Another rom-com that is is worth all your time! This was a different and unique friends to lovers story, and while I found myself quite wanting to give our main character Mara Williams a serious wake up call and some lecturing, because she was the queen of uncertainty, and no confidence! I still like how her character has evolve and developed to a likeable one and the best person as she can be. If you have the liking for fortune tellers and horoscopes, Mara is your girl!

This is a perfect, fast and fun summer read. I listen to audio as well and the narrator’s accent just gives the detailed description and picture of the little British town more color and character! I like the cover art too!

Special thank you to Putnam Books via Netgalley, to Penguin Random House and @prhaudio for the complimentary copy for review.

I loved this author’s previous book, The Summer Job, so I was excited to add this to my summer reading list. Unfortunately, this one just fell flat for me. I didn’t connect with the main character and her obsession with fate and horoscopes. I just couldn’t buy that Mara is 31 years old and this naive. This author does a great job of creating a great supporting cast and I liked those characters most.

This book was so much fun to read!
A perfect rom com and a perfect summer beach read .
I have recommended this book to my friends because I liked it so much !

This was a great summer read! I think it fell flat for me a little bit, but I was still able to enjoy and finish it.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I connected with this book on many levels, starting with a shared name and birthday with the main character, Mara. This book was a true look at growing up and defining yourself on your own terms, instead of looking at outside sources to do it for you. I loved this story and it’s characters.

What a fun summer read! With an intriguing plot line and lovable characters, this is perfect for your next beach or vacation read.

This was my second Lizzie Dent book, and just like the other one, I didn't love it. Like it was fine, but I couldn't connect to the story & characters. Something about it I can't put my finger on, but I found myself not wanting to really pick up the book. I pushed through and finished, so it wasn't like I DNF'd. I liked the premise of the book, but it felt like it dragged on. And I kind of found the MC annoying throughout.

This book did friends to lovers perfectly! I enjoyed the fact that they met, became friends, and then the connection into love grew. I would have preferred a little more spice but that's just a personal preference. The author did a great job making me root for the characters and describing what it feels like to be afraid of making the wrong choices.

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC.

I picked this book because of its interesting theme and colorful cover. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to read the book properly. However, from what I skimmed through, it is an intriguing book and I'd like to read it entirely

As someone who doesn’t give much credit to astrology, I didn’t know if I would end up loving the one. The pacing was a bit slow for me and I feel like there were some loose ends, but overall it was sweet. It’s a nice summer beach read!

I adored her last book The Summer Job (so if you haven’t read it, you should remedy that immediately). This was a different type of story, and while I found myself seriously wanting to give the main character Mara a big shake, she did a lot of growing and I came to love her in the end.

Mara Williams is the queen of indecision, or rather she just doesn’t trust her own intuition at all. She goes so far as to let her horoscope dictate how every day is going to go, she doesn’t let people in, and she is living an all-round small life. But that’s all about to change, and she’s going to make her life and herself the best possible versions they can be.

On vacation a fortune teller predicts she’ll meet her soulmate really soon, but she has to fix some things first. This sets off a chain of events that help open Mara’s eyes to a lot of things. It’s not all smooth sailing though, suddenly there are two men in the picture, and how will she possibly know which one she’s meant to be with?!

This was a really fun summer read and I adored the little coastal British town that was a bit run down and basically not as posh as some of the other nearby towns, but lovable all the same.

I switched between reading and listening to this one, and I have to say I enjoyed the audio narration so, so much. It’s performed by Anna Gilthorpe and comes in at just over nine hours long. If you’re into audiobooks definitely download this one!

Thanks to Putnam for an advanced copy of The Setup!

This sounded fun and I enjoyed Lizzy Dent's book last year, but unfortunately The Setup wasn't for me.
I couldn't get past how immature and young Mara was and that she was obsessed with this stranger she met for 5 minutes...

Lizzy Dent's previous novel The Summer Job was the ideal summer read, so whenI saw she had another book coming out, I was thrilled. The Setup has Dent's trademark wit and emotional depth, an homage to rom-coms of the 1990s and 2000s. Mara Williams is a 30-something woman with a dead-end job at a local pool and a cute roommate who she can't seem to figure out is hopelessly into her. The twist is that Mara seems, somewhat nonsensically, to be holding out for a man she met briefly in Budapest and is Instagram stalking. If the plot sounds a little bit flimsy that's because it is, but it doesn't stop the book from being immensely enjoyable and tender.

I loved The Summer Job by Lizzy Dent so I had pretty high expectations for The Setup. While I didn't love it as much as The Summer Job, I still enjoyed it and know others will too.

I do find astrology fun, but I felt Like Mara relied a little too heavily on what the stars were telling her to do. I liked Mara, but I really wanted to be rooting for her more. All in all, it was a cute read!

Wake me up when this book ends. 😴🫠

Cute cover, cute concept, poor execution. Mara is essentially on a path of “self-discovery” but dang is she whiny. Her entire personality was rooted in her bff Charlie, astrology, and disliking her parents….for seemingly no reason. I can’t decide if she was intentionally set to be an unlikable character but I really didn’t see any redeeming qualities here.

The first half of the book was so disjointed from the second half that I actually looked back to see if I missed something.

And lastly, a little spoiler -
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Mara is “deciding” between 2 men….one of whom doesn’t even know she exists. What the ffff…..rench toast?!?!?

I’m sorry to say this book wasn’t good. I really liked Dent’s first book, The Summer Job, but this book felt completely different. The plot didn’t seem fully developed, the ending was rushed, and Mara was deeply unlikeable. It was a bit of a struggle to get through. I did read the whole thing on my Kindle in the pool though!

While I really enjoyed the story of this book and most of the characters, I was so frustrated with the main character. Mara can't make any decision for herself and it gets old fast. Overall, this was a quick and easy ⭐️⭐️⭐️ read.

This was a roller coaster of emotions that had me wanting to throw the book at times, but I found so much value in it and couldn’t put it down!

First of all, I’m in love with Lizzy Dent’s writing and can’t wait to read more from her. I have so many highlights. She is incredibly insightful, her characters are quirky and seem so real, and I love her way with words.

Mara. Her journey was painfully relatable (to me). She’s equally lovable and frustrating. Indecisive, anxious, lacking self-belief, but also so passionate, fun, and hopeful. She’s always had great expectations for her life, but also great disappointments that have wounded her self-esteem. She’s a very sensitive soul ❤️ I loved her journey of learning how to take more risks and decide what she wanted for her life.

Ash. He’s the good, nice guy every woman deserves. I love the bond that forms between him and Mara. There is definitely enough rom-com, banter, sexual tension that makes you want to scream, and swoon-worthiness to satisfy us romance lovers. Some readers might want more focus on them as a couple and you should know going in that it’s not that type of romance. It’s more about Mara and all the relationships in her life, similar to Book Lovers by Emily Henry. Don’t worry, there is a happy ending. I love these types of romance books and I love Ash 🥰

Mara is obsessed with astrology and fortune telling, but the author does a fabulous job of relating it to any system humans have devised to deal with the unknown and and structure our lives - it could be religion, the latest self-help guru, the moon cycle, or a personality framework like the enneagram. I’m someone who’s gone through many of those phases, so I get it and I dearly appreciated that part of the story.

This book was special to me because I really saw my younger (current?) self in Mara. I got so mad at her, but I’ve been mad at myself plenty of times and I was rooting for her the whole way. I knew she’d get there and she did 💖

One thing I would have changed was the prologue. I would have preferred not knowing that was coming. Please give us an epilogue though! Make it a bonus for the next book!!

Lizzy Dent is now on my auto buy list and I’m going to read The Summer Job ASAP. It has tragically been sitting on my TBR list.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest review.

This was a cute, fun, cozy read to kick off the first of many lighthearted summer reads! Mara definitely had some things to learn over the course of the book, and while some of her actions made me want to shake her at times, I still enjoyed following her personal transformation throughout the book. The side characters and friendships highlighted in the book were fun and the perfect addition to the plot. The ending, without giving it away, was tied up perfectly and it helped redeem all of the moments where I wanted to shake some sense into Mara. Overall, I was rooting 100% for Mara along the way, as she worked on improving herself. I went into this one thinking it was a romance novel, but I would classify it more of a woman's fiction with hints of  romance.

Thank you to @netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Mara Williams is not where she thought she would be. She went to film school. She was supposed to e making movies. Instead, she is a bookkeeper for a community pool club that’s seen better days. She had moved to Broadgate to be closer to her best friend Charlie, but she got married and had a baby, and she just doesn’t have time to hang out with Mara much anymore. So when Mara suggested a girls’ trip to Budapest, Mara didn’t take long to say yes. But right before they were to leave, Charlie called her and had to cancel—the baby had been sick, and she just can’t leave her. So Mara went to Budapest alone.

After spending most of the trip by herself at the hotel, Mara finally forced herself to leave her room and finds herself wandering the streets. She stumbles across a small shop for a fortune teller, and she knows she’s right where she’s supposed to be. A longtime follower of her horoscope, Mara lives for those times that fate intervenes and tells her what to do. This is no different.

Mara was having a lovely reading, finding out that she was going to meet the love of her life imminently, and that she just needs to fix something, and then she will be ready for the relationship. And then her fortune teller went into labor. The woman rushes out to the hospital, and Mara promises to lock up for her. But just for a moment, Mara wonders what it would be like to be a fortune teller. She puts on the veil and some of the woman’s bracelets and looks at herself in the mirror. She’s about to put everything away and lock up as she promised when a man rushes in. Mara is about to tell him that there was a mistake, that the fortune teller is gone, but then she notices the obvious. He is gorgeous. He is imminent. He is her fate.

Mara tries reading his palm, trying to get more information about him. She learns that his name is Josef, he is a cellist with a traveling orchestra, and he’ll be in the UK later in the summer. Mara tells him that the love of his life is in the UK, and if he were to go to Broadgate on a certain Friday in August, to a local bar, that he will meet her there. She knows she’s taking a big risk, but she’s not ready yet. But she will be in August. She will fix everything, and Josef will be hers.

Mara goes back home to her new roommate Ash. He is a builder and a thoughtful roommate. But Mara’s mind is on other things. She has to fix something, and she knows exactly what it is. She needs to fix herself. She thinks about all the things she’ll need to do to become someone who Josef would date. She has friends at work who have offered her help in the past. Her friend Samira can help her find some new clothes that aren’t all black, and maybe she could recommend someone to do something with her hair. Then she’ll need to find a new job, and maybe Ash can help her fix up their apartment.

But then Mara finds out that the lido, the pool where she works, is getting set to close and be sold to someone to turn it into luxury apartments. Mara is concerned that she and her friends will be losing their jobs, especially since she’d been trying to come up with new ideas to bring in business since she got there. But her boss Gerry had turned them all down. But when Gerry announces that he’s going to London for a week, Mara and her coworkers see that they have a short window to try to breathe some new life into the lido.

Mara starts to transform herself with a new haircut and new clothes, but as she’s working on making the lido better, she wonders if that’s not what she’s supposed to be fixing. While getting word out to the community, she finds herself in a video store stocked with shelves and shelves of the movies she loves. She and Ash spend many happy nights on the sofa watching movies, while Mara makes more plans for herself and for the lido.

But the more she fixes in her own life, the more she wonders if Josef really is the one she was supposed to meet. She finds herself more and more drawn to Ash, but that makes her question everything she has ever believed about fate, about her horoscopes, about her future. As she faces her own battered self-image and the mistakes of her past, will Mara find her true fate, or will she let her best opportunity slip through her fingers?

The Setup is a fun romantic comedy about a woman who let life beat her down and found her way back up again. It’s sweet and heart-warming as Mara finds her way back to herself, and the characters are (mostly—I’m looking at you, Gerry) great people that are fun to hang out with. Author Lizzy Dent also wrote The Summer Job, which I loved, and is back with another celebration of summer and all its possibilities.

I really enjoyed The Setup. I’m not a big horoscope reader myself, but there have definitely been times in my life that I was looking outside of myself for signs of what to do. I’m sure some readers won’t like Mara’s dependence on astrology, but that didn’t bother me. I did find some of Mara’s self-punishment a little harsh and found it difficult to read some of those scenes where she was really beating herself up for past mistakes. But sticking with her and watching her heal was life-affirming and lovely, and it made me happy I stuck it out until the end. I do recommend The Setup, and I think it works well as a summer book. But be prepared for some deeper scenes also as Mara goes through her dark night of the soul.

Egalleys for The Setup were provided by G.P. Putnam’s Sons through NetGalley, with many thanks.