Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this ARC. I really enjoyed it!! This book is about a girl named Penny. She is a chef in London. Her uncle David is like a father to her and he's constantly pressuring her to move out to the country and help him run his pub, but she has no desire to do so. She is a cancer survivor, a 30-something single, and a chef-- but she's not sure how to make all of those roles and hats fit her. She meets a guy named Francesco at the restaurant one day and they have an instant connection. It wasn't instalove, but definitely insta-interest. However, something happens that makes it so she has to leave town for a year and instead of being vulnerable and asking him to come with her, she breaks it off. While she's in the country for a year, she meets 2 other guys, then Francesco comes back and so she finds herself in a love square. The premise of this sounded like something that could either go really wrong or really right depending on how you feel about the main character and I loved it. She has been through a lot and I really felt like she was just trying to find her way. She intentionally picked guys that were known to be temporary and she was pretty up front with them. She also wasn't hot and heavy with anyone so it wasn't a book full of smut. I love the relationship between her and her uncle as well as her and her sister. I thought the infertility story line was good because it felt very true to life. It was pretty obvious throughout which guy was "the one", but that didn't bother me. I really liked this book overall!

SPOILERS AHEAD:
Her uncle has his 2nd heart attack and can't work so she goes for a year to run his pub. She turns it around and gets it back in the black and then in a year she decides she wants to go back to London and the uncle realizes its time to sell. He stops pressuring her and they're both at peace with the decision. Her sister is a lesbian and she and her partner don't want any kids so she agrees to be a surrogate for Penny. She had frozen some eggs with donor sperm so they implant it into her sister and in the very end she has a baby girl. She and Francesco get married and he's the daddy and they all live happily ever after.

The Love Square follows Penny Bridge, who notoriously falls too hard, too fast in her dating relationships. Just when she begins to think she'll be single forever, she meets her perfect guy... and then another... and then another.⁠
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The love interests are so different from one another and bring individually important qualities into their relationship with Penny. This book includes some really healthy and well-written dialogue around infertility, as well as some great LGBTQ+ representation. I also *really* enjoyed the restaurant settings and food descriptions 🤤⁠
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The first 80% of the book was a five star read for me, but the ending left me with a bit to be desired. Overall, this book is an entertaining (but also emotional), fast-paced story that takes a fun and fresh take on "the love triangle" concept and is totally worth the read.⁠

This was a truly lovely, easy romance read that I quite enjoyed. Set in London, Penny is single and quite unlucky in love. Suddenly, she meets three remarkable men one after another that all want to date her. She must decide if any of the three is The One for her, what she wants, and confront if she's really as unloveable as she believes. This rom-com story is full of relatable language that draws me in from the beginning. It's sweeping and cute. While there's no need to reread this again, it's perfectly lovely as a first read. It does become more of a women's fiction novel than a romance where she must decide what she, and she alone, wants and I'm ok with that self-realization and empowering story arc.

This has a promising start with the introduction of Penny as a strong, independent business owner who beat cancer and is striving for better things in life. I even liked Francesco, her Italian-chef love interest. However, it quickly devolved for me.

Once Penny started juggling her love interests and waffling over exactly what she wanted in life, I started to become less interested in her story. The novel ends up focusing more on the underdeveloped interests in the "love square," none of whom were appealing by the end of the story. The length of the book and the inconsistent use of the third-person omniscient POV took me out of the book even more, and eventually I stopped caring who Penny chose.

Also, Williams drops Lizzo in the story in an odd way...

Meh. Storyline is ok, not fantastic. I couldn’t connect with the people. A little too sexual for my taste as well. Hard pass

This one just wasn't for me. I thought it was boring, cliche, and slooooowwwww. I was about 35% of the way through when it dawned on me that no other love interests had been introduced. I thought this was a love square? Where were the other love interests?

I thought Penny's character was contradictory. The independent woman trope who doesn't need a partner but is also extremely desperate for a partner annoys me so much.

I skimmed through the last half of the novel, just so I felt comfortable to write a review.

I will not be recommending this one.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC for an honest review.

This story unfortunately fell short for me. At about 30%, I was going to stop reading and then it took a turning point. I was excited the story was going to turn around and pick up. In all honesty, I was not a fan of Penny. I had a hard time rooting for her and the men in her life. The “love triangle” trope is my least favorite, so that might be why this missed the mark for me. I did enjoy the diversity in this book, it was refreshing to see.

This is a romance novel that highlights everything I love about the genre. It tackles heavy subjects like grief, cancer, and infertility while including hope and humor. Our protagonist Penny has had a rough go on the dating scene. Then she meets a series of incredible men who all bring something different to her life. Ultimately this story is about Penny's journey to dig into what SHE wants wants from life, and how to find happiness internally. The humor is top notch, and I like the unique plot point of multiple romantic interests. I highly recommend this one for readers of romance.

After reading the title, I think I set my expectations around a comedy within an extended love triangle but it felt slightly off for me as I did not like the main character, Penny at all. The good part was how the main character is a cancer survivor and the way she is handling fertility options is remarkable. It had such potential simply as a subplot even. It had some cute and funny moments but was a bit long!

3.5 stars, rounded down

This novel follows Penny, a chef who lives in London, through an interesting time her personal and dating life. I really enjoyed learning about her back story (which I won’t reveal as a spoiler). Seeing her friendships that she has solidified in London, as well as her relationships with her family in Derbyshire was lovely and made me connect to Penny as a character.

In this novel, Penny finds herself somehow in a love-triangle but namely a love-square situation. A lot of this novel has to do with a lack of communication - this is one of my least favorite occurrences in romance novels because everything could be sorted and figured out so much easier if everyone talked! But I know it’s not always that easy and hindsight is 20/20. There were definitely times when I was bothered by the way that characters treated each other or reacted to things, but they’re realistic characters and reactions and I commend the author in getting that reaction out of me.

Personally, I liked the first 2/3 of this novel much more than the last third. I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending and would have enjoyed it much more if she ended up choosing herself without any of the romantic interests, but it is a romance novel and there normally is a happy ever after (even if there shouldn’t be sometimes). Overall, I enjoyed following Penny along her journey in this novel!

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the gifted e-ARC! This one comes out on February 9th in the US and is already available internationally!

Ahh I keep going back and forth on how I feel about this book (and I mean between 4 and 5 stars). I really enjoyed it. It was the same formula but it was different and I liked that.

I loved that it represented so many different types of relationships and orientations. I enjoyed the characters they were different fun.

It kept me entertained throughout! I laughed out loud a lot. It was very funny. Like seriously funny guys!

The two things that I didn't like is the organization of it. It got a little confusing but that a personal preference kind of thing. And it felt like it wrapped up too quickly-too perfectly. I'm happy with the ending but it just happened to easily.

But overall, this is a fantastic book and I can't wait to see what everyone says about it.

Thank you Netgalley and Harper 360 for this eARC .

3.5 Stars

I loved Our Stop by Laura Jane Williams and this was just as cute...but had a bit more steamy scenes. This is a delightful, quirky book. I loved the fact that Penny was aware of her sexuality no matter the hard times she went through. I found her courageous and strong and she was someone who really knew what she wanted. I thought she was a likable person firmly grounded in family. What a wonderful read, thank you Ms. Williams for a fun book which made me laugh as well as feeling sad. Just lovely.

I received this book as an ARC through NetGallery.

What could be more exciting than a love triangle? How about a love square!

Penny Bridge has had no luck when it comes to love. Men do not stick around.

Then Penny meets Francisco. Then Thomas. Then Priyesh. What is going on??????

The story winds through these love interests - will she end up with any of them? There is only one way to find out.

The Love Square is a very modern love story and completely enjoyable. I look forward to reading more from this author.

The Love Square's heroine, Penny is an interesting character. I really liked her in the beginning and in the ending of the book, but there was a huge part in the middle where I didn't care for her at all. That's an interesting pathway for a protagonist in a story. It's kind of fun to experience her messy life with her, however there are a couple things that really bug me. One of her partners explains ethical non-monogamy to her, and she thinks ooh this is an interesting idea, but then doesn't actually explain to her NEW partner that it's something she thinks she's doing. (But she isn't really, because she hasn't told her new partner that's what she's doing). At least the first person is upfront about it from the beginning.

But, it's still an interesting story and it's very messy in the middle, but it eventually sorts it all out. So that's always good.

This was a lot. Overall it was a fun read. She got to explore who she was with folks she felt safe with. It was a little long and I didn't love how Lizzo was involved. I just feel like that was awkward and definitely took me out of it. The ending was also a little dodgy.

Review from my IG @bookatthebeach

“Penny was happy. In that moment, everything was perfect.”

Penny Bridge has always been unlucky in love. So she can’t believe it when she not only meets one man she likes, but another, and another. Pretty soon, she’s not in a love triangle, but more of a love square. Are any of these the man for her?

This was such a cute read! At one point, I couldn’t decide which person I loved more for Penny. I also felt like we were along on the journey with her to find her happily ever after, in whatever form that may be. In the end, I was really happy with her decision and was genuinely happy for her. This one comes out February 9th, 2021, right when you really feel like you are in the thick of winter and need an easy beach read!

Thank you so much @avonbooks & @netgalley for the advanced digital review copy in exchange for an honest review!

I really think I set myself up to not like this book. I HATE love triangles and this is a love square, hence the title, but I still requested it because it sounded so cute.

Update: it was NOT cute.

First off, the main character Penny is so selfish and unlikable her only redeeming quality is that she has red hair. I get it, women can be sexual. But when you decide to sleep with three guys at once and then get mad when they get mad at you and you think what you did wasn’t wrong... like WHAT DID YOU EXPECT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

I mean I’m all for empowering women and their sexuality but this seemed a little more than that. It was advertised as that but then Penny just did the exact opposite and relied on the men that I just couldn’t deal.

Second, WHERE IS THE COMMUNICATION! Penny and Francesco hit it off pretty quickly and if she was able to be an adult and use her words then maybe the drama that came could have been avoided. I didn’t feel bad for her, literally at all.

The one thing I DID like was that Penny is a breast cancer survivor and froze her embryos to give herself a chance to have a family one day when she physically wouldn’t be able to. I think it’s very important to talk about fertility issues in books because it is such a REAL issue that women around the world deal with every day.

I really should have DNF’d but I was too invested in wanting to find out how it ended, even though the entire book made me cringe.

Single lady chef, Penny meets a uber-hot Italian man chef, Franciso and sparks fly. Only soon she finds herself having to uproot her life to help out a family member. Heartbroken over having to leave just when things started heating up between her and Franciso, Penny puts all her energy into her Uncles restaurant. Until she meets someone or shall I say someones new. Penny soon finds herself in the center of the spotlight of 3 men.

The Love Square was a predictable rom-com and I loved it. Yes, you could tell who would win her heart in the end pretty early on, but who said that’s a bad thing? It was fun and romantic. I loved the journey Penny went through to find not only who she wanted to be with, but what she wanted out of life.

It is full of ups and downs. Laughs and tearful moments. I definitely recommend it to my fellow Rom-Com lovers.


*I received an advance copy of The Love Square from NetGalley and Harper360/Avon in exchange for my honest review.

The Love Square
by Laura Jane Williams
Harper 360
You Are Auto-Approved
Avon
General Fiction (Adult) | Romance
Pub Date 09 Feb 2021 | Archive Date 02 Mar 2021

Wow! Can you say romcom? This was a great book and I enjoyed reading it. Thanks to Harper 360 and NetGalley for the opportunity to read the ARC.


4 star

Francesco won me over during the first half of the book so there was no need for a "love square" in the second half of the book! Penny has a great life in London as the chef and owner of her own café, but has to move out of town to take over her uncle's pub when he has a heart attack. In her new life, she juggles new men, but still thinks of Francesco. The ending seemed inevitable but I did appreciate Penny's journey to self acceptance and learning what makes her happy.