Love at First by Kate Clayborn is a lovely novel about a small apartment house in Chicago that has long since become condos and the inhabitant of the six condos therein. The youngest and most aggressive of the inhabitants was Nora Clarke who had inherited from her grandmother (Nonna) after coming and spending summers there for most of her life. It was her home; her grandmother the person she loved the most. She had sworn not to allow it to change, just as her grandmother had so long ago. Donny Pasternak had just died; thereby opening up the can of worms Nora was dealing with presently. Also there were married couples Mr. and Mrs. Salas, Marion and Emily, Benny, and Jonah who was 90 and lived on the third floor. They were a family and she would not allow Dr. Will Sterling, Donny's nephew, to change everything. That was easier said than done.

Love at First was a lovely, slow-moving romance with all the people involved making many changes and moving forward. Things change and, the fact was, they were all happy about it. They just hadn't realized it. Nora was stuck in the past with her grandmother. She though it was a great place to be, and it was, but so was the present and the future, it turned out. She was a terrific character, written from the heart and finding a place in the heart of the reader. She had to learn what to keep from the past and what to discard...a lesson for all of us. Will was 31 years old before ANYONE told him that they loved him. Too long to wait, certainly, but worth the wait, conversely. These people were family and they proved it every day, and allowed others in as well. A truly moving book, well written and difficult to put down. A joy!

I was invited to read a free ARC of Love at First by Netgalley. All opinions contained herein are solely my own. #netgalley #loveatfirst

For some reason every time I start thinking about this book and what I want to say about it I start crying again.

So that’s new.

But it was beautiful, ya know? Love at First is a story about love and loss, change and inevitability, about family, and even fate, and all of these elements are woven together so beautifully by Kate Clayborn that each time I think about this book and these characters and my favorite little moments and passages, I tear up again. This book felt like a big warm hug, and my heart was just so happy while reading this story. It might have even hiccuped a little bit (new favorite phrase, courtesy of this Ms. Clayborn). I’ve been comparing books I read lately to Taylor Swift songs, and I think “Cornelia Street” is a near perfect match. Desperately hopeful, with a stutter step that proves just how important to you someone else can be.

I highlighted so much of this book. After reading Love Lettering, I knew I loved Clayborn’s prose and style of writing, but it was just reemphasized on every page of Love at First. Each sentence lyrical and captivating, with heart squeezing passages that suck you right in and hold you hostage until the end. It’s incredibly hard to pick up one of her books and not want to wrap yourself up in the language scrawled across each page. I know I would if I could. Moments I loved, moments I hated, moments that slapped me right across the face and said “See? So many other people feel like this, too!” all eloquently laid out for readers to soak up.

"But it was easier to want things than it was to do them, sometimes."

Ain’t that the truth?

Our characters, Will and Nora, were a unique pairing, opposites forces interacting in their own best interests and making decisions based on their own personal histories and upbringings. Will coming from a place of hurt and avoidance, and Nora from a place of familial love and well-intentioned, but somewhat misplaced, loyalty, embark on a “feud” of sorts, that evolves as they get to know one another, and each other’s motivations, as the weeks go on. Little moments of sabotage slowly morph into ways to see one another and chances for them to think about one another without actually admitting it. While this condo complex battle is a good portion of Will and Nora’s story, it’s only the beginning. And as much as I loved every minute of them battling their wits and trying to outmaneuver one another, the relationship they started to build once the feud was put to bed was what I really loved. These two people, with such different ideas and understandings of love and relationships, trying to figure things out together (and alone!) was magical, and frustrating, and watching Will and Nora grow and figure out how to communicate without showing their full hand, was a well orchestrated dance by Clayborn, leaving us as the reader both internally screaming (or in my case very vocally screaming) and swooning.

In addition to Will and Nora, Clayborn gave us an entire cast of characters you wanted to adopt as your own family. Each resident in Nora’s condo building was a TREASURE and you got to know them as well as you got to know Will and Norah. They are indispensable and the story would absolutely not be the same without them. Even Will’s boss, Gerald, and Norah’s long distance BFF Dee, were crucial, and well written, and brought the biggest smile to my face on numerous occasions. Every cast member had a specific part to play, and I am so happy I got to meet each and every one of them.

If I could, I’d like to move in with Marian Goodnight, please. She has the kind of demeanor and steely reserve I need yelling at me in my life when I fall apart.

"Love can’t always be a sure thing from the start"

Anyway … all that to say this book was magical and wonderful and I didn’t want it to end but then it did, so I went back and reread every highlighted passage and felt a little bit better, but then I ran out of passages so I’ll have to go back again, and I want everyone else to read this, too, and fall in love with Will, and Norah, and Jonah, and Benny, and Emily, and every other cast, crew, and animal in this story.

I loved it. I hope you do too.


{Many thanks to Netgalley and Kensington Books for my review copy!}

Melinda: Kate Clayborn has become one of the top contemporary authors for me that I look to for emotion and character development. I’ve come to appreciate the love and care that comes through with her writing so much.

However, Love at First strikes an uneven tone for me and had flashes of that brilliance that I expect from her, but it didn’t feel like it was carried all the way through. The parts I loved touched me so deeply and will stick with me, but the parts that didn’t were very average in a way that I don’t associate with her.

Melanie: I love Kate Clayborn’s books, there’s something so lyrical and poetic about her prose, the way she describes settings and emotions and lays the groundwork for her characters and the way they behave. And while I did like this book maybe more than you did, I will say that it wasn’t a 5 star read that blew me away. Uneven is a good way to describe it, there were moments that did take my breath away but the book overall failed to meet the high expectations I hold for a Kate Clayborn romance.

Melinda: Will and Nora have a brief passing moment in their teens and then meet again as adults when they become adversaries of sorts.

Melanie: Their first (second) meeting takes place around 4 a.m. from their respective apartment balconies and it’s such a soft, quiet, warm moment, the “golden hour” of Nora’s solitary early morning moment broken by this mysterious stranger on her recently deceased neighbor’s balcony.

Melinda: The escalation of Nora trying to get Will to keep the apartment and not sell didn’t land for me and I can’t put my finger on why. Their romance is sweet but I think part of what is uneven for me is that I’m not used to the romance in a book not being my main connection to a book. The pieces I love the most about this book are the side relationships.

Nora’s grief over the death of her grandmother hit me right where it hurts and I felt every emotion she did. That longing to have them near and wanting to keep every memory perfect, I could absolutely relate to, but I felt a bit removed from this character.

The shining star for me in this book though was Will’s friendship with Gerald. Every interaction made me laugh but also felt realistic because I have men in my life that absolutely relate to other men like that. The awkwardness of their relationship made me think of my in-laws, which is absolutely a compliment.

Melanie: So, I’m typically a heroine-centric reader in that I normally fall for the heroine and then spend the rest of the book allowing the hero to win me over by way of wooing the heroine. This is that rare book where I fell hard and fast for Will and remained largely ambivalent towards Nora. There’s nothing objectively wrong with her. She’s fine, lovely even but I didn’t feel a sense of connection to her.

My lack of connection to Nora is further strange because she’s dealing with a loss I know all too well, the loss of her beloved Nonna, her grandmother. And while I could fully empathize with her loss, I had trouble relating to the whole concept of not wanting to change anything and desperately wanting everything to stay exactly the same.

My affinity for Will didn’t stem from me seeing myself in him but rather, I saw a lot of my own husband in him. Both are doctors, natural at taking care of those they love, and while my husband definitely doesn’t share the same painful backstory as Will, they are both charming and easygoing, incredibly gregarious in social situations and almost laughably awkward when it comes to one-on-one interpersonal relationships.

I, too, adored Will’s burgeoning and awkward friendship with Gerald, found myself laughing over their uncomfortable interactions and looking forward to their surprisingly honest exchanges. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I was far more interested in the developing friendship between Will and Gerald at times than I was in the romance between Will and Nora. And that probably underscores why this book didn’t land in the 5 star column for me. I went looking for a lovely, sweet romance and while it was there, it definitely didn’t feel like the star of the show for me.

Melinda: We have so many of the same reading habits and I loved Will, but not quite as much as you did. I’m that heroine-centric reader too and an author that can make me love the male protagonist is unusual. Clayborn reminds me a bit of Mia Hopkins with that talent.

And I have to mention a weird side thing that couldn’t stop bothering me. This is an apartment complex in Chicago and we never get any racial descriptions of almost anyone who lives there. So maybe they are not all white or maybe they are, but we don’t know and this felt weird to me? This could be a me thing, but I’d vastly prefer descriptions of people so white is not the default.

Melanie: This stood out to me as well. Aside from Nora’s best friend, Deepa, whose name alone makes me suspect she may be South Asian, there are no physical descriptions given for any of the side characters. This seems especially unusual given Kate Clayborn’s propensity towards descriptive prose. She describes the apartment building and the “units” and even something so seemingly benign as a shower curtain rod with such specificity, the lack of physical descriptions seems a deliberate choice on her part and a weird one at that.

Melinda’s Grade: B

Melanie’s Grade: B

16 years ago, teenage Will Sterling saw the girl of his dreams at his only ever visit to an estranged uncle. Now, an unexpected inheritance brings him back to that address, where he meets Nora Clarke. No matter how attractive she finds Will, she won't let his plans ruin their quirky, tight knit building. She tries to sabotage his plans but they can't deny the underlying connection.

This was such a romantic and relatable read. The characters felt like real people, with real struggles. The characters dealt with grief, change, family fallout, overwhelm with work, and imperfect relationships. A lot of times with the romance genre it can be a bit over-the-top, and while there was definitely some serendipity, it still felt like it could happen in real life. What better romance could there be?

The character development was great, although there were quite a few characters, I was able to remember them and like them. I loved the sense of community and camaraderie amongst the residents of the building.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a lighthearted but somewhat realistic enemies to lovers trope.

Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for this eGalley. All opinions expressed are my own.

This book was a very good surprise. It sells as simple enemies to lovers romance, but it turns out to be so much more.
Here we have two characters that end up completing each other pretty much perfectly while knowing they have faults and are working on it together to make the relationship work. They deal with their grief, their life crisis, the changes that are bound to happen, and the difficulties of meeting someone new and falling in love.
It was a light read with some surprising and welcome plot.

Loved, loved this! Get ready for an absorbing plot and engaging characters and ALL. THE. FEELS! Adorable characters and a fantastic Chicago setting!

This sweet story had such likeable characters that you couldn't help but root for. There was romance and sweet relationships showing that you can make a family anywhere. An apartment building filled with various people that show what true friendship and family are all about.

Thank you NetGalley & Kensington Books for this ARC for my honest review.

This was an absolute delight from start to finish. Nora and Will’s journey about overcoming loss, rebuilding yourself and learning to truly embrace new love; yea, gave me all the feels. I couldn’t put this one down, definitely a one sit read for me. This story makes you laugh, makes you want to cry and makes you love again.

I am sad to say that I almost put this book down and did not finish it but I kept going in hopes that I would end up liking the book.

I found myself skipping thru the story to get to the end.

I could not connect with the characters and found the story kind of drug on.

I did not put my review on any of my social media because even though I did not like the book I know many people will and I don’t want to sway anyone’s opinion.

I want to thank Netgalley, Kate Clayborn and Kensington Books for sending me an advance digital copy of this book. All opinions will remain my own, as always.

Sometimes moments in your life, however seemingly minuscule, stick with you forever. That’s what happened to Will when he was standing on his uncle’s apartment’s balcony as a teenager and the girl on the balcony above drops tomatoes on him. Fast forward 16 years to the present day and he finds he’s inherited his estranged uncle’s apartment which he plans to turn it into a rental unit. But this building isn’t like most buildings, its filled with adorable neighbours who are more like family and who definitely do not want a rental unit and strangers coming and going in their building. Nora (the girl, now a woman, who dropped those tomatoes) heads up the neighbourhood counsel and takes charge in fighting against his proposal in some adorably quirky ways… but her and Will quickly go from opponents to something more. I liked this little story as told in the alternating perspectives of both Nora and Will and how their opposing past experiences in this building contrast and compliment their growing love story. Being a true fan of love stories where people meet more than once in their lives and find themselves with second chances, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a quintessential love story.

Cute story. Predictable but a quick read to get me out of my little reading slump. A nice follow up to Love Lettering.

This book was so soft, and lovely, and wonderful. I loved it so much. The author's prose is truly beautiful.

Will Sterling is a doctor, but he wasn't always the practical man he is now. His parents were neglectful of him, as they were obsessed with each other, and he was basically an afterthought. They both died when he was a teenager, and ever since he's worked to not be like them: "Rash, Reckless, and Selfish." And he's mostly succeeded at it, until he inherits an apartment from an uncle he only met once, as a teen. And his entire world is upended by seeing a woman he never thought to see again. He's never forgotten the first time he saw her, and heard her laugh, though they never met.

Nora Clarke lives in her Nonna's apartment in Chicago, which Nora inherited after her death. She grew up coming here every summer, while her archaeologist parents were traveling the world, and she loves all the building's occupants. They're all like a quirky family unit. But when Will shows up to claim his inheritance, with plans to turn it into a short-term rental, Nora is aghast. Every one of the neighbors hates the idea, but since it isn't against the rules, it doesn't seem like they can stop him. Perhaps a bit of light sabotage is in order? Even if she's drawn to him like no other man before, she can't let him disrupt the building, or her family, this way.

Will and Nora had fiery chemistry, but both of them had what they considered valid reasons for ignoring it. Will is worried that the pull he feels toward Nora is bad for him, given his parents' obsessive relationship. Nora is terrified of changing anything about the apartments, after the upheaval of losing her grandmother, and Donny (Will's uncle), so recently. She feels a strong sense of loyalty to her Nonna, and thinks she'll be disloyal if she allows things to be changed. Will and Nora both had a lot of unresolved issues from their childhood, and they didn't even realize how much those issues were affecting their everyday lives until it came to them falling in love.

All of the neighbors in the building were hilarious side characters, and I loved getting to know them, in all their unique glory. They were all interesting in their own right, and I also loved seeing their differing relationships with Nora. I also enjoyed watching Will eventually charm them all too. Will's boss Gerald, and Gerald's ex-wife Sally, were delightful, and I loved Will's separate connections to each of them.

This story was a bit of a slow burn, but it was so lovely the entire time that you weren't really in need of anything more than you were getting. This author paints such fantastic pictures in her books. The visions of the main characters, and their blooming relationship. Of their friends, and family, even when those connections cause the main characters pain. She is a masterful writer, and her prose is so evocative. I always enjoy every moment of reading her stories, even when some parts are painful to me.

Nora and Will were clearly soulmates, and I adored their powerful connection, especially once they learned how to successfully navigate it. They fit each other so perfectly, and the whole thing was just magical. I cannot recommend this one highly enough!

Another favorite romance from Kate Clayborn. After absolutely falling for Love Lettering, I had no idea how this book was going to top that one. But Kate Clayborn blew me away with this soft, heart-warming romance.

Reading this book felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket. I just wanted to sit with the characters forever and listen to their story. Every character found a place into my heart - the found family these characters created was wonderful.

This was a very slow, character driven romance that really focused on the feelings of grief and acceptance. There is a lot of time spent exploring how to love without losing yourself and learning to move on from loss. And all of it was handled with such flawless care.

Also Will might be my new favorite hero of all time. Kate Clayborn shared a lot of snippets and that on social media - one of them being Will's doorway leaning. And it was just as swoony as she implied. He gave me all the butterflies!

Overal this romance gave me everything I wanted - it was heartfelt, romantic, full of amazing characters (Will's friendship with his boss? perfection). I devoured this book in less than 2 days because I never wanted to put it down. Definitely a must read for anyone who loves romance!

Content Warnings: Emotionally absent parents, Grief, Death of loved ones, Hospital setting

My review is live on Goodreads and will be posted to my blog on March 3rd @ 9am

3.5 stars = Good+

I enjoyed this captivating, quiet story of love and second chances. The conflicts are largely internal for Nora and Will both. I enjoyed the apartment community and a lovely, surprising friendship Will develops through the story. The author's many fans will love this. (Language, sex)

I love Kate Clayborn’s books, there’s something so lyrical and poetic about her prose, the way she describes settings and emotions and lays the groundwork for her characters and the way they behave. And while I did like this book maybe more than you did, I will say that it wasn’t a 5 star read that blew me away. Uneven is a good way to describe it, there were moments that did take my breath away but the book overall failed to meet the high expectations I hold for a Kate Clayborn romance.

Their first (second) meeting takes place around 4 a.m. from their respective apartment balconies and it’s such a soft, quiet, warm moment, the “golden hour” of Nora’s solitary early morning moment broken by this mysterious stranger on her recently deceased neighbor’s balcony.

So, I’m typically a heroine-centric reader in that I normally fall for the heroine and then spend the rest of the book allowing the hero to win me over by way of wooing the heroine. This is that rare book where I fell hard and fast for Will and remained largely ambivalent towards Nora. There’s nothing objectively wrong with her. She’s fine, lovely even but I didn’t feel a sense of connection to her.

My lack of connection to Nora is further strange because she’s dealing with a loss I know all too well, the loss of her beloved Nonna, her grandmother. And while I could fully empathize with her loss, I had trouble relating to the whole concept of not wanting to change anything and desperately wanting everything to stay exactly the same.

My affinity for Will didn’t stem from me seeing myself in him but rather, I saw a lot of my own husband in him. Both are doctors, natural at taking care of those they love, and while my husband definitely doesn’t share the same painful backstory as Will, they are both charming and easygoing, incredibly gregarious in social situations and almost laughably awkward when it comes to one-on-one interpersonal relationships.

I, too, adored Will’s burgeoning and awkward friendship with Gerald, found myself laughing over their uncomfortable interactions and looking forward to their surprisingly honest exchanges. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I was far more interested in the developing friendship between Will and Gerald at times than I was in the romance between Will and Nora. And that probably underscores why this book didn’t land in the 5 star column for me. I went looking for a lovely, sweet romance and while it was there, it definitely didn’t feel like the star of the show for me.

Aside from Nora’s best friend, Deepa, whose name alone makes me suspect she may be South Asian, there are no physical descriptions given for any of the side characters. This seems especially unusual given Kate Clayborn’s propensity towards descriptive prose. She describes the apartment building and the “units” and even something so seemingly benign as a shower curtain rod with such specificity, the lack of physical descriptions seems a deliberate choice on her part and a weird one at that.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Kensington Books for the opportunity to read and review this book. I have a lot of thoughts on this book. First, trigger warnings for grief, parental abandonment, and intense emotion. Second, This story has a lot going for it; the deeply flushed out characters with knowing everyone's backstory, their character development (without feeling like archetypes), and some hijinks mixed with some beautiful romantic/emotional moments about the main characters individually as well as together. I also loved the bromance that was presented along with the other friendships and relationships. My main issue with this has to be the plot. I enjoyed it sure I was engaged with the story. However, there are moments of overwriting when it comes to the characters overpowering the plot (I love the characters but I wanted to move along at points). There were also moments where I wondered where things were going when it came to some of the events that were happening. Overall though, I truly enjoyed my time with this book and these characters and I would definitely recommend this to adults who love a character driven story. Because of these points, I have to give this a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Kate Clayborn has written another tender, restrained romance in Love at First. I think her specialty is helping solitary characters move toward each other at a sometimes maddeningly slow pace; in the process of falling in love with each other, they also learn to engage more with the world around them. Will and Nora, the hero and heroine of Love at First, both live very interior lives—there are times when long stretches of pages go by that describe their inner thoughts, not involving any dialogue or action. On my first read of the book this seemed a weakness; the second time through it made much more sense to me, reflecting a quality of the characters rather than a shortcoming of the author. (I also re-read Love Lettering in between and realized that book shared this non-talky quality, though to a lesser degree.)

Love at First is a quiet book. Will and Nora both feel an immediate pull toward the other, but they move into each other’s orbits slowly, cautiously, tracing smaller and smaller circles until those shapes overlap. There’s no big fight or explosive misunderstanding between the two of them. Their story becomes one of quiet steadfastness, of two people learning how to stretch and reshape their lives to include not only a romantic partner but also a larger community of friends and found family. Clayborn’s attention to detail and care with language makes Love at First a truly poetic read.

Happy #pubday! This is a kind of a meet cute, second chance, enemies to lovers kind of story. Will meets Nora as a teenager while visiting his uncle. At the time, he desperately needed glasses so he more so hears her, than actually sees her. Anyway, sixteen years later, he inherits his uncle’s apartment and who does he finally see, Nora!

This story is chock full of funny and quirky side characters that will sure bring out a laugh or two. However, love story between Will and Nora was kind of blah for me. It was a bit too slow for me and was lacking drama and some spice. It wasn’t a bad read but it fell short for me.

Big thank you to @netgalley and @kensingtonbooks for the ARC!

This love story is more than just a romance between two characters -- it's about the love of family, as well. As the only child of incredibly self-absorbed parents, Will has never actually heard anyone say to him, "I love you." His parents only had time and affection for one another, and even before their passing when he was just 18 years old Will learned to take care of himself and to be responsible, not selfish and reckless. Nora, on the other hand, also had "distracted parents" in her archeologist mom and dad but she also had a loving grandmother who made Nora a part of her apartment building family every summer. Nora never felt unloved and had plenty of extended family. After Nora's grandmother passes away, Nora officially becomes a part of the building family and finds in them what she's always been missing. When Will suddenly inherits an apartment in Nora's building after an estranged uncle endows it to him, Nora and her neighbors are determined to show him what "family" really means, and Nora is ready to pull out all the stops -- including her own heart. But she'll need to get passed the barriers Will's selfish parents created around his own heart if there's any chance of a happily ever after...

Thoughts: This was a really sweet story about more than just two characters falling in love. Readers can't help but feel for Will after finding out how blinded his parents were. Nora is just what he needs, even if he doesn't want to accept that at first. Their history is adorable -- him having almost met her sixteen years prior when they were both just teenagers -- and truly exemplifies "love at first". Their chemistry is a bit confusing at first because, while they both seem to like each other, they don't actually want to like each other. Will just wants to leave the apartment behind but can't because of a legal obligation and Nora desperately wants him to not disrupt the comfortable "apartment family" dynamic she and her neighbors have established since her childhood. Both deal with a lot of pent-up feelings both with each other but also their respective loved ones and the history each has weighing them down. The secondary characters brought a heartwarming aspect to the story, as well, although they were sometimes a bit difficult to keep straight in my head as I was reading the story, and the friendship between Will and Gerald was a delightful surprise each scene they shared together. And while I'm a sucker for happily-ever-after's, this one in particular gave me total "While You Were Sleeping" vibes in its humor and candid love confessions.

**Thank you, NetGalley and publisher, for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.**

I read Clayborn's novel, Love Lettering, at the end of 2019 and I didn't feel a strong connection to the characters, so I was interested to see how I felt after reading Love at First. Well, overall I enjoyed Love at First more. When Will's late uncle, who he only met once, leaves him his apartment in a small six apartment complex in Chicago, Will decides to turn it into a rental property. But first, he has to deal with a few unexpected setbacks and hijinks from Nora, who lives in her late Nonna's apartment on the third floor. Told from both their perspectives, Love at First follows the pair as they navigate love and life.

Firstly, this book reminded me of The Switch, as there was a strong sense of family and community at this beloved apartment building. This was also your quintessential slow burn romance, with things heating up about halfway through the book. I think Will and Nora had a strong connection and chemistry, but feel a little bit more character depth would have taken this book to another level. Overall, if you're looking for a cute and heartwarming romance, check out Love at First.

Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for the ARC - all opinions are my own.