Unfortunately, and much to my disappointment, the description pulled me in far deeper than the actual story itself. There was a lot of promise with the premise, but the characters were unable to come fully to life and capture the heart of the reader in the way that those in great romances are capable of.

Unfortunately I had to DNF this one. I made it about 30% and was just not connecting with the characters. I just realized this is part of a series but it was mentioned that it could be a stand alone. But I felt like I was missing so much back story on all the characters. Maybe I would get that from the other books? If not, then 🤷🏼‍♀️ I felt like nothing flowed well together. The MC and her brother have a strained relationship, but why? Maybe it comes out later in the book? But it just made me not understand the characters at all. And then the age gap between the MC and her crush seemed like a stretch. I don't have anything against age gaps but for some reason this one just didn't fit.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for my review.

The age gap is an interesting topic and something you can have long discussions about and this book has the necessary length (500 pages!) but doesn't use it. It just feels like a superlong story with the same arguments over and over and over again. In the end the problematic points weren't really addressed.

The book jumps right into the story and we have the classic girls and boys fraction which tend to hang always around together. Thus, there are often conversations with more than two people and it makes it really hard to follow who says what. It is difficult to tell the people apart, because they all are too similar. The overall plot has a static scheme: Rian and Parker meet each other but don't talk. Parker meets with the boys and Rian with the girls, where they discuss what has happened, and Rian and Parker meet again and everything starts all over again. After finishing the book, I am certain that Rian and Parker only got together because of their friends/family, because they did the main work.
There isn't much to tell about Parker and Rian. I cannot understand their chemistry, because the story starts with both of them already secretly liking each other and until the end I don't understand why ?!
Parker is a 40-year-old father with two six year old girls. His ex-wife was 20 when they met (and he was 36). Rian is 19, now and it seems she had a crush on him since she is 14 or so. The age gap is definitely huge, and it needs to be discussed but all they talk and think about is that there is an age gap and that it isn't right. When both of them meet they just have some small talk and never really talk about their lives or dreams. Sometimes they speak a bit about their fears and a bit about expectations but it is all really superficial.
And Rian has a brother and for some reason their relationship isn't good either and Niall, her brother, wants to work on that but this has to wait until the last five chapters. Maybe there is more about it in the other two books of this "series". In general, the boys/men are poorly written. They behave more like early twenty year old boys who swear and bicker in every conversation. The women are better and have some good arguments. All in all it is weird that everyone is in their 30s except for Rian. And at some point her parents seem to vanish?
Being a fire fighter is a tough job. Not only at some point dangerous, but also physically and mentally exhausting and I cannot imagine that Parker and Rian never talk about his job until the end? And just because Rian gets along with his children as a babysitter does not make her a good mother. All in all, both are super insecure. Especially Parker does not act his age. You would never guess that he is a firefighter, dad or adult in general.

As a summary: This book is too long and does not go into depth, even though it needs it. The writing is poor and sometimes Parker directly addresses the reader, which is fine if it would be continuous throughout the book but it just happens randomly. Even the romance isn't fun to read, because I couldn't feel anything (which isn't really difficult, because I am easy to excite). I cannot even tell why I am giving this book two stars ... (probably because I've finished it)

DNF, which I NEVER do, but a 19 year old girl with. 40 year old man? No thanks! Yuck! I read all the way to 20% through the before finding out about the extreme age difference. That should be in the blurb because I think a lot of people would appreciate knowing.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing access to this eARC.

this was such a good book! ! i'm really glad i got to read this one early!! i loved reading about these characters and this author is definitely one i will check out again in the future, for sure!

One Last Kiss follows our main character, Rian Kerry, a 19-year-old yoga instructor and Parker Hayes, a 41-year-old firefighter. Rian is asked to babysit Parker's two daughters for him by Parker's brother, Tyler. You learn later on that there is some history and tension between Parker and Rian, but as both of them are cautious and don't want to be hurt, especially Parker after his divorce, they run into some trouble expressing how they feel around each other.

I went into this book blindly, so I was very excited once it got going, as I found it started at a pretty quick pace. I really liked the idea behind this book, I loved that Parker was a single dad and that Rian had relatively no interest in boys. Not only that, but I also really liked the fact that there had been mutual yearning between them. Rian had an excellent relationship with Parker's girls as well, I thought it made everything work well together that she was so close with them. I found that this book had a lot of tension, which definitely kept me interested, and it was also pretty fast-paced.

The age gap in this book doesn't necessarily bother me in general, except that in this case I don't feel like it was very well written. I felt like the characters seemed very similar in terms of values and stages in their lives, which definitely is not a bad thing, except that this wouldn't be true for a 19-year-old and a 41-year-old. Those ages are just so different that they wouldn't realistically have a lot of the same interests. I think that the way they did have the same interests and values in the book was a good thing, I just think that for it to make a bit more sense the author could have aged Rian up a bit more. I think that the idea of an age gap isn't a bad thing, as that is one part of the plot, but it could still be an age gap if she was around 23-25 years old. Furthermore, I felt like although Rian had a good relationship with Parker's girls, we barely got to see Parker's relationship with them. Which, this isn't that important, but I think it would have added just another cute aspect to have some more scenes of just Parker and the girls. Lastly, I found that although I usually like when there is a lot of dialogue in books, it still needs descriptive parts and parts to let you know who's speaking. I found this got a bit confusing at times since there wasn't much indication of who was speaking.

In conclusion, this book was enjoyable to read, but I think there could have been some things switched or modified that could have made it even better. A big thank you to NetGalley, A.S. Kelly, and the publisher for providing me with this E-ARC.

Honestly, I was excited when I received this arc and had the chance to read the book.
Unfortunately, I had to dnf it, because I felt like it wasn't for me. I couldn't connect with the characters and the story.
Reading other reviews, I found out about the ages of the characters and, I have to be honest: I don't know if I was just too distracted, or it wasn't something really mentioned (at least, on the part the I've read...). Finding out their ages didn't help, because I wasn't able to associate the writing (their thoughts and the way they speak, basically) with their ages.
Having that said, I don't feel like this can be the review that makes you read this book or not. It wasn't for me, but it can totally be for you.

rating: 1 star
this book was not for me. I really tried to like it but couldn't bring myself to. the dialogue was cringy and very hard to read. the hero was so creepy and annoying, to a point where I had to stop reading. I don't usually have a problem with age gap romances but this one was done so poorly. the whole relationship only behind because he took advantage of her when she was in a vulnerable place. I had no connection to any of the characters. there were so many plot holes and the plot was all over the place. I was really excited for this book since I love the single-parent trope but this book really disappointed me.


Thank you to The Publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

One Last Kiss • A.S. Kelly
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I made it about 55% through this book before I had to DNF. I really wanted to enjoy this book but I just couldn’t get into it. This apparently can be read as a stand alone but is apart of a series, which I hadn’t read the first 2 maybe that played a apart in my dislike of it. 🤷🏻‍♀️
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The one part I did enjoy in this book is the twins, I found them hilarious and awesome.
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Now the parts I disliked. Right from the beginning I found this book very hard to follow along with. Majority of the book is dialogue between characters but a lot of the time I couldn’t tell who was talking and there were so many unfinished sentences and stammering that DROVE ME UP A WALL! A pet peeve of mine is when someone doesn’t finish their sentence, so the fact that there would be multiple on every page gave me an eye twitch 🙃 Also when the main characters would be talking with side characters about the other main character they would NEVER say the name they would only refer to them as her/him which I found very odd.
The age gap, I get that some cultures and countries age gaps are very common but 19 and 41 so not sit well with me the more I read. It also didn’t help that more I read the more Parker (41) came across as extremely immature!
I don’t mind books that are written in first person, actually majority of the ones I’ve read have been. However reading this and I noticed especially with Parker narrating his would come across as a creepy voice over that acknowledged the reader, it gave me Joe voice over vibes from You on Netflix. Not really what I want in a romance 😬
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I also felt that I was missing out on the reason of the main conflicts that I read about. They could have been things that were addressed later on after I decided to DNF or it could have been in previous books I don’t know. Typically I find that if there is a conflict between the main characters the author gives little clues throughout the book but I found that there were no little clues, it always seemed like the same information (Or less) every time.

Thank you to @NetGalley for the eARC In exchange for an honest review #OneLastKissLoveAtLast #NetGalley #OneLastKiss #LoveAtLast

Nice easy summer read. Has the right amount of banter & angst to keep you coming back for more of Parker & Rian’s story.

Thanks to ARC and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Favorite Quotes:

Niall brings his hand to his chest in a dramatic flourish. “I can’t get any more black marks against my name. I’m getting old and I won’t have time to make up for it.”

He couldn’t be more handsome if he tried, and I couldn’t be in more trouble even if I’d dug myself the hole with my own two hands.

I’m nervous. Not because I don’t want to be here, but because I wanted to be here so badly.

Plan? What plan? Come on. You know I’m not some plotting evil genius. I just let things run their course and waited patiently for the stars to align.


My Review:


I wasn’t sure about this one since I was jumping into a series on book number three, and while I’m sure I probably would have enjoyed it even more had I read the previous two, I found the installment to have strong enough legs to stand well on its own. The storylines were original and engaging and I adored all the characters by the end of the book, although they often annoyed me with their indecision, anxious fears, and alternating periods of cowardice.

There were hefty servings of tormented and debilitating angst, yet the emotional tone balanced out overall due to the smirk-worthy and rapid-fire levity provided by the highly amusing banter and witty barbs tossed back and forth between the main and secondary characters of friends and family. The romance was sweet and tender and I fell for the grumpy single-dad fireman myself by the time the steamy sensuality was added to the mix and the sexy fireman was no longer cranky but a romantic silver-tongued sex god instead.

This was my first foray into A.S. Kelly’s work and I landed well indeed. Having gotten to know the characters, I feel the pull to read the previous books in the series as well. I have added this clever wordsmith to my list of favorites.

This book was such a cute read. I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend if you love a sweet romance

There should have been an age Gap warning in the sinopsis. It made the story a bit cringy for me and I could not finish it.

This was a disappointment. Neither was I invested in the main characters of the story. I had to put it down around the 45% mark because I just felt I am wasting my time! I think what this story required was a little bit more polishing. The characters had been a little bit more nuanced and 3-dimensional. The external and internal conflict should be established and dramatised better. And so on...

Wasn't a fan AT ALL of the age gap, felt innecesary and weird and made me uncomfortable. Didn't understand why it had to be such a long gap.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an arc of this book.

For me, this book was just okay. It had some moments where I loved the story, but then quickly fell flat again. The characters voices weren't distinct enough for me and I often found myself asking who was currently speaking or thinking. The age gap in this romance was also a little off for me, and I think it may have been better if the gap wasn't so large.

Overall though, this book was good, and I would probably recommend it to a reader where this genre and trope is more up their alley

This was just the fun read I needed. I enjoyed the style of storytelling and the family banter/bickering reminded me of my own brothers. Older brothers best friend is a favourite trope for me and adding single dad into the mix made it even better. It’s funny, it’s witty and it’s just the right amount of sweet. I loved it!

I'm so disappointed! I wanted to love this one - I'm not sure if it's related to past trauma I have or what but I couldn't allow myself to let go and get into this story. The romance kinda gave me a creepy feeling. The age gap was just way too much.

3.5 stars
To start, the big age gap was a no for me, it felt uncomfortable many times, but that’s my mistake because I didn’t realize that was the premise of the book.
Second, the relationship felt more physical than emotional and lastly he irritated me with his confused complex and some things he did, didn’t go well with me at all, it felt immature of him!!
The side characters were good and well developed and for them I liked the book.
The ending was satisfactory, I liked how they ended up!!
I thank NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to read this book.

Oh no! this is the first book that I read by this author that was a DNF at 35%, I just couldn’t get into it. There was a huge disconnect reading it. The synopsis of the book sounded that it would have been a wonderful read was a DNF.
With that being said, I will read this again in the near future because I have liked the authors previous books.