I enjoyed the premise of this book with the heartbreak for hire idea, even though the whole thing is pretty far-fetched. I was willing to suspend disbelief for promise of a fun rom-com. What the company does for revenge sometimes goes beyond what would allow you to consider the characters likeable. If the jobs were along the lines of the first one in the book (getting a guy to admit on tape that he scammed a woman so she could sue him), it would feel a bit less unethical. This is somewhat addressed with Brinkley’s realization about Margo and her sometimes feelings of guilt. I enjoyed the chemistry between the main characters, but didn’t love that they get so graphically physical almost immediately. Just because Brinkley hasn’t been on a date in two years doesn’t mean she is going to disregard her “morals and ethics” because she “hasn’t has a man’s hands on her” in a while..
Some of the ethical problems with H2H are kind of explained by showing the owner of the company’s manipulation of the recently abused/mistreated women she’s hired-convincing them they’re doing good when they’re at their lowest. That helps keep Brinkley likeable as you feel she’s just taken time to realize her abusive, manipulative ex-boyfriend broke her down enough to fall for it. It was difficult to find Brinkley very relatable as she’s obviously very beautiful (which is one thing that makes her good at her H2H job) and an (extremely talented) artist…..just not my preferred type of rom-com heroine. But I suppose that it only makes sense considering her love interest is a modelesque guy with a PhD.
Overall, I found the writing very enjoyable and would consider reading something else written by this author.
Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for allowing me access to this eARC for an honest review!

Funny, modern, and heartfelt. I absolutely loved this book! As a woman who has had her heart broken more than once, this one spoke to me. I loved reading about the different hilarious situations Brinkley put herself into to embarrassing egotistical men. It was such an interesting idea to hire other women to get revenge on the men who hurt or cheated on you. Brinkley also does a lot of growing in the book realizing that her views on revenge might not be the most reasonable. I also enjoyed her love interest. He was funny and it was easy to see why she fell for him.

Overall it was a fun read with steamy love scenes and so many hilarious moments! I recommend this book to anyone who knows what it's like to want revenge and loves an unexpected romance.

Thank you Galley Books and Netgalley for an ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This book was steamy and I wasn't expecting it because I thought it would just be a fluffy rom-com story. This story actually made me laugh and I fell in love with the characters. But the chemistry between Brinkley and Mark was kinda eh besides all the steamy scenes. This book definitely had a enemies to lovers flair which I love and it kept me reading each page waiting and wondering what is going to happen. The beginning was a tad slow but then it picked up.

Pleasantly surprised! This is billed as a rom com, but there’s a lot more to the story, and it’s a steamy one! Read this for the elevator scene alone! Wowza.

Brinkley’s job as a professional “heartbreaker” kind of exacerbates her disdain for men as a result of her jerk ex. When she unexpectedly has feelings for Mark, one of her targets, she’s taken aback. And when he shows up later as an employee of her firm, she’s angry. Her antics to get back at him and make him quit are childish, but kind of hilarious and he is always a good sport about it.

There are definitely some twists and turns in this that are unexpected. But most unexpected is how awful Brinkley’s mom is to her and how disconnected she is from the needs of her daughter. More than once I wanted to smack her.

The chemistry between Mark and Brinkley is sizzling! And both are not as simple as they seem, and they are both deserving of a second chance at getting what they really want out of life. It is interesting how they both grow into their real selves as a result of playing these ridiculous characters.

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley and Gallery Books and these are my honest opinions.

Gifted digital ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

Loved the book. Love the name Brinkley, which made me think of Christie Brinkley, the famous model/ artist. Loved the witty banter between Brinkley and Mark. Most of the characters are likable. However, I was surprised that Brinkley did not do a background check on Bridget.

Synopsis:

Brinkley is working for H4H, Heartbreak for Hire, an all women business. They deal with different types of malevolent men, including those with Egos. Brinkley's department is dealing with the Egos. She was in a degrading relationship with Aiden, who belittled her at every opportunity. After the breakup, she is hired by Margo and she gets her power back. She learns a lot about herself during the two years of working for H4H.

Mark is one of her targets. Brinkley was hired by a mean girl to take down Mark. To her surprise, Margo decides to hire male heartbreakers, including Mark.

Heartbreak for Hire follows Brinkley, a previously heartbroken woman, who is now a for-hire heartbreaker. (Say that 5 times fast) Unlucky for her, she finds herself wildly attracted to one of her targets, Mark, and breaks the most important rule- NEVER catch feelings for a target. Things really start to derail when her employer decides to bring on male heartbreakers and Brinkley's trainee is none other than her previous target, Mark.

Heartbreak for Hire is like Failure to Launch meets John Tucker Must Die and I'm absolutely here for it. 

 Our love interest is a nerdy academic type, which is exactly my cup of tea. There's a scene in the book that takes place at a bull-riding bar that had me laughing out loud during my break at work. Overall, this was a fun, quick rom-com with plenty of steam.

Quite a lackluster book in general, but I don't be too harsh because its Ms. Hartl's first book. The character chemistry was so quaint and empty that I really could not be invested in the book. The premise was brilliant, but it wasn't executed well.

Her family thinks Brinkley works as an administrative assistant at an insurance agency. In truth, she’s a professional heartbreaker for Heartbreak for Hire. The past two years have allowed her to bring men down a notch and save up for her dream of opening an art gallery. When her boss decides to add male heartbreakers to the all-female business, Brinkley is not happy. And she definitely did not expect to see a former target turn into her new coworker. Mark never seemed like the typical target and the more Brinkley gets to know him, she thinks that maybe he didn’t deserve to be a target in the first place.

This was a very well written book. All the various storylines and details of the plot fit together well. It wasn’t too much and everything flowed into each other seamlessly. I very much enjoyed the characters as well. Brinkley and Mark were great. They had a balance of sweet, smart, and spicy. Their physical chemistry was very apparent, but it wasn’t all that they had. They shared other moments that made me smile and swoon. And the secondary characters, I would totally read books about the other 3 women who worked at Heartbreak for Hire.

I really enjoyed this book. I was leery about the ethics/morals of breaking people down for a living, but I like that the author acknowledges that the women doing it don’t always feel great about it. This book is a little steamy and has some sexual content that is quite descriptive, but there wasn’t a lot of that.

If you enjoy a well written story that meshes romance, great characters, and encouraging goals and dreams, then this book might be for you.

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read and review this book. The opinions are all my own.

This story had such a cute ending. It started a bit slow for me. To be clear it was only the first chapter I found slow after that the story had nice a nice pace. The premise of the book is a business that take down men who take advantage of other women.

The story follows Brinkley as she grows out of the role as a heartbreaker. She was bitter after a very bad relationship and the job was a bit like therapy. Then one of her targets is not be the ego she expects. She finds that she isn't playing a character with Mark but is opening up and telling him about herself something she hasn't done since her break-up. As Mark and Brinkley get to know each other Brinkley's need to follow her dreams and not let the past control her present grow.

I liked how the story progressed and the characters changed. However, there were some aspects of the business of Heartbreak for Hire that I just didn't understand or really think were realistic and my questions weren't answered. This was a very solid read and I really enjoyed every minute with the characters. It wasn't a perfect read for me. I will recommend Heartbreak for Hire to other readers of contemporary romance and those who like a good you got what you deserved story.

This was a great read! The concept was so intriguing and it played out well. The characters were lovable and they had great chemistry! It was very spicy and fun! It was very fast paced and a great story.

Heartbreak for Hire was a fun book with a story that seemed to move along quickly, giving you little time to get bored with it, however, it did seem to end a bit sooner than I expected without detailing how things turned out for the characters. I felt it needed maybe another chapter or two to tie up some loose ends.

The characters all played well against each other and were likable. The chemistry between main characters Brinkley and Mark was definitely sexy and steamy. I was a bit put off by the revenge of the story, how you go to such lengths to ruin a person and family.

The writing, which was clear and precise included plenty of humor, which I enjoy in a book, and I found myself laughing out loud over several of the scenes. And of course, it being a Rom-Com there was romance. Along with the romance were several detailed sex scenes, they were quick and short, but they were there.

Overall, I enjoyed Heartbreak For Hire, and def would recommend it to my fellow Rom-COm lovers.

Thank you Netgalley for this free ARC for an exchange for an honest review.

Cute read and funny. I highly suggest it if you want a light fun read.

Heartbreak for Hire was pure fun without the purity if that’s possible. Lighthearted and funny with sexy times to earn the steamy badge, I loved the characters and their adventures. I’ll be looking for more by Sonia Hartl right away!

Heartbreak for Hire, based on the cover and blurb, is marketed as a workplace-enemies-to-lovers rom-com....and it is, but also ends up being so much more than that.

Brinkley works for a company that takes "revenge" on men who behave badly. Brinkley works in the Ego department, meaning she creates schemes to humiliate/ruin the lives of men who take advantage of women/employees because they think they're all that. At the beginning of the book, this business seemed kind of okay? Her first encounter in the book is supposed to be just a case of hooking a man at a bar and then loudly turning him down (so humiliation among several people). But by the end of the book, the schemes she's doing are literally ruining people's lives. Luckily, Brinkley takes a journey through the book of realizing that the job she has (and her employer) isn't the greatest (if she was still a big fan of her job at the end of this book, I don't think I would rate it as highly).

Anyway, on to the romance part. I loved both Brinkley and Mark. Brinkley is relatively relatable and Mark is flawed enough to be human (but still maintain his classic hero status). The banter between them is delightful. The chemistry is amazing. (There are a few short, steamy sex scenes so if that bothers you, it's easy to skip those chapters)..

Overall, this was a highly enjoyable, fun read and I'm looking forward to pickup up more books by the author.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book drew me in from the start, I knocked this book out in just a few sittings and I absolutely loved it. The characters were funny and the plot was well developed. I did think that there were a few things that were a little too over done, like when she met Marks mom and sister then ran out, I think that this type of scene is over done in the rom-com community. I did love the plot twist at the end of the book, it gave the story a good change in direction. Overall, this is a well written book and I would recommend it to YA readers.

Quirky characters? Check. Steamy romance? Check. Story I couldn’t put down? Check. This was a quick, fun read that did not disappoint!I’d definitely recommend Heartbreak for Hire to anyone looking for a fast read! Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the arc to review.

I started out really enjoying this book and liked it less and less as it went on. Overall it was fun-ish and readable, but not especially well-crafted.

The thing that ruined it for me was how academia was represented. I was able to ignore it at first, wave it off as just coming from someone who doesn't really understand it. But at the end it becomes a major plot point and it took me completely out of the story with how ludicrous it all was. Not to mention **SPOILER** he gets a job as a middle school teacher despite having no experience or credential? That's... not how any of this works.

My other major gripe was that the characters were just not well worked. The character arcs were sloppy, mostly the characters were black and white caricatures, and all their problems were basically fixed via deus ex machina.

I was absolutely primed to love this book. I love the concept of folks benignly embarrassing men who deserve it for money!!! But it really failed in its execution and that was disappointing.

Brinkley and Mark first meet when she's hired to publicly embarrass him after he allegedly stole the work of a coworker. Mark is in academia, which Brinkley detests because her cold professor mother has reminded Brinkley at every turn that she failed out of graduate school and is an utter disappointment. Brinkley and Mark nearly hook up, she accidentally tips him off to the existence of Heartbreak For Hire, and then Mark is hired by the firm when Brinkley's boss expands into employing men.

I really enjoyed the development of Brinkley and Mark's relationship, much of which takes places as she's training him on the art of revenge. There's a lot of fun scenes of men having their lives slightly ruined in public, which we love to see. It's enemies to lovers workplace romance, and those are two tropes that very much Work for me. I think that the development of their relationship could have worked very well without the major external conflict of Mark being in academia, as Brinkley processes that her last relationship was emotionally abusive -- I would have really liked to see that element fleshed out more.

Alas, the fact that Mark is a professor is a big rub for Brinkley, especially as he's looking to move from the University of Chicago to Northwestern, which is where Brinkley left grad school and where her mother teaches. The book kind of devolves into a real hatred of academia and the monstrous competitive backstabbers is apparently turns everyone into.

Look: academia has problems. Sexual harassment is rampant, job opportunities are shit, institutional racism and misogyny are real barriers, and pay for anyone who isn't a tenured professor (and even for people who are) is absolute shit. But instead of attacking some of the foundational issues with higher education, Brinkley's issues with academia are intensely personal and remain that way. Mark wanting to be a professor is like a slap in the face to her, and of course it's only because he wants to honor the memory of his grandfather and he'd really rather be teaching middle school. The resolution to the bleak moment facilitated by Mark getting the job at Northwestern is Marc quitting this new job and getting the much more desirable job to Brinkley of teaching middle school. Which is not to say that teaching middle school is a less desirable job to me! Just that to Brinkley it's infinitely better than Toxic Higher Education because both are monoliths.

Beyond the weird "anyone associated with teaching in a college or university is a terrible human being" vibe, I did have issues with Margo, the owner of H4H. Brinkley initially conceptualizes her job as a social good and vaguely therapeutic, which I 100% agree with. Her opinion of her work changes through the book until she wonders if they're really making any changes at all. And the answer is no: it's impossible to create systemic change against misogyny through a four-woman team of secret revenge agents. But it's pleasing to me to imagine all of these gross men getting a small comeuppance. Margo is clearly a toxic boss; she's hired all of these women at personal lows and taken whatever trauma they were experiencing and turned that into their focus area for revenge. This isn't good! But I would have loved for H4H to be a more empowering place for women instead of a way for Brinkley to kind of fall into a place of like "well maybe men are better than we give them credit for."

In the end, this book didn't work for me. I do mean literally in the end: the book is well paced until the last twenty percent, which feels very rushed and has an unsatisfying reconciliation with her mother. And I also mean metaphorically: I don't think it's a bad book per se, but I do really wish the author had gone another way with a few things. Still, I enjoyed large chunks of it and will be seeking out more by this author, including her forthcoming YA.

What starts out as a job to get revenge on Mark leads Brinkley to love. A cute enemies to lovers story that can be read in just a few sittings. I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book MUST be on your radar if you liked The Hating Game, The Ex Talk, or Beach Read.
After a horrible breakup, Brinkley is recruited to work for Heartbreak for Hire, a company whose clients pay to exact revenge on their slimy tormentors—a kind of Charlie’s Angels for women done wrong.
It’s all going along fine, until Brinkley has a meetup-gone-awry with Mark, a target who turns out to be impossibly swoony ... and then he’s hired to be her coworker.
I’ve seen this book described as enemies-to-lovers, but I think it’s more a situation of combustible instant attraction that’s complicated with forced proximity. In either case, it’s a fun book with many laugh out loud moments.
Brinkley is an artist at heart, working this odd job to save up for opening her own gallery—a “someday” dream she keeps putting off. It’s her ties with Mark that seem to intersect several threads of her life and has her questioning what she really wants to do with it after all.
I really liked Mark as a love interest. He had an interesting backstory that’s slowly revealed more and more as the book goes on. I also loved Brinkley’s hissing cat Winnie (a stand-out character of its own), and enjoyed how much Chicago shines as the setting.
And, goodness, just throw all the fire and eggplant emojis at this one. It has to be one of the steamiest romances I’ve ever read.
I wouldn’t call this book lighthearted, though. There is rampant toxicity throughout and, even though Brinkley working through it is a main point of the story, it does dull the sparkle a little bit at times.
I really liked this book overall, though. There are a few surprising twists and the ending nicely ties up all the strings.
Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.