Georgia Clark’s latest book, It Had to Be You, is a cute and clever look at love for all ages and love at all stages. The backdrop of the wedding industry in New York City lends beautifully to these tales of blossoming love amongst friends and coworkers. This is a light and swoon-worthy read that is sure to engage readers who are wanting a romantic book with several lovable and interesting characters. Thank you NetGalley, Georgia Clark and Atria Books for this advanced eCopy in exchange for an honest review.

Rom-coms may just not be the genre for me. I had a hard time becoming invested in this book. While I liked the premise, a husband dies unexpectedly and leaves half of the Wedding Planning business he runs with is wife to his girlfriend, who has no idea he was married. This of course sets up the novel. I found the story line to flit between so many characters, all connected in some way to the wedding planning business. The characters were underdeveloped, making it difficult to care about any of them or their relationships, and the plot was superficial and predictable.

My first Georgia clark novel! Cute, fun, a little hard to follow for me with the multiple POV, but reading this around Valentines Day was super fun and I would recommend this one to a friend. Can't wait to read more from Georgia Clark!

This book was so fun! Some books with many different point of views/storylines can feel a bit overstuffed, but not this one! My favorite part of the story was not the romantic storylines, which were also great, but the friendship and partnership that slowly evolved between Liv and Savannah. Unconventional? Yes, but it felt real.

All in all, this was a fun book filled with characters that stick with you long after you read!

Thanks to NetGalley for the early copy in exchange for my honest review!

Dear Fellow Reader,

I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction works and as usual when that happens, I have to skip back over to a “popcorn” fiction book. Just a light snack of a book. The kind of book that keeps your mind occupied but moves quickly. A lovely little break to let your mind re-set.

Luckily, I had just the thing waiting for me. I had a book to review – you know the books that I am given in exchange for my fair and unbiased review. So I picked it up and read it.

Before I get to that, I have a question for you. I have gotten to the point that I have a negative reaction when I look at the summary of a book or a piece of promo for a book and they tell me that it is like this or that author or is reminiscent of a movie. I never seem to agree with whoever makes these comparisons. I find it a bit of a turn off. I am not sure that I would want my book compared to someone else’s book. How do you feel about that? Do you pay any attention to it?

Part of what brings this to mind, is that in the promo for this week’s book, the book was compared to the movie Love Actually. I thought that was a bit odd. How often is a book compared to a movie? The exact quote was “in a joyous Love Actually – style braided narrative. Hmmm.


It Had to Be You starts off by introducing us to Liv Goldenhorn. Liv is a wedding planner. She and her husband have a wedding planning company. Liv is at a wedding where everything is going wrong. Horribly wrong. And her husband is no where to be found. He was supposed to fly back to New York from Kentucky, and he isn’t back yet. With things going from bad to worse (think bride insisted on lavender for the winter wedding and the scent of the lavender, which was intensified due to the heaters had woken up a bee’s nest. And then the bride gets stung on the lip.) Liv gets a phone call. Her husband has died in Kentucky. Liv is shell shocked. But that is not the end of unpleasant surprises for her.

Through the story, we meet the woman who Liv’s husband left his half of the business to, two bandmates who frequently work for Liv, florists who are Liv’s friends and they work her weddings, and a world-traveling server who will work for Liv’s caterers. The stories about each of these people spin around the story of Liv and her wedding planning company.

So, I guess if you really wanted to compare it, you could compare it to a Love Actually web of characters. The thing that I fear with books with multiple character lines is that you won’t know who you are reading about when the next chapter starts. I did not have that problem with this book at all. It was very clear who was who. Okay, sometimes I read to fast and I wasn’t clear about the ethnicity of two of the characters but it doesn’t truly matter.

I did enjoy the book. Here is the rub if you wanted to rush out and get it – it will be published on May 4, 2021. Yes, I know. But I am in the position of needing to review it while I remember it or waiting 3 months and trying to remember it. I have opted for telling you about it in advance. Write it down in your calendar for May 4. I will try and remind you about the book when it is being published. (I’ll mark my calendar.)

I hope you are doing well and finding lots of great books to read.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks NetGalley for the arc in exchange for honest review. I was not captivated by the story or the characters and did not finish the book. I found it exhausting trying to keep up with the long list of characters and that they had chapters dedicated to each. I'm sure the story came together in the end but I wasn't invested enough to see it through.

I received an ARC of this book, and it was the perfect rom com read with Valentine's Day right around the corner. As promised, this book is Love Actually-esque in with its intertwining stories of five different couples. Laugh-out loud funny and pure enjoyment! This book was especially lovely in its representation of so many different types of love stories! With five different storylines, I was worried that I'd be left feeling like I didn't get enough of any of them, but the characters were very well developed and the way that each couple was woven throughout the book left me feeling very satisfied!

4.5 stars- I completely enjoyed this book. I was drawn in by the cute cover and dependable author. This book was described as a version of Love, Actually and I initially thought "oh, no- thanks a big and risky comparison." However, this book was completely enjoyable and the framework, if not the story, is a worthy comparison.

Liv is an aging wedding planner in NYC when her husband and business partner drops dead with his secret girlfriend. Then he leaves half the business to his wife and half to his mistress. They have to work together to make their wedding planning business successful again, along with a fun cast of characters who have their own entanglements. At first I was thinking this would be a bad Anne Hathaway/Kate Hudson romcom, but the writing of these characters and their romantic and identity seeking storylines kept it from being too sugary and contained just the right balance of interesting and humorous. This book was exactly the book I needed for fun but also depth.

If anything, the cute cover doesn't exactly reveal how good this book is. It is enjoyable, not stressful, and well written. I would recommend this to fans of GOOD romcoms and those who enjoy a strong group of diverse characters. This book wins for best ensemble cast.

Thank you to NetGalley for the fun and memorable read.

It Had to Be You wasn’t my favorite read nor my most hated read. It was cute, it was alright. I usually really love romances but this was just okay for me.

4.5 stars

Georgia Clark's upcoming book, It Had to Be You, is a sweet, fun, emotional rom-com about the pleasures, pains, and possibilities that love brings.

Liv and Eliot Goldenhorn know how to plan and execute a flawless wedding. Their company, In Love in New York, has been the talk of Brooklyn for 20 years, and the two play off each other’s strengths to create wedding magic, calm nervous brides, and soothe meddling parents.

But the bottom falls out when Eliot dies suddenly while visiting his younger girlfriend in Kentucky. And as if his infidelity and his death weren’t big enough shocks for Liv, apparently Eliot also left his half of the business to Savannah, his girlfriend, for reasons no one understands—not even Savannah.

Savannah isn’t interested in selling her half of the business—she wants to work with Liv to rebuild the company. While she doesn’t blame Savannah for the affair—Eliot told her he was divorced—Liv can’t imagine working with her to plan weddings given the way her own marriage ended. But Savannah’s optimism wears her down, and it’s not long before Liv realizes she missed the work.

As Liv starts to rebuild her life and her romantic confidence, It Had to Be You also follows the romantic struggles of her friends and vendors/employees—Gorman and Henry, the florists whose relationship has stayed static for far too long; Zia, the waitress whose connection with an unlikely suitor thrills and frustrates her; and Darlene and Zach, the wedding singer and DJ, who can’t seem to figure out what they want from each other.

This felt like one of the ensemble romantic movies, like Love, Actually or Valentine’s Day, in that you’re following multiple yet connected storylines at the same time. I really enjoyed all of the characters so much and found myself invested in all of their relationships and challenges.

At times the pacing was a little slow, but the sheer joy, emotions, and romance kept me hooked, and I will neither confirm nor deny getting choked up toward the end. Georgia Clark has created such a good read, and see if you can keep the song It Had to Be You out of your head!

Georgia Clark, NetGalley, Atria Books, and Emily Bestler Books provided me with a complimentary advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!

It Had to Be You publishes 5/4/2021.

I was a little disappointed in this one but did think that overall it was cute. I didn't really connect to any of the characters even though I usually enjoy reading an ensemble type book.

This book is a delight! Georgia Clark captures many versions of love in a New York City that actually includes queer people and diversity, something still too rare in romance novels. The wedding planning business connects all the characters and shows us different sides of their life. I loved the Darlene-Zach plotline and could not put this book down once I reached the halfway point. Now, I want to go back and read the rest of her work.

I posted this review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55436532-it-had-to-be-you

This arc was gifted by Atria Books in exchange for an honest review.

It Had To Be You is a beautifully written story about different couples, their lives, hopes, dreams, and sometimes heart wrenching struggles. At times I struggle to become invested when a book surrounds the development of several main character story arcs rather than a designated protagonist, but I was wholeheartedly invested in the lives of each character. Georgia Clark managed quite a feat in establishing each character within the couples, as well as intertwining their connections to one another. In the end, once again, love always wins. If you’re a fan of Love Actually, It Had To Be You will touch your heart just the same.

Check it out on 4 MAY 2021!

It Had to Be You is a rom-com with cast of diverse characters. The chapters switch back and forth between different couples and their stories, but they are all intertwined. I honestly am not a big fan of that many changes in focus. For me it took away from the stories.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria for gifting me an advance copy of It Had to Be You in exchange for my honest opinion.

I loved everything about this book. It Had To Be You is the kind of book that sucks you in and you can’t put it down until you finish it because you’re so invested in all of the characters and you need to know how their stories play out. Honestly I want this book made into a TV show or a movie and I would binge the whole thing in one sitting because it was just so good. It starts off with an already interesting story with Liv’s husband dying and leaving half of their business to Savannah, the young blonde he’s been having an affair with. Even without all the added stories it would have been interesting but everything is weaved in so perfectly to show how all of these people are wrapped up in each others lives because of they all worked with the company.

Literally everything is discussed in this book. Love after losing a spouse, infidelity, fake relationships, wanting marriage when your significant other doesn’t, race, LGBTQ+ marriages and how families react to things, finding your sexuality, secret dating. It’s literally everything wrapped up in one but it’s not ‘everything but the kitchen sink’. Georgia Clark weaved a beautiful story in such a way that you’re invested in every character’s story and how their lives are going to go and I loved every second of it.

This is THE best book. Run, don't walk, if you want to laugh/cry/feel all the feels/believe in love again. There are lots of characters' stories interwoven, which gives the book a cinematic feel and keeps you on your toes as you wait to see what will happen with all of their love stories. The book feels contemporary, very NYC, and refreshing in the representation of queer and diverse couples. The pace is quick and the characters are drawn so that you can't help but fall in love with them - flaws and all. I laughed out loud, cried while reading it on the subway (true story, I dried my tears with my mask covering my entire face), and reflected on my own views of love. Liv's love story especially warmed my heart <3

Who should read this? Um, everyone. Do you need some hope in this dark and crazy world we're living through? Do you enjoy laughing? Do you have a heart? Go read it! And someone make this into a movie ASAP, please!

Interesting read with 5 interwoven rom coms. I personally prefer 1 protagonist telling their story, I feel more of a connection to the storyline then. But, thus was very well written. Quick read. Thank you, Atria Books, Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for this ARC.

DNF, No rating

I wanted to give feedback on this book, despite not finishing it, because I accepted it directly from the author for review. Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with this book (at least at the point in which I stopped). This is very much an "it's not you, it's me" situation. I struggle with romances that follow so many characters, and could already feel myself becoming disengaged with certain plot lines as they began to progress.

I think Georgia Clark wrote a rom-com that will delight many people, especially those who are fans of movies like "Love, Actually" and "Valentine's Day" but this type of story just wasn't going to work out for me.

A lot of romance authors create a shared universe for their book series. For instance, Book #2 may feature the best friend of the protagonist from Book #1 finding love, and then Book #3 couples up her sister, etc. Georgia Clark, on the other hand, has done this with a single book; "It Had To Be You" features several love stories, all of which are neatly wrapped up by the end of the novel.

This isn’t a new concept—the book’s promotional material compares it to the movie "Love Actually"—but Clark puts a modern spin on it: her characters are gay, lesbian, straight, middle-aged, young, Black, Latinx, white, very rich and struggling to pay the bills.

The novel starts off by introducing us to Liv Goldenhorn, a wedding planner in her late 40s whose husband and business partner has just dropped dead of a heart attack. Liv soon learns that Eliot had been cheating on her, and that he’d changed his will just a couple weeks before he died to give his young mistress Savannah his half of Love In New York, the company he ran with Liv. Needless to say, Liv is horrified by this development; what could be worse than running a business centered on love with your late husband’s secret girlfriend?

A few months down the road, when Savannah offers to help Liv revive her moribund business with the help of a well-known Instagram influencer who is planning to tie the knot, the two women wind up working together. Southern belle Savannah and Brooklynite Liv turn out to be a pretty formidable pair.

All of the other characters in "It Had To Be You" are involved in Liv’s business: a DJ, a cater-waiter, a florist, etc. Alternating chapters take us on their romantic journeys, heartbreaks, and happily-ever-afters. As is often the case with these types of stories, I found myself more interested in some plot strands than in others; my favorite was probably the one where rich playboy Zach, the DJ/musician, embarks on a fake-dating relationship with singer Darlene in order to convince his parents that he’s worthy of gaining access to his trust fund. On the other hand, I kept forgetting about gay florist Gorman and his boyfriend Henry until their chapters popped up.

On the whole, I think Clark did a terrific job making her readers invested in the lives of a dozen major characters, and I never for a moment had any trouble keeping track of who was who (an accomplishment in itself!). "It Had To Be You" will be published on May 4, just in time for beach-reading season; thanks to Atria/Emily Bestler Books for the review copy via NetGalley.

This is a sweet, fun read. You go back and forth through different stories but it is seem less and they all tie together. After reading this book you will believe in love.