Charming story with an interesting plot. I didn't connect well with the author's writing style but found the story to be fun-ish. The ending was a bit abrupt to me which left me feeling unsatisfied in the romance area and with Gaia character arc.

A fun romance about a romance writer stuck living in her fictional world. This is a fun read for spooky season with the elements of magical realism.

The book has many positive things going for it: diverse representation, forbidden romance/brother’s best friend trope, magical realism, and a patient and understanding love interest. I loved how the book started with Gaia deciding she was going to let her best friend’s little brother seduce her. I loved Jacob.

With a focus on introspection and mostly just Gaia and Jacob, the book often felt isolating. I wanted to know more about their world and have more interactions between them and other people. Eventually, the book started to feel longer than it actually was. (3.5 stars rounded to 4 stars)

I wanted to love this one but I just couldn't. I liked the concept of the story but it just couldn't hold my attention. I'm sure it would appeal to a different audience though.

And They Lived Happily Ever After was interesting, for lack of a better word. I really enjoyed the concept, and the attention to Gaia's mental well-being. As someone who suffers from mental illness myself, it's always refreshing when an author isn't afraid to touch on it. My biggest qualm was that as an adult reading this book, even with the subject matter, it felt a little childish.
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Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a story that kept me intrigued from the beginning. I was invested in the characters from the very beginning to the very end of the story. There is chemistry and the plot close a great pace. I’m excited to read more books by Theresa Beharie.

The strangest form of writing I’ve experienced in ages. Feels dream-like in every sentence, or like I was drunk the entire time (I definitely wasn’t). The dialogue and the text, all of it felt loopy and disjointed.

It did get better in the last half. And I feel a sequel coming and I’ll probably read it because Gemma is great.

Not my favorite, but not my least favorite either! Good development of the story until it wasn’t. Not a mega fan of the paranormal magical elements and how Gaia could control all until Jacob appeared. The dialogue felt forced and the plot wasn’t super grabby, but overall, wasn’t a totally awful story. Would have loved more development in the plot sense!

This title was extremely sweet and I loved the contemporary world with a touch of magic. The romance was really cute and compelling and the main characters were immediately loveable.

I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn’t. I think this is first in a series but I’m not sure I would read any more.

It was nice to see a fantasy element in a contemporary romance, but I think it should've had more development, a bit more foundation. I know it's fantasy, and it's not going to be logical. It doesn't have to. But it just needed more development.

It was just ok. Nothing spectacular, and nothing I'd go out of my way to recommend to others. I'm fairly sure it's the first (?) in a series, but I didn't like this enough to read the rest.

I wanted to love this but it felt paper thin to me. This book addressed anxiety and family pressure with a magical twist. Gaia is a romance author who doesn't believe in love in real life. She has a special ability that helps her write great stories. She has anxiety that stems from childhood trauma and she is eccentric and very awkward. Jacob is her best friend's little brother and somehow he gets wrapped up in her stories and it's never explained why or how. Like what was the reason? I wanted to buy that it's because he was her true love in the end but that was just too much for me. Maybe it was because I liked Jacob more than I liked Gaia. I don't know, maybe they weren't a good fit for me and that's why I could accept it.

Something else that bothered me was how horrible her best friend was. he knew about her insecurities and what her triggers were and yet he went a whole month without talking to her just because he caught her and Jacob kissing. He was awful. He didn't speak to her for most of the book. The sister bit came too late in the story. It felt like something that could have been good to watch Gaia experience and grow from but instead it comes at the end of the book and we don't really get to see what happens there. I don't feel like this story was finished. If it was a little longer and cleaned up, I think I would have liked it more.

And they lived happily ever after was a book that I had high expectations for but it wasn’t the best book for me. I liked the beginning; learning about Gaia’s transition from foster care was a personalized touch. I also liked final 5 or 6 chapters, as well. I didn’t quite understand Gaia’s character or her powers until closer to the ending- I am not sure if it was explained really well. I’d be willing to give this author another chance because I do appreciate her way of storytelling. I received an arc from netgalley.

I was really surprised with how much I enjoyed this. I'm starting to develop a love for romances with authors as MCs and this was such a cool take on that. The idea that what you write could really happen with a little magic was what drew me, and it didn't disappoint. There was a good amount of character growth in everyone, and I love when characters go to therapy and work on themselves. Plus who doesn't love a good HEA.

This was a magical romance with and interesting original concept. Gaia writes her stories then lives them in her dreams then suddenly the guy she was flirting with her best friends brother is in her dreams and not following the script. It was cute but had some cheesy dialogue and went on for too long in some parts

*Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book for review, all opinions are my own*

2.5 stars

This is not a bad book, in the end, I even enjoyed the reading experience but for me, it is not a romance book that I would recommend to everyone because it is not the best.
This is a very sexually heavy book, it doesn't have a lot of sex scenes and it's not even explicit to the point that I consider it erotic but I felt like the characters could only think about sex all the time.
EVERY interaction the couple had, had a sexual content in it, which was exhausting, as the couple could not have a good development of their relationship because everything became sexual, so much so that I felt that the romance was not so well developed, there was so much lack of communication to made the couple good for me, so much so that in the end the conflicts are easily resolved in a one-page dialogue, the other conflicts in the story are left aside and in the end, everything works out very conveniently.
I also thought that for characters who were close to 30 years old most acted like they were in their early 20s, so much so that it took me a while to believe and see the characters as old because of their attitude.
The magical content of the story didn't bother me but in my opinion, it didn't make that much difference in the story I think if it didn't have that aspect in the book it wouldn't really make a difference to the plot.
I think I would recommend this book only if the synopsis interests you a lot.

Gaia is a successful author who deals with anxiety and Jacob is her best friend’s “little brother” who is dealing with the pressures of trying to maintain a happy family life. What happens when they fall for each other is quite magical, literally.

This was cute! I actually ended up enjoying the story much more than I thought I would at the beginning of my reading. It did start off a little corny with the magical element and I wasn’t exactly sure where the author was going with it, but it worked. The writing felt very personal as if it may be something to be author or a close friend has actually experienced.

I’d recommend this to my fellow romance readers.

I feel as though this novel had the very best opening two chapters that I have read in a while.

In all honesty, I wish this had been a short story only with that.

After that point, there was all this strange stuff with dreams that were the fodder for the main characters writing, and a random chapter written from the POV of a long lost sister.

For me, it read more like Passions than a romance novel, and I personally just didn’t enjoy what I saw as a disordered plot.

Because of the strength of the beginning chapters, I’ve given it a middling rating even though I didn’t choose to finish it.

I am a sucker for a book about a writer. The writing for this book was not the most incredible, but the plot kept me completely hooked.