I was a bit let down after SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT, alas.

I was super impressed with the way this wrapped up. The conflict that I expected was inevitable and kind of boring didn't happen, and instead, other conflicts did! But I felt like it all happened so quickly, and as a result the ending didn't quite feel satisfactory. I struggled more with the age gap of two of our main characters than with the age gap of the romance. The actual romance in here was delightful, slow-burning, and did feel real.

Lots of sex scenes in here, again, maybe too many?! I felt like I skimmed 10% of the novel just to get by them.

I love these characters with my whole entire heart! Just in time for PRIDE MONTH BABY!!!!! Mistakes Were Made just feels like a warm big hug

This book got a lot of hype and it delivers! It's sexy, sapphic, and just so fun to read. Definitely recommend. Parker and her friends were sometimes written so immaturely, which was kind of uncomfortable to read in such a steamy, adult book, but overall not a huge issue for me.

This was a fun take on a rom-com! Nice and steamy and fun to read! I really enjoyed the writing style and the the good balance between the romance and angst . ALSO that cover!! I loveeee! The connection and the chemistry was soo nice to read about. The spicy was there and done in such a great way! I can not wait to read more from this author!

If you’re into F/F relationships with an age gap, this one is for you! Surprisingly sweet novel about a college student and her best friend’s mother, with several spicy sex scenes throughout, something many sapphic romances are lacking. I didn’t expect to find myself rooting for them, but was before long. Enjoyable read!

Get ready for the ride of your life because Mistakes Were Made is an absolute adventure of a relationship. I loved Something To Talk About by Meryl Wilsner and jumped at the opportunity to read her new book. Spice Lovers, this one’s for you.

Cassie is a college student, not looking to commit to a relationship. Erin is just a gorgeous stranger that she has a one night stand with…until she’s not.. What do you do when you accidentally hook up with the mother of your best friend. You make the best of it!! Mistakes Were Made is a fun romp full of tension and accidental feelings. You will love following Cassie and Erin on their journey of figuring out who they are to each other and what they want out of this relationship.

Thank you to Netgalley and St Martin’s Griffin for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I guess I was thinking this would be more of a "we try to stay away for each other because it's my friend's mom and this is a secret one time problem", so when they kept getting together in secret I was a little disappointed? this didn't have the "we're drawn together" pull I was thinking it would. regardless, it's well written and mostly quite entertaining.

Ooh this book is spiiiicy, sexy, sapphic and fun!! A very good time, indeed. It starts out with Cassie meeting a hot older woman (Erin)at a bar and hooking up in her car. However, they find out the next day at breakfast that Cassie is good friends with Erin’s daughter, Parker. Things progress with Erin and Cassie from there.

Erin and Cassie were a delightful match not only did they have chemistry but reading you could tell they genuinely had a good time with each other, that grew as the book went along. I honestly had so much fun reading this. It’s steamy and fun and passionate and a good time.

Some other significant characters in this book are Acacia (Parker’s roommate and Cassie’s bff), Parker (Erin’s daughter) and Rachel (Erin’s bff). Acacia was the backbone of Cassie and Parker’s friend group and they definitely owe her a big one for the work she put in to their friendship so it could thrive. Rachel is the bff everyone needs, supportive and there for you but not pushing when she can yell you’re not ready to talk about something, she was an absolute delight of a character.

This was an absolute delight to read; five stars!


⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so much fun. I had really high hopes for it and the author really delivered! I thought Cassie had great chemistry with Erin and had fun with all the spice in this book. "Mistakes Were Made" is definitely going to be one of my top recommendations of the fall season!

This book was engaging from beginning to end. Taboo forbidden romance premise always provides a lot of entertainment value but this was so much more than that.
I liked Erin and Cassie characters together, they had a lot of physical chemistry.
Overall, you can't go wrong with a Meryl Wilsner book. She delivered a contemporary love story with good dialogue, chemistry, and plenty of emotion.

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.

I don't think I could say a single bad thing about this book. I don't think I would even want to try. I mean you have a love story that genuinely feels so natural and truly realistic while still feeling like it satisfies that unrealistic part of your brain. With really witty banter and complex relationships both platonically and romantically i don't think i could have asked for more.

The characters are so individually interesting and special that i was immediately emotionally invested in the story not only with the two main characters romance but with the way it ultimately effected the people around them. The friend group was really relatable in a lot of ways and i could see me and my friends reflected in the characters and their mannerisms.

AND HOLY SPICE! I feel like sapphic romances tend to skimp on the spice most of the time but Mistakes Were Made said to heck with that. I don't feel like the spice diminished the romance aspect of the book in any way but actually enhanced it. I could feel the chemistry between Erin and Cassie so viscerally that the tension wasn't far fetched or forced.

I am so beyond in love with this book and how Meryl was able to create such a dynamic and intriguing story that really brought everything to the table and delivered on all it promised. I already can't wait to read this again.

A funny, spicy WLW story that will keep you invested and rooting for the main characters. This book brings the heat without being cringey, and is definitely not written in the male gaze.

I received an advance review copy of this ebook for free from St. Martin's Press and NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily as a courtesy.

In this sexy sapphic rom-com, Cassie accidentally hooks up with her best friend's mom Erin one night during Family Weekend at their college only to find out their mistake the next morning at brunch! Both meant for their encounter to be a one-time fling, but find that they can't stop thinking about each other and that there is more there than meets the eye. What follows is honestly one of the sweetest, most hilarious love stories I've read in a while.

Phew! For those of you who love steamy, spicy rom-coms, this one is for you! I was surprised by just how quickly the spicy sex scenes started and delighted at the sheer number of subsequent steamy encounters! As an older queer woman, I felt a little weird about the age difference between the MCs at first but realized that I was dealing with some internal biases and was able to get over that pretty quickly (I mean, I did date someone 12 years older than me while in my upper-20s, so I have no room to judge on this front LOL)! This book was fast-paced, made me blush, and kept me laughing up until the very end. I haven't read Wilsner's first novel, Something to Talk About, yet but I have a copy in my mountain TBR pile and may have to move it up to the front of the reading order soon!

This was a solid 4 star read for me. A couple of things that could have made it better were the pacing and attention given to the side characters -- sometimes it flew by so quickly I had a hard time figuring out where I was. I really loved Acacia and Parker, but felt that Acacia wasn't developed nearly as much as the other characters. I also noticed a couple of racially questionable lines in the book that made me raise an eyebrow, however, it is my understanding that these will be removed from the final version and that will soon be a moot point.

All in all, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this book and how giddy I was while reading it! I need more queer rom-coms like this in my life! I highly recommend this for anyone who is looking for a fast, sweet, and steamy sapphic read!

I absolutely loved Meryl's first book and this one did not disappoint either!

Cassie and Erin hooked me from the very first minute they locked eyes across the bar. The tension, the will they won't they and ultimately the love that blossoms was so fun to follow along with.

This books synopsis gave me Delilah Green Doesn't Care vibes and between that and some of the tik tok reviews I'd seen of this ARC I was excited!!!

The characters were really realistic and written in a very well rounded, nuanced way which admittedly could be so infuriating at times. You just wanted to chuck a therapist at them and hope it worked! This book definitely fell hard into the miscommunication trope, which isn't my absolute favorite, but it was fast enough paced in those sections I was able to get through it.

My biggest hang ups, were the miscommunciation trope which took me out of the plot in a few moments and the pacing of the book. The pacing was pretty decent especially in act one, except the second act was really long leaving very little time for the conclusions in act three.

All in all a really good rom com read, which would definitely make for a good light hearted beach read this summer ❤

Wow this one was STEAMY! omg. Despite not being a huge fan of age-gap romances, I thought this one was handled well and I really like Erin and Cassie as characters. I also loved all the unapologetic Bi rep and the way this story was really just centered on women learning to go after what they want and what makes them happy, regardless of where they are in their life.

ARC provided by NetGalley. This title releases October 11, 2022.

This is a female female romance following Cassie and Erin.
Cassie is a 22 year old college student. Erin is a 40 year old divorced mother.
Cassie hooks up with Erin in a bar bathroom in the first chapter. Soon Cassie discovers that Erin is the mom of Cassie’s best friend Parker.
Cassie and Erin continue being friends with benefits in secret for the majority of the book while hiding their relationship with Parker.

The nature of this relationship was forbidden and I did not root for the relationship for the duration of the book. It felt uncomfortable to want the main couple to be together when they were both being overtly deceitful to Parker, the main characters’ best friend and daughter.

The strongest part of the book is the steam, especially the opening chapters. The plot elements and scenes that didn’t involve steam felt underdeveloped, which also contributed to my lack of investment and believability as to why these two should be in a relationship with each other. Specifically, any scene involving a side character was unmemorable and had no bearing on the rest of the story. This made the book seem unnecessarily long; perhaps I could have tolerated it more if it was shorter.

I liked that this book was quick to the steam scenes whereas this author’s previous release, Something to Talk About, was a slow burn. However, steam was this book’s only strength. The story and character development were lacking, and the main relationship was forbidden, and I could not root for it.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review!

I was so excited when I saw I was approved for Mistakes Were Made! Age gap romances are popular in mainstream romance, but I’ve never seen a sapphic one. A story advertised as a queer MILF romcom sounded too good to be true, so I was elated when I got the opportunity to read it.


The book starts off with a fantastic couple of chapters. Cassie, a senior in college, meets a 38-year-old woman in a bar and winds up hooking up with her in the backseat of her rental car. The woman, Erin, is visiting from out of state and will be heading home after the weekend, so Cassie expects nothing more from their one night stand. The next morning, Cassie agrees to tag along to meet her friend’s mother for breakfast, only to realize the mother is Erin! The two haven’t seen the last of each other after all and further explore their increasing attraction in secret.

That sounds like a hilarious set up for a romcom, right? I certainly thought so. Unfortunately, it veered off from simply a taboo story into an ickier direction, in my opinion.

I think plenty of people will like this book, and that’s fine. Many of my issues with it are probably more from my personal preferences, so be aware of that with this review. I try to be an openminded person, so I didn’t have an issue with the 17-year age gap between the love interests. There were two other factors, though, that gave me the creeps.

The first, and biggest issue, is Cassie and Erin’s relationship with Parker. Parker is Erin’s 18-year-old daughter. Cassie proclaims to be Parker’s best friend, and Erin desperately wants to be closer to her daughter. They both are well-aware of how bad it is for them to be sleeping together behind Parker’s back (they talk about it in detail over and over and over throughout the novel), yet they never actually try to stop being together on Parker’s account. Twice, Erin makes rude comments in an effort to scare Cassie away, but then she immediately apologizes. Neither make any real attempts to separate, and it feels so wrong on Parker’s behalf. Also Erin refers to her daughter as an “almost-adult,” watches Cassie hang out with her, and even gifts them matching pajamas for Christmas (and then proceeds to check out Cassie in those pajamas…). Viewing Parker as less than adult but hooking up with her best friend, while legal and consensual, made me cringe.

Erin and Cassie have mother and daughter issues, and that also makes their relationship feel creepy. Others might have different opinions on this, but I could never quite figure out why the two were drawn to each other romantically. Attraction-wise, sure, they definitely had chemistry, but I saw no romantic compatibility or reasons why they needed to risk so much to be together. Cassie had a rough upbringing and doesn’t speak to her mom. Erin is trying to get closer to her daughter, but they’ve had a rocky relationship over the years. It appears as if the glue holding Cassie and Erin’s relationship together was the fact that Cassie got things she never received from her mother out of Erin (Erin takes care of her when she’s sick, gives her nice gifts, is warm and nurturing, etc.), and Erin gets a closer relationship with someone younger, mirroring the one she wishes she had with Parker. That also made me cringe and made their relationship seem less healthy. If some of Cassie’s mommy issues had been removed, this novel would have been more believable.

The further the story went on, the less fun I had and the more I wished Cassie and Erin would break up.

Aside from the ick factors in her relationship with Cassie, Erin is an okay character. I liked her efforts to make decisions for herself and do things that made her happy. Cassie is really insufferable, though. She is totally written like a frat boy, and I have no idea how she is supposed to be mature enough to date a mother. She’s so self-centered, gets offended easily, and comes across as arrogant, rather than confident. The other characters are okay. I liked Parker and Acacia. Many reviewers found Parker annoying, but I thought she was a pretty realistic freshman in college. I enjoyed the group friendship Parker, Acacia, and Cassie had and everyone’s openness to different sexualities. I do wish everyone was given a little more depth, particularly Cassie and Erin. They never really address the complications of their age gap outside of its effects on Parker. They both seem very career-oriented, yet we rarely see them working or spending time on their passions.

This book isn’t all bad. The writing flows well, and the plot moves quickly. It’s a very steamy read, with quite a few spicy scenes (I didn’t count, but I’m guessing there are at least 6). There are loads of strong female characters, and everyone is fairly independent (rather than needing a partner for support). The spice is written decently— it’s not overly descriptive, but it does go somewhat in-depth into wlw physicality. Readers interested in smut and queer romance might enjoy this, especially if they are looking for a quick read and don’t plan on thinking too deeply about the ethics of Cassie and Erin’s relationship. There are a bunch of positive reviews, so I’d argue this is a novel you’ll love or hate depending on your views on the relationship and ultimately, how much you like the two main characters.

I have a few more minor issues I’d like to raise. I believe all of these could be edited out rather easily, which is why I’m bringing them up. I hope some of them get changed before the book is published (and note: if you’re reading this after October 11th, there is a chance these things got removed). I liked the quick pacing, but sometimes, the timeline skips ahead abruptly. There needs to be some spacing or another way to indicate a time shift. There are also way too many times the characters refer to each other as best friends or “babe.” By college, does anyone really care who is whose best friend? And I genuinely have never met another queer woman who refers to her friend as “babe.” Additionally, sometimes there were logical inconsistencies that pulled me out of the story (ex: Cassie waits until July to pick her grad school, which seems totally unlikely, given the prestigious programs she has been accepted into).

Many reviewers have commented on the strange racial remarks throughout the book. Apparently the author will be taking them out before publication, so I’m not going to go into depth on them, but there were other racial issues I also hope are fixed. Sometimes, Acacia feels like a token Black friend, such as when Cassie says Parker is her best friend, despite having a longer and deeper friendship with Acacia. Acacia’s mother also resembles a Black mom stereotype, so I hope the brief comments about her are edited/removed. There are also strange remarks on other issues that rubbed me the wrong way. Erin jokes (at least, I hope it’s a joke) multiple times that Cassie shouldn’t eat sweets because she needs to watch her figure. Yikes. There are some misogynistic comments and an ableist joke, as well. Lastly (and I haven’t seen any other reviewers mention this specific remark), Cassie meets someone genderqueer, accidentally misgenders them, apologizes, and then when that character says that they don’t care about the misgendering, Cassie grins, thinking about how much she likes Parker’s friends, implying (to me, anyway) that she likes how carefree the genderqueer person is about the misgendering, which I found a little gross.

You very well might like this story more than I did. Wilsner has come up with an intriguing premise, writes great banter between the love interests, and seems to have a strong idea of their characters’ personalities. With some editing, this could be a much better read. Even as the book is now, though, it seems to have a number of fans. If you’re interested in the plot, go ahead and give it a try— just perhaps keep in mind all the issues I’ve highlighted. The LGBTQ+ genre needs more diversity in its plot lines and characters, so I’m glad this book offers a refreshing change of pace. I just wish it had been executed better.

2 out of 5 stars.

I am so sad that I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I hoped I would. Something to Talk About was one of my favorite reads of 2020, so I had high expectations for this.

Many of the conversations between Cassie and Erin center around the same topics of how they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing, but doing it anyway.

I have a few issues with it, aside from the general ick-factor of the age-gap, this-is-my-best-friend’s-mom-but-also-my-girlfriend part of it.
• There’s a lot of time just skimmed over since the book takes place over the course of a year. Some of the skips I understood, but it was frustrating for the narration to just be like “oh yeah, a few weeks passed, I went to some parties, and now we’re here.”
• While it may be dual POV, it’s mostly Cassie’s. I don’t think the book would change much if we didn’t have Erin’s POV
• To me, the conflict was underwhelming because most of it happens off-page. You don’t get to see the character’s thoughts or reactions; you just see once they’ve processed everything.

This book is definitely super steamy, so that aspect of it didn’t disappoint, I just… didn’t find myself enjoying the plot or liking the characters.

One thing I did really appreciate – communication is never an issue between our two main characters. Between them and the side characters? Absolutely. Sure, Cassie and Erin don’t talk about how exactly they feel towards each other, but miscommunication between the two of them isn’t the main conflict, which was sooo nice.

While this book was a miss for me, I am still extremely excited for Meryl Wilsner’s upcoming books, and Something to Talk About remains high on my list of favorite sapphic romances.

Huge thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for an ARC of this!

I have mixed feelings about this book - I am not a fan of one night stand stories - they are usually predictable, awkward and rely on extended sex scenes more than plot and character development.

The characters are not really likeable. Their lack of communication, self absorbed behavior left me feeling unsympathetic to will they/won't they get to understand one another without sex.