Happy Endings is a second chance romance novel featuring Trixie Nguyen, a 1st generation Vietnamese-American who work involves educating people about sexual orientation, sexual health, and sexual pleasure while giving them the tools (toys) for a more satisfying sex life. Along with his sister, Andre Walker is a bartender/chef who runs their mother's restaurant after she dies from cancer. Andre broke her Trixie's heart two years ago when he breaks up with her via a post-it note, but now they need each other so they are willing to leave the past behind them to work professionally in order to help each other out. These two characters felt relatable, and I love how Trixie is portrayed as a woman who takes charge of her life and her own pleasure. This is rarely seen in fiction of any kind and it was a great addition to the story. My only gripe is that the writing was a bit stiff, and the story did a lot (A LOT) of telling instead of showing. As a reader, I prefer if the story unfolds on the page through the actions of the characters and not through the impassive voice of the narrator.

The last person Trixie expects to run into during her sex toy pop-up event is her ex-boyfriend. After two years of dating in New Orleans, Andre broke up with her on a post-it note (and yet no one ever references Sex and the City when talking about this in the book) and disappeared. And yet here he is in DC, co-owner of his late mother's soul food restaurant, hotter than ever, and not very happy to see Trixie.

Trixie had no idea that her new friend's brother is the same Andre she hasn't heard from in two years. She never wants to talk to him again, and yet somehow the two find themselves teamed up to save their businesses with a series of private events at the restaurant. They're just going to keep things professional. Regardless of the sparks that have reignited between them. And the fact that Andre is determined to win her back.

This book was funny, sweet, redemptive, and very steamy. I am hoping Lam is kicking off a series featuring the rest of Trixie's Boss Babes friends.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for the ARC to review. All opinions are my own.

Trixie Nguyen is determined to make her sex toy business a success, proving to her traditional Vietnamese parents that she can succeed in a nontraditional career. She's made a fresh start in Washington DC, and her first pop-up event is going well—until she runs into the ex who dumped her. With a Post-it note.


Wonderful book and just what I needed to get my romcom fix!
Absolutely wonderful well written book! With just enough to keep my attention!

Hurray! The heroine of the story is selling sex toys and she is so confident to talk about sex, self pleasure and the attendants of her lectures are not only consisted of the women on her 20’s or 30’s, the women in 50’s and 70’s are there to discover more about themselves, too. Hell yeah! This thought provoking, inspirational theme of the novel truly picked my interest and I start to hear 5 stars alert!

Trixie is definitely one of the best heroines you may be introduced in romance literature world . Now she is ready to make a fresh start in D.C. till and she’s so enthusiastic about her first pop-up event but unfortunately she also bumps into a ghost from her past: the ex who dumped her with a post it! Ouch! And the worst part about her meeting is she realizes she is still harboring feelings for this asshole.

Andre Walker only wants to save her parents’ soul food restaurant Mama Hazel from gentrifying developers which means he has to bury the hatchets and team up with his ex who has brilliant marketing ideas like turning into their restaurant into vibrator pop-up shop for needy clients! And surprisingly that plan works amazingly!

I loved the ownvoices kind of free, independent, powerful messages of the book inspire the women can achieve anything they dream of! I also loved Trixie, her toughness, her smartness and confidence even though she’s still resentful to her Vietnamese family who want her make more traditional career choices.

But the romance part of the book was the weakest element! After that painful breakup, Trixie just jumps to Andre without thinking any further. Okay, sex might be too steamy but they act like immature brats and fail so bad in the relationship part.

They cannot form a healthy dialogue between each other and those misunderstandings between them are way too much irritating and I’m from the beginning till the end I thought Andre was ass! His final big gesture which is classic move for the romcoms didn’t save him. I still want to punch him so bad!

If I grade this book as a romance I would give it three stars! But I enjoyed the sex positivity premise, powerful heroine, multicultural representation so I’m adding extra half star and rounding this up to 4 stars!

I’d love to see braver, strong, though, powerful women characters who can rock the world, take no shit and stand for themselves that truly inspire me!

I’m looking forward to read more works of the author sooner.

Special thanks to Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

I love a second chance romance with exes! It's been two years since Andre broke up with Trixie via Post-it note and she thought she was over it. Now she is back in DC on a mission to make her sex toy business work. She is crushing it at her first pop-up when she runs into her ex, Andre. Andre's restaurant is struggling and Trixie is determined to make her "non-traditional" career choice a success. Can they work through the breakup/goals/struggles. and get back together? Should they?

I enjoyed learning about these two characters and their backgrounds. There were some elements that were a little too repetitive for me (their arguments) and conversations/scenes that dragged on a little too long. Liked this book overall! Thank you, Netgalley!

Let me start off by saying I absolutely LOVE the premise of this story. A Vietnamese woman seeking her own way in the world and trying to help women with sex positivity and education is absolutely amazing! A second chance with a man who seems to have learned and grown. I do have a few issues though keeping this from being a full 5 star read.

Let’s start with the good! I really enjoyed the writing style. It was fun and just descriptive enough to give me a clear picture without feeling like I was reading pages of description. I loved how real Trixie and Andre felt. Both of them were complex and showed a range of emotion.

I also really enjoyed how the book was able to showcase so many different cultures. Each character had a fully realized background that informed their decisions. I do think this hindered fleshing them out as characters a little bit since some characters all we know about them really is their cultural background rather than personality traits.

I enjoyed the small business aspect of it all too. It was so fun getting to see all these characters with their own businesses and their own way of going about these businesses. Each business was unique and I think fit the character.

Andre and Trixie’s relationship was mixed for me. I do like them together! But I had a hard time with them constantly falling into sex together. I felt like in the relationship they’d say one thing to each other or to themselves and then do the opposite. It never felt organic. This might be because I tend to not read second chance romances. I have a very hard line of NO for all my exes so take this complaint with a grain of salt.

Onto other things that gave me pause. I thought the side characters, all of them, needed to be fleshed out. I understand this is a romance so obviously the focus is on the main couple but the friendships while cute never felt real. The side characters weren’t fleshed out enough for me. For instance, from the beginning of the book we see Trixie talk about how close she and Keisha are but as a reader you barely get to see them interact.

That leads to my other issue, there was so much telling. Even the epilogue would have been better if we’d seen how they got there. Mild spoiler ahead I suppose, you’ve been warned. I’ve never understood a romance novel ending when they are officially together instead of when the plot wraps up but it felt like the plot lines for both the main characters were wrapped up in a tell all epilogue. It would have been more satisfying to see how they got to the epilogue in my opinion.

Overall, despite my gripes, I enjoyed this one. I’m excited to read more from Thien-Kim Lam as this is her debut novel. Happy Endings releases May 18, 2021!

This review will be up on my blog February 10, 2021.

I really liked this book. I was hesitant because I didn’t know how this would turn out but it was really well done. Trixie and Andre were ex’s who came together to save his restaurant business and to boost her sex toy business. Yep a book on sex toys. I love it. I really liked that this book normalized sex and a woman’s body. There was no shame on sex talk and toys. I also loved that this book represented a biracial couple. We need more romance books on different cultures and races. Through her friends and herself, Trixie found her power to go after her goals and dreams of her own business. Though Andre annoyed me at first. As like I wouldn’t have given him a second look or chance. The break up in the beginning of the book was horrible. He eventually won me over in the end. Overall, they made an adorable couple/team. Thank you for my copy!

I received this ARC from the publisher and Netgalley for my honest review.

I love this novel for its intercultural couple that faces family pressure to follow in parental plans and the adversity that comes with daring to break out of those cultural roles and traditions. The entire novel I was hoping for recipes and was so excited to find them from the author! I'll be traveling to her website shortly for her subscription boxes, wink wink.

Trixie runs a business selling sex toys, but she also gives classes at the local learning annex, so obviously this means the book has wonderful messages about sex positivity for women. I love that in her shows and classes it’s not just 20 and 30-year-olds depicted, but also women in their 70s trying to get their groove back 😁 YAY for positivity!! Also the way Trixie took control of her own sexual pleasure is something rarely depicted. This book is also great for #ownvoices readers, as most of the main and side characters are either Vietnamese or Black. But the communication between Trixie and Andre is just awful. There are constant misunderstandings and conflict, and the fact that Trixie jumped back into a relationship with Andre so fast simply for the great sex (while disregarding his past treatment) is discouraging. The other problem I had with the book was the overwhelming devotion to family. Even though the characters are in their 20s, it’s almost like they can’t leave the nest, they can’t be their own selves. Every other sentence is about Mama Hazel’s legacy or why my Vietnamese parents aren’t proud of me. It was exhausting.

Thank you to NetGalley & Avon and Harper Voyager for this advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I think this is the QUICKEST I have ever clicked to request a book and my fingers were crossed that the publishing Gods would bless me and they did! My book loving heart just knew that this diverse mix is what I needed! A bad ass Vietnamese heroine and a strong black hero? Own voice author, Count me in!!!

I was in heaven with all the culture and representation  in this story and the constant mention of Phở and soul food? Yum! Yes please!

Trixie was dumped a la "post-it-note" Yep. A note! Just like Berger did Carrie on Sex and the City ...smh. That immediately put Andre on my shit list, like who does that to someone!? That was 2 years ago when he up and disappeared from the life they shared in New Orleans. Now Trixie has pulled herself together and has a new life in D.C. She does private pop up shows where she empowers women by selling sex toys and paraphernalia in hopes of having her own sex toy boutique one day.

Trixie is preparing for a pop up show at a local restaurant when she looks up and sees Andre. Awkwardddddd!! He's just as shocked to see her in HIS restaurant that he co owns with his sister. From there we follow these two through their journey of getting to know each other again.


My favorite part about this book besides the look into Trixie's thoughts and experiences as being a daughter of immigrants and of being raised in and by a Vietnamese community and family...... and the dynamics and expectations of that is Trixie's girlfriends! There's 3 of them and with Trixie they call themselves the Boss Babes. These 4 are goals!!  Brilliant, vibrant, smart, supportive and protective of each other. There's Josie, she's black and runs a boudoir photography business, Zoe her roommate who is also Vietnamese and runs a plus-size lingerie shop, and Reina, my favorite fiery redhead runs a male burlesque club.

Their bond saved this book for me. I was WAY more invested in their frienship and hilarious conversations and in-depth talks then Andre and Trixie. Even with their sometimes hot sex, I just didn't feel it which saddens me to say but the misunderstandings, his reasoning for ghosting her, and Trixie's flip flopping decisions from literally page to page drove me crazy and kept me rolling my eyes at them often.

Read this for the own voice experience. The food. The sex toy education. The fierce and fun Boss Babes!

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyage and Netgalley for the ARC for an honest review.

Happy Endings is an #ownvoices second chance romance novel featuring Trixie Nguyen, a 1st generation Vietnamese-American who works teaching people about sex and pleasure, providing education on their sexuality and sexual health while giving them the tools (sex toys) for a more satisfying sex life regardless of gender or sexual orientation. We have Andre Walker, a bartender/chef who - with his younger sister - took over their mother's restaurant after their mother passed away from cancer. After Trixie runs a pop-up demonstration at Mama Hazel's, her and Andre become reacquainted after he broke her heart two years ago. She wants to own her own business, he needs to save his business so they're willing to try and leave the past behind them to work professionally to help each other out.

I enjoyed the characters, especially Trixie. She knew what she wanted in life, and although her family (mainly her very traditional Viet dad) do not approve of her career choice, she was going to do what she wanted and brought her joy. I did find her a bit wishy-washy when it came to Andre, especially with how quickly she forgave him for his shitty behavior. I wanted a little more tension between them, especially when he all but accused her of ruining HIS life as if she had anything to do with gentrification and other nonsense he kept spouting off at her. However, in the grand scheme of things that was just one character flaw that I was willing to overlook as characters cannot be perfect.

That goes for Andre, who I did like, but he frustrated me to the point where I wanted his sister to knock him into next week. The way he treated his younger sister was grossly insulting, and I'm glad she put him in his place several times. Perhaps it was a typical man thing, but if stereotypes were going to be broken with this book, I'd have love to see the stereotype of a man's inability to ask for help be broken. So many issues could have been solved if he just asked for help, but no. It worked out in the end, but Andre still frustrated me more often than not.

The chemistry between Trixie and Andre was pretty hot, and I did enjoy their scenes together, especially when the sexy bits started to get a bit silly. I also really enjoyed how Trixie took charge of her own pleasure and how things happened between them in the sheets, and it's not often we see women take charge in the bedroom (or office or bar).

I also really love the friendships in this book. These ladies were ride or die for each other, and I'm always always always down for bad ass women supporting each other and fixing each other's crowns. And the fact that the cast itself was diverse as well was *chef's kiss*.

I did like this a lot, but the writing was a little stiff at times. This is the unedited version so I'd be interested to see what the edited version will look like. If we can get more #ownvoices romance novels out there, where the interracial couple is light skinned person with white person, I'm all for it.

Trixie Nguyen dreams of expanding her pop up sex shop business where she can sell her toys and educate the community to help normalize sex. Andre Walker wants to save his late mother’s legacy and keep her restaurant going. When the two dated years ago, they would have never known this is where they’d end up because they hadn’t expressed their dreams or wants to each other. Bad communication was a huge issue but fate brings them together for a possible second chance. People grow up for better or for worse in two years and that’s what happens in this story. I loved that this book was about an interracial couple and it focused on both a Black man and Vietnamese woman along with the food and recipes they grew up with. It also goes in depth of the struggles and pressures of being a child of immigrant parents. Of course, the main character sells sex toys and educates people about it so there is nothing short of steamy scenes in this book. It was important to read about a confident woman who knew her own body. Mature audiences only. It also had some great witty banter amongst the side characters. The ending was a bit rushed and I wish there was a longer part with Trixie’s parents and some of her best friends fell into the dark at times with the lack of time they had in the story. Overall, a very entertaining heartfelt story. If you are hungry for a steamy second-chance romance and want a story that includes delicious food then this is the book for you.

"Happy Endings" by Thien-Kim Lam
Released 5.18.2021

Trixie Nguyen works hard to make her sex toy business a success in Washington, D.C. Her first event is a success, until she runs into her ex. Their relationship didn't end on a good note; she was dumped by post-it note!

Andre Walker never expected to see Trixie again, but he did. He's still attracted to her.

They see an opportunity to partner up to help both of their businesses succeed. Andre doesn't want to see his family restaurant sold to developers, and Trixie wants to prove to her family that her nontraditional business venture will succeed.

Thien-Kim Lam shares her debut novel, and I loved it! Having a Vietnamese protagonist with a Black love interest was ingenious, and we need to see more of that representation in upcoming book releases. This book played with all of my emotions - felt anger, betrayal, excitement, steaminess, and contentment all in one novel!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

#netgalley #netgalleyreads #netgalleybooks #happyendings #thienkimlam #avonandharpervoyager #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #booknerd #publiclibrarian #romancenovelsof2021 #2021bookreleases #ownvoicesbooks