotion, she abruptly quits and decides to move home to Sheffield and start her own gallery. Her love interest, Kit, is an artist living in her hometown and working part time at her father’s art supply shop. At first they can’t stand each other, and then Kate realizes she wants Kit’s art as the first exhibition in her gallery, and Kit of course refuses and they argue and sparks fly.

I love competence porn in romances. Kate is good at her job, and the book shows us this in big and small ways throughout. Her family shows up often and is lovely.

The most frustrating part of the book was the part of the plot where boy and girl part. It didn’t feel realistic from Kit’s perspective that he would do what he did, and when boy and girl reunite, I wanted more scenes showing them after the reunion.

Would love a sequel about Adam.

All told, I really enjoyed this and recommend it to anyone who likes contemporary British romances about people in their thirties.

*I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Thank you to NetGalley and HQ Stories for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book. I have been in a reading rut for a bit now and this put me right back in the game.

The POV is from Katharine, but it does cover the growth of all the characters in the book.
The characters are wonderful, they pull you in and carry you along their journey to a fresh beginning of their lives.
The banter is on point, and the dynamic that Katharine has with everyone else in the novel is relatable. From fights with best friends and the slow burn of love, with a dash of family fun - the book was moving so smooth that I was so surprised it was over so soon.

The plot was a nice little lesson in my eyes - never give up on your dreams. What you want to do. What do you want out of life?
But, also, and I think this is something good for everyone, believe in your decision. Believe in the journey and you'd be shocked where you end up.

The book is your wholesome rom com, and by the end, you're grinning like a maniac and the butterflies in your stomach are fluttering again with the happiness.

I'll be grabbing a copy when it's officially released.

What happens when an art curator and an artist clash? Well, apparently it ends up being a romance between them. The protagonist is Katherine, having just quit her job after not getting a promotion, she returns home and plans on opening her own art gallery. The love interest is Christopher, aka Kit, an artist and art teacher who is friends with Katherine’s dad. The two immediately clash and don’t mix well at their first meeting. Katherine has just broken up with her sort of boyfriend/ friends with benefits, and Kit just screams “closed off”. Here’s the thing, throughout the story I found myself getting a bit irritated with some of Katherine’s choices and Kit made some valid point’s about her character. However, Kit is also not such a great romantic interest, he’s hot and cold at best and honestly, acts a bit like a teenager in regards to how he reacts to his budding relationship with Katherine, the moment something goes wrong he just completely goes off grid and ignores her. Katherine’s character does grow a bit. but if I am being brutally honest, I didn’t much care for her. This story had the potential to be such a great fit for me but it just did not work out. The story started off sort of like enemies to lovers which I adore, but the one thing missing was the actual chemistry between the two characters. I did enjoy Katherine’s relationship with her family, they’re weird and quirky but ultimately love and support each other. I adored that aspect of the story the most. This was all in all, an okay read, and it does drag on a bit and I just felt like it was missing something.

* Thank you Netgalley and HQ for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

I liked this story very much, the detail was very good as were the characters.

I thought that the plot was excellent and it was a really good slow burn romantic read.

The characters were well developed and had some great interaction too, it was a book that made me smile and I loved it for that very reason!

It is 5 stars from me, a lovely story - very highly recommended!

**Thanks to the publisher HQStories and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review**

Accidentally In Love is much more than just a romcom! It was wholesome and reminded me of Sally Thorne’s books.

•The plot was really inspirational and jaw droppingly beautiful. Katherine’s confident and her ambitious attitude made me realise that it’s never too late in life to chase your dreams. Kate is a self reliant woman which makes her damn sexy!
•To talk about the lead male character of the book Kit, he’s an artist. Men with artistic qualities are interesting! He’s supportive and extremely sweet. He encourages Kate and has her back.
•The banter between Kate and Kit was so cute, the humour and everything made me giggle a lot. The personal growth of the characters and people close to them were perfect.
One of my favourite quote from the book was “Looking at him from behind the safety of my phone,I feel as if it’s him who’s seeing me for the first time”

This book will be published on 11th September,2020. It’s extremely hilarious and heartwarming. So add it to your September reads list!

Katharine, our female lead was such a real person and I was with her every step of the way. I genuinely liked her and rooted for her throughout the book, and this was right from the beginning. I remember grinning at the end of chapter 1's events and nodding to myself that this was going to be a good book. I loved her passion for her work, being good at it, and realizing her own worth. I Her friendship with Lainey was also one of the highlights and again it was real. **spoiler** something happened, and I am glad that the resolution was not picture perfect because life is not that**. I enjoyed her humor and that's one of the highlights of the book - it had great witty banter, and I chuckled so many times when reading.

Now Kit. I must admit he made me quite infuriated. He was very quick to jump into conclusions and was at times so rude. And I am referring to later in the book when I honestly feel he should have known better! However he redeemed himself and I must confess that watching his and Kat's growth was a particularly awesome thing to see.

Another very lovely highlight was the family dynamics between Katie, Adam, their Dad and Fiona. It was so refreshing to read about a normal family where everyone just supports and loves each other without too much trauma. More of this please Romance-world.

The very minor thing I just was unsure about was that for a book set in Britain, it had some American slang. E.g. there was reference to Bob Ross and then Jeopardy and maybe I am wrong and these things are really popular across the pond, but they sort of brought me out of the setting a little.

All in all, I enjoyed this book immensely.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC

I struggled with this book to be honest. Mhairi McFarlane is one of my favourite authors and seeing this was being compared to her novels really sold it for me. I looked at other reviews before requesting and all seemed to be saying how funny and great the book was so it is maybe my frame of mind but I could not connect with Katherine or the book at all really. I did finish the novel and I enjoyed the last third.
I am sure it will sell well as the cover is great and the book description really sells it well. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read a preview copy of this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and HQStories for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was really excited to read this when I saw it on Netgalley - it has the romance cover I always gravitate towards, and it sounded like a cute "girl goes back to her hometown and finds a home there" story.

Which makes me all the sadder for not connecting to it. It could entirely be a me thing, and so I won't be adding a star rating until well after release (except on Netgalley where it's required) because I don't like lowering a rating before release (I'm weird).

Katherine quits her job suddenly when she's passed over for a promotion <i>again</i> for another friend of her male boss, breaks up with her "boyfriend" when she realizes he will never be committed to her over his job, and moves back to her hometown of Sheffield to open her own gallery.

This is basically the premise I had going into it, but one of the problems is this premise takes so long getting off the ground - she's still breaking things off with John almost halfway through the book, and it felt uncomfortably drawn out, like a lot of the book. Discussion of the renovation, conversations about nothing of value to the plot, and internal monologue all felt like they could be cut a LOT and the book would be better for it. There's only so much about a tesco trip I need to know, you know? Personal preference.

The exposition relies on conversations with friends and siblings at the beginning, which is usually fine, but her conversation with Lainey felt like one you'd have with friends after a few months, not with someone you work with and see every day. It was a small thing, but it stood out.

These issues for me was accentuated by the romance - which, considering this book is a romance, I would hope would be the shining point. Instead Katherine and Kit have one of the WEIRDEST first conversations I've ever read between love interests and then rarely talk unless they have small bickering moments until the last 200 pages of my ebook copy where they're suddenly into each other. I saw another review say it felt like the bickering was supposed to emulate Jane Austen, and I can see where that reviewer is going with that comparison. It just didn't make sense for these two. They were both described as stubborn but even with that and their motivations, I didn't feel chemistry between them (also, the flirting really weirded me out because it was sex jokes out of nowhere - again, could just be a me thing).

The plot had potential and I'm just sad I saw so little of what interested me - I would have loved if the book featured a lot of Katherine merging with Kit's students and learning more from them rather than just being surprised they were good. I would have liked is Lainey's development and interactions had felt different than night and day depending on the book needing conflict from somewhere other than Kit. It didn't make much sense for me. I would have loved more family time with Kit, and for the scenes we get in retrospect (cute scenes with her brother helping) to be more in the forefront than the paint picking scenes. This all just accentuates how personal my desires were for the book, but my heart tells me I would have liked this book if it had highlighted different moments and been cut down a fair bit.

I will say one more thing - early on in the book, when Katherine sees Kit for the first time, the book reads: “And he’s solid. <b>Not in that need-to-lose-ten-kilos way,</b> but solid in a broad-shouldered, rips wood apart in the rain and plucks kittens from trees like low hanging fruit kind of way.”

I don't have words for how quickly my good faith in this book turned sour when I read that. I had to put the book down for the night so I could try to separate it and keep an open-mind. Fat shaming of any kind - even though Katherine has a less than delighted opinion at Lainey's mother guilt tripping Lainey about eating before her wedding - shouldn't happen without consequence. So when it's a side comment Katherine makes that is never addressed, it colors my opinion of Katherine until the end, and it made me like her less. I call out language like this because I myself am fat, and men of all sizes read romance books even if it's in small numbers, and no one deserves to feel hated or judged when they're reading. No one.

I still really wish I had liked this, it never brings me joy to dislike a book, and I hope it finds its audience!

*Will be posted on September 4 on my blog, Goodreads, and Amazon. Will also be posted on my instagram September 8th*

Hello Fellow Readers,


This was a really fun book, Katherine was so great and I couldn't help but root for her to succeed. I loved the dynamic that Katherine has with her family, and just her overall attitude was refreshing. Missen did a great job keeping me engaged in the story. Missen also did a really good job writing the scenes and I felt everything that Kartherine was feeling.


I really liked how nothing went smoothly, but it wasn't so over the top. You can also feel the stress that Katherine is under and you really start to see the cracks start to form that you know something's going to break. This would have been 5 stars but I just couldn't get behind Christopher/Kit. He's just incredibly rude in the beginning and while it does start the enemies to lovers trope it takes a little too long to get to the lovers portion.


The entire time everyone is saying that Kit is so nice, and a good person but except for the very brief moment he and Katie hook up you don't see it. I kinda understand why, but at the same time I would like to be shown he's a good person. So it killed the romance for me a little, but I still loved the book so much.


Overall, this is a romance with a strong female character in a great book.

A wonderful feel-good romance infused with humor and realistic characters. If you liked Bridget Jones' Diary, you'll love Accidentally in Love.

Thanks to HQ Digital for access to a digital ARC via NetGalley.

This was a laugh out loud, sugary sweet romance with a feminist undertone which I greatly appreciated. I loved Christopher and Katharine’s dynamic, and all the side characters were absolutely charming. But most importantly the BANTER WAS AMAZING (so amazing I think it warrants the all caps). I found myself often smiling like a fool while reading this book. What stopped this book from being a 5 star read for me was the last 25% of the book. I think some things could have been better handled or given more explanation. There were fall-outs and make-ups but I wanted to see the characters address the issues that caused the fight more.

I rated this one 3.5 stars but rounded up to 4 stars!
It was a bit of a slow beginning and ended up being less of a romance novel and more about Katherine’s journey to opening an art gallery. If you’re looking for a quick, smutty read, this one isn’t for you. If you’re looking for more of an in depth, meaningful romance, I think you’d really enjoy this book! There’s a large amount of enemies to lovers as in the romance doesn’t even come in to play until about 65% into the book however, I loved the characters. I think there was a good amount of character development and the ending was so sweet and heartwarming. Overall, it wasn’t what I was expecting, but I still ended up enjoying it!
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review. You can pick up a copy of your own on September 11th!

✨REVIEW✨ Publication Date: 9/11/2020
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 5/5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and HQ Stories for the ARC.

This book was so adorable and fun. I love a good romcom with enemies-to-lovers and this one used that trope to perfection. I read it in a day and loved every second of this read.

Accidentally in Love tells the story of Katharine Patterson, who quits her job as an art curator after being consistently overlooked for promotions in favor of her less qualified male co-workers. She impulsively decides to move back to her hometown and open her own gallery. Her dad introduces her to a talented local artist, Kit, and (of course) they immediately do not get along.

This book was so joyful and easy to read. The banter was excellent and Katharine was a hilarious character. You immediately begin to root for her and her family and friends. Kit was perfect. I mean, the man made her bread. That is another level of perfect. Their romance was swoon-worthy and sweet.

Overall, Accidentally in Love is a refreshing, hilarious, and charming read perfect for fans of Lia Louis’ Dear Emmie Blue and books by Abby Jimenez!

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Full review to be posted closer to release date

Unfortunately I couldn't finish this book, it was just so dull. In the first 7 chapters all that happened was the main character jacked her job in and then at chapter 6 she finally meet the Kit mentioned on the blurb; 5 chapters filled with nothing really relevant to the story line until you finally meet the other main character. It was so slow going and not really entertaining that I eventually gave up so I wouldn't recommend this book

This book, for me, was decidedly okay. The plot and characters had a lot of potential which for me, went un-fulfilled. The overall voice of the novel read like a blog - occasionally deeper and more meaningful, but in general, a rather typical voice that didn't stand out much from other characters or authors. The plot remained unfulfilled for me because the conflict was pretty mellow until about 3/4 of the way through, when it ramped up to an extent that seemed unrealistic given the slow burn of the conflict so far. The protagonist is pretty likable, which is funny because a lot of the conflict eventually hinges on her being a "difficult" person to love and care for, which you don't really see. The romance itself was an incredibly slow-burn, and the banter almost read as though it was from a modernization of a Jane Austen novel, but that didn't really fit with the overall tone of the book. The end, which could have redeemed these smaller issues, was utterly forgettable and unrealistic. It didn't fit with the characters or the tone I got from the story. That said, I appreciate the take on romance in the art world, and think anyone invested in artists and their lives may enjoy this read.

Thank you to publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for a review

Wow! What an endearing story! I loved the premise and while it is most definitely a romance, it’s more a story about a woman finding herself and paving her own way! Cue all the emotions. Katharine is easy to love and the ending had my heart leaping for joy!

Katharine on the surface is content with her life. She is working in a London art gallery, hoping for promotion, her best friend is getting married and her love life is, well, complicated. However, things suddenly change when she is passed over for promotion again, her best friend only wants to talk about her problems and her love life revolves around a man who she only sees on his terms.

Changing her life, she heads home to Sheffield to open her own gallery and meets a local artist Kit (Christopher) who infuriates her on their first meeting - but there is a fine line between love and hate. Attempting to get her life back on track, her past comes back to complicate things.

An easy read which makes you think about how much bending and flexing you do for the people in your life and whether they would do they same for you in return.