"Tinkering with Love" by Aliyah Burke is a delightful blend of romance and small-town charm. Set in a picturesque community, it follows the story of two individuals unexpectedly brought together by fate. Burke weaves a narrative rich with emotion and authenticity, drawing readers into the lives of her characters. The romance between the protagonists unfolds organically, filled with passion and tenderness. With skillful prose and engaging dialogue, Burke captures the essence of love's complexity and the beauty of second chances. "Tinkering with Love" is a heartwarming tale that will leave readers swooning and eagerly turning the pages until the very end.

I loved this grumpy sunshine romance. I will definitely be reading more of Aliyah Burke in the future!

Perfect little small town romance with some sweet twists. Loved the characters so much and felt like a part of the story. Wasn’t the biggest fan of the third person POV but that’s a romance personal preference, overall loved the story.

3.5

While I enjoyed this book it was ok. The insta love from him and her holding grudges was a bit much.

I didn't hate this book, it just couldn't keep my interest for long. I've made my feelings clear on insta-love many times and this book once again proves my point, it just doesn't work. There is attraction alright but it especially feels wrong when one person feels love in the beginning and the other doesn't.

The cover is eye catching and I really like that mainstream romance is starting to showcase more diverse main characters but that isn't relevant to the story itself. It's a miss for me, I can't recommend it

I received an arc of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for the chance to read this book! My honest review is that I enjoyed this book, but it wasn't a LOVE for me. The writing style for me was rather choppy, and it caused me to not be able to fully connect to the story. I liked the grumpy-sunshine trope, but I didn't like the "insta-love" that Tully has for Dawson. I know it is meant to be an "enemies to lovers", but it felt really forced and mostly miscommunication throughout. Honestly I liked the side characters more than the main couple, and I look forward to seeing what their stories might be like!

I unfortunately DNF' d this book and will not be leaving a review in view of me not finishing the book. The reason I did not finished the book was purely due to the writing style which I did not enjoy. However this may not be the case for other readers and should it be discouraged to read the book because of this review.

DNF'd this book, I couldn't get into the characters and the writing felt too choppy for me. The dialogue felt forced and I wasn't interested in the relationship.

This novel was freaking adorable! The chemistry between Dawson and Tully was amazing. She doesn't want to like him, but Tully is so darn hard to resist. I have to say, I love his alpha energy, but its romantic alpha energy, not the mean kind. I appreciated that. I don't know if I found it part slow burn and part instalove. I just loved their dynamic. There were some slow parts that weren't necessary to move the story forward, but I enjoyed it. I loved that the lead is a plus sized woman of color who is seen as desirable by the hot male lead. I also liked that she was into motorcycles, and could ride as well as fix them. She's just cool. I recommend this book.

I love the concept and idea of this book. It was a little harder for me to get into right off the bat. But once I was into it I enjoyed the story line. It felt somewhere close to another author I've read which made it more enjoyable. It was a cute little romcom read.

Usually, I give these RomComs a little more time to settle into their rhythm, but I think there might be something wrong with my eFile? The paragraphs seem to be jumbled and out of order and like there are missing words and then extra words in some places. I've had to re-read multiple little passages to try and figure out who was actually talking and on some it still wasn't clear. I think my file might be corrupt because based on reviews this is a super cute love story. I did not review on any other platforms because of all of this - I didn't think it would be a fair representation of the book.
It definitely has potential from what info I could get until I gave up as it was too hard to try and decipher with whatever had happened to my copy. I can tell Dawson's character was awesome for sure and will definitely follow the author for future releases.

the steadiness of this one was ideal, very good followup for fans of Jasmine Guillory but not a best book of the year

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the concept of this book, I thought it was really unique. Ultimately I couldn’t get into it, but I recommended it to a friend who I think would love it.

A cute premise that was poorly executed and so unrealistic, I kept getting ripped out of the story. This was an insta-love story that just... didn't make any sense. There was simultaneously too much going on and not enough of anything. Set over a week and then the resolution was three months later? With random old men and goats and terrible bosses and miscommunications galore. I just, did not like this book at all.

I DNF’d this after a few chapters. Didn’t like the author’s style, cringeworthy dialogue and inner monologue. The set-up for the story was a complicated mess that didn’t make sense - Dawson‘s apartment burned, Dawson takes a new job across the country but between accepting the job and moving there the employer gives it to Tully, the corporate retreat is a mess and a sexual harassment policy nightmare - all so the author could get the main characters in a cabin in the woods scenario? The hate/instalust set-up did not work for me. Some readers might like this if you appreciate a messy, over-the-top romcom, I’m just realizing that my criteria for romcoms is pretty exacting. It’s too bad because on paper this sounded like something I would love.

I would go into this story with an open mindset. It harbors some tropes that aren't necessarily favorites like insta-love and the bet trope. It's very cliche but I also think it worked for this story. Literary masterpiece? No. Entertaining and fun to read? Absolutely.

Overall, a cute enough book with a fun enemies to lovers plot. I found the writing a little clunky at times but that didn't stop me from enjoying this romance.

I so badly wanted to like this book, but I really couldn't connect with our MC. I just can't understand holding a grudge the way she did. It felt juvenile and I found it hard to connect. I pushed myself to the end, and found myself tolerable of her by the end, but definitely not my favourite character. Story premise was cute though and I'm a sucker for a small town.

Oh, I loved Shay and Tully. The secrets, the battle of the sexes in a forest retreat, the side characters, and the story were all just wonderful!

I really wanted to love this book! I was excited for a blue-collar heroine working in a male-dominated industry. I love when tropes with associated gender norms get subverted (in this book, the heroine was supposed to be the “grump” and the hero the “sunshine”). I also love love love the idea of a budding romance during a hellish-sounding mandatory company retreat complete with (ugh) ice-breakers and team-building exercises.

Unfortunately, I found Tully, the hero, problematic. He falls into that 80s/90s romance hero trap of “Hey reader! You’re supposed to think my behaviour is ok because the heroine wants to climb me like a tree and lick my tattoos off, but even though the reader knows that because they have access to her POV, I can’t possibly know that because I’m not a mind-reader therefore I’m in reality no different than any other creep who tries to ‘wear down’ women who have repeatedly shown/told me they are not interested in me.”

It doesn’t matter that the heroine is secretly into him. He. Doesn’t. Know. That.

All he has to go on is her body language (she’s cold/bitchy towards him) and what she tells him. With her words.

A few snippets of things our heroine tells Nice Guy Tully in the first few chapters, in no particular order:
“Let me go.”
“I did not, ever ask you in here, much less want you touching my hair.”
“Get out.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Remove your hand.”
“Not interested at all.”
“Keep dreaming.”
“…fucking let go of my hand.”

And he had the unmitigated gall to offer to have a “talk” with another co-worker he thought was bothering Dawson. She correctly calls him out as a hypocrite to which he replies that he’s “not that kind of guy” and of course he’d back off if he made her “truly” uncomfortable. (I’m sorry but if you don’t back off after being told to back off in several different ways simply because you didn’t think she was serious, you ARE “that kind of guy.”)

Anyhoo.

Other bothersome bits: quality of writing not what I am used to, a lot of "telling not showing" when it came to MCs personalities (I'm supposed to believe Tully is a nice guy because everyone tells me Tully is a nice guy?), heroine who I thought was going to be a curvy badass ended up being insecure about her size (sigh), main characters were immature and didn’t communicate ever (except when Dawson was telling Tully repeatedly to leave her alone… she did communicate that quite well)… and also a unicorn “Very Good at Sportsing” athlete hero who randomly could have had his pick of the NHL or the NFL despite that not really being a thing that could happen based on how those two sports work on a professional level (hello new oddly specific pet peeve I didn’t know I had.)

I would have DNFed this book but it was given to me as an ARC to read so I would have felt bad leaving a review after not having read the whole thing.