The Plus One is the third book in the A Brush with Love Series by Mazey Eddings. I didn’t realize it was a part of a series until I looked up the author on Goodreads. Luckily, this book can be read as a stand alone and the series focuses on a different person in their friend group and their relationships they develop. You can see the friends mentioned in the previous stories but you don’t have to read them to understand this book. I thoroughly enjoyed this story of Indira and Jude. Growing up as Childhood frenemies the two find themselves reunited for the wedding of Collin (Indira’s brother and Jude’s best friend). Indira finds herself getting cheated on by her trash boyfriend and goes running to her brother Collin, where she sees Jude is staying at during pre wedding festivities. As the two find their footing around each other in the same house they come together with the idea to be each others fake dates for the wedding so Indira can get back as her cheating ex boyfriend and Jude can have a familiar face to rely on during all the chaos.

This book was deeper than I initially thought it would be, I knew there was a fake dating trope but the issues that it covered in the book was much more substantial than I originally expected. Indira is a psychologist so she was able to pick up that something wasn’t right with Jude. Jude is a doctor who has committed years of service to GHCO, an organization that sends medical staff to help countries and places of crisis. His years of commitment aided him during college with a scholarship, but now he’s facing difficult challenges such as overwhelming anxiety, depression, and PTSD with his experiences. As the two come closer and find comfort in one another they start to wonder why they were frenemies for so long.

This book covers everything I like: enemies to lovers, fake dating, grumpy sunshine, and dating your brother’s best friend. This book also came with trigger warnings in the very beginning which included: parental abandonment, infidelity, anxiety and panic attacks, and physical injury. I enjoyed the growth of the two main characters and seeing how they come together to get past some of these challenges they are facing individually. This book is also on the spicy side for readers that are a fan of that. Overall I really liked this book and would recommend it to others and would like to go back to read the other 2 books in this series.

This is rated 5/5 stars in my opinion. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Publishing group for this ARC!

I absolutely adore Mazey Eddings writing and was so delighted to have the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book. Another beautiful and real love story all while shedding light on the very real struggles of mental illness. I loved Jude and Indira so much and thoroughly relished more time spent with the dynamic cast of characters from A Brush With Love and Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake. This book has all the best tropes enemies to lovers, fake dating, grumpy sunshine and it does not disappoint! Another gem from Eddings.

This was the perfect romance novel.

Childhood frenemies to lovers ✅
Fake dating ✅
Mental health representation ✅
All of the spice ✅
Allllll of the warm fuzzies ✅

Indira’s brother, Collin, is getting married to his fiancé Jeremy and Indria has just gone through the final breakup of a messy on and off again relationship after catching her now ex cheating. Indira then moves in with Collin and Jeremy while Collin’s best friend and her childhood frenemy, Jude, is also staying there.

Jude is going through a rough mental health crisis involving PTSD he has and has not yet dealt with and is keeping it all bottled inside. Indira is a therapist and starts noticing Jude freezing up and behaving differently as the two grow closer after she asks him to be her fake date to Collin and Jeremy’s wedding.

This book was perfection, it had excellent chemistry, emotional and intimate connection and an accurate lens on difficult mental health struggles. I also loved the Lizzie Blake and Rake cameos and life updates; what a treat!

If you are a romance reader I cannot recommend this book enough. There’s no third act breakup and outside of the serious topics involving absent parents and mental health crises the rest of this book is like a warm hug.

Hands down, five stars.

⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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

I wanted to like this book more. I don’t know if it’s because I hadn’t read the other books in the series, or what, but I had a hard time connecting with the characters. I also felt it was a bit rushed, if that makes sense.
I think the storyline of dealing with PTSD is very important, but I just had a tough time connecting.
3/5 stars for me

thank you so much to netgalley for the eARC of this book!

once again, i feel like mazey eddings is NOT missing with her romcoms! a fun romance between her brother's best friend/childhood rival of sorts with fake dating? SIGN ME UP IMMEDIATELY.

i love the way eddings writes her characters–she has this incredible way of capturing deep, meaningful moments within these characters' lives that leave a heavy impact even long after finishing reading. i love how she embraces the topics of mental health in her books, and this one is no exception–the ptsd conversations as well as the candid, positive discussions on therapy & why it matters were so, so beautiful.

this book felt like there was something missing and i think its just that its a quite-fast burn, so definitely avoid if you're someone who favors 30 chapters of pining. if not, defo pick it up!

The Plus One
By: Mazey Eddings
⭐️⭐️⭐️: 3/5
🌶: 1/5

Thank you @netgalley for the advance copy of this book! This book comes out on April 4,2023

On paper Indira has the perfect life.. an amazing job, boyfriend & a car. Until she comes home one evening and finds her boyfriend with another girl. Indira is left with nothing, finding herself having to rely on her brother for a place to stay. When Indira arrives to her brothers, she is greeted by an old childhood enemy.
Jude has spent the last 3 years on leave traveling the world to treat emergencies & humanitarians crises when he gets the opportunity to take a leave to go celebrate his childhoods best friends wedding. Jude tries to readjust to his old life, but he finds it hard & impossible to enjoy. He comes up with a plan after seeing Indira having to deal with seeing her ex boyfriend and his new girlfriend at all the wedding events, pretending to be each other’s date to the wedding from hell. The only problem is the fake dating & forced proximity feels a little bit more than just fake…

This book had a lot of trauma that was being dealt with, between the two characters they had a lot of baggage. I loved that Indira wasn’t looking to “Fix” Jude but just show him that he deserved more in life and to be happy. Part of me felt like it kind of dragged on, there were parts in the story where you feel a lot of what Jude went through & not so much on the couple. I do love a brothers bestfriend trope, i wish it was more focus on them as a couple & the wedding & less on the trauma. But it was overall a great read!

Read this if you like:
Fake dating
Forced Proximity
Childhood enemies
Brothers bestfriend

Trigger Warnings:
⚠️ PTSD, parental abandonment, panic attacks, Cheating⚠️

Indira finds herself suddenly single after catching her boyfriend cheating, which would be bad enough. Factoring in her ex also being part of her brother Collin’s wedding party, it’s worse. Seeing him and his new girlfriend all over each other so often certainly doesn’t help.
Jude has been working as a doctor with the Global Health Care Organization overseas in various disaster and war zones for the past three years, with one left to fulfill his contract. Because he has been working basically nonstop that entire time, he’s been granted an extended leave for his best friend’s wedding. He’s having trouble trying to cope with things, and this break is not as easy as he wished.

In an attempt to make both their situations more bearable, Jude and Indira put aside their childhood antagonist tendencies (Kind of. Mostly.) and (Fake! Totally!) couple up. And I can see why Jude and Indira came up with the whole needing a fake date thing. The number of events the grooms planned for everyone to celebrate them before their Big Day was truly excessive. Being the pity magnet singles at all billion events would have been excruciating even without their extra circumstances!

While it wasn’t the lighthearted fluffy wedding date book I expected, it was very good. With both MCs dealing with major issues - Jude’s troubling level of ptsd, Indira’s abandonment issues, and both having fears of professional inadequacy - it is fairly heavy at times. The mental health rep was good though, imo. And I would say it’s almost kind of a love letter to therapy, while they’re learning how to love and support each other.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the ARC!

This book took me by surprise in the best way. It gave me a lot of unexpected feels and took on PTSD and mental health issues in a compassionate and understated way. Indira and Jude are good people. Growing up, Indira was nothing but an annoying presence to her brother’s best friend but now things have changed. I loved watching them use the other for support. I’m a sucker for the fake dating trope. Jude’s illness was heartbreaking but so satisfying to watch him come to terms with it and start to get help. Indira is such a strong character. I adored her. Both Indira and Jude showed so much growth. There was wit, tenderness, laughs, tears. I loved it. It was my first Mazey Eddings book but it won’t be my last.

**Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Griffin and Mazey Eddings. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own.***

The Plus One by Mazey Eddings is a great story revolving around Indira and Jude, two childhood enemies who agree to fake date in order to get through a wedding event that seems to last forever. The story follows the two as they navigate their evolving relationship with one another while also attempting to deal with issues from their past.

The relationship between Indira and Jude was wonderful. Their banter was always very quick and witty and the sexual tension between the two was palpable. The characters communication with one another was great as well and the author's writing on anxiety and mental illness was realistic and respectful well done. I enjoyed how both Dira and Jude were working on themselves throughout the book.

The cast of side characters was fantastic, but never detracted from the main characters journeys. Overall, it was an excellent read and I would read it again. I recommend this book to fans of romance novels and general fiction as well.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley for approving this ARC in return of an honest review.

Earlier this year I read Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake also by Mazey Eddings. While I was not blown away, I thoroughly enjoyed it. So, before jumping into The Plus One, I did not have high expectations. Boyyyyyyy was I wrong.

The Plus One is the story of Indira as she heals from heartbreak and trauma from the men along her life, while relishing the unconditional love her brother's best friend offers her.

(I know I say this about most books but) I loved, loved this book.

The character's chemistry was over the roof, over the ozone layer. Their personalities complement each other so well it is impossible to not root for them.

Of course, no book is perfect and this one is no exception. Like most traditionally published romances, the third act break-up undoes all of the good the book had set to accomplish in the beginning. However, the ending was sweet enough to make me forget about the bad taste it left in my mouth.

Read to understand the brain and the complexities and layers to all types of love better!

Mazey Eddings does it again! I really enjoyed this book - especially the characters, they were so fun. Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review :^)

4.5 stars. It's not often that a book showcases mental health in a way that is relatable and relevant to the story line. Mazey Eddings did a phenomenal job doing just that. I also continue to appreciate the representation of medical providers and the repercussions of the student loan crisis (something I relate to on an exceptionally personal level 😭). This is my first book of hers and I will absolutely be going back and reading others in this series, including Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake.

I'm a sucker for enemies to lovers. Jude and Indira's relationship was a breath of fresh air. Supporting characters added to the charm of the story overall.

I found many of the intimate scenes to be repetitive in their phrasing so I subtracted .5 stars!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Enemies to lovers, fake dating, it's got it all! This one was so much fun. I tried to savor it, but I finished it in a day. Mazey Eddings is an incredibly talented writer, and this book is ADORABLE! LOVED.

I LOVE THIS BOOK SM!
Tropes:
🤎 enemies to loversssss
🤎 fake dating
🤎 childhood friend but also brothers best friend

I LOVE ALL THESE TROPES AND it was very emotional and witty at the same time! Indira and Jude relationship is like top tier!!!

This is apparently part of a four part series about a group of friends who fall in love (Lizzie and Harper are the previous two). Indira Papadakis is a young psychologist who loves her job, and who loves her brother Collin and his intended, Jeremy. The person she doesn't love is Jude Bailey, Collin's best friend, who's been her "enemy" since childhood, in town for Collin and Jeremy's wedding. But Jude has a secret: in order to get through medical school without debt, he signed up to be a doctor in emergency zones, most of them in war-torn areas. He is suffering terribly from PTSD, and Collin and Jeremy's bonkers pre-wedding festivities are torture to him. Indira doesn't want to fix him, but she does want to help him, and so they pretend to be lovers (and you know how that turns out in romance books).

I really admire Eddings for tackling the problem of PTSD—Jude's frayed nerves notch up the plot on this one, and Indira's efforts to help, not fix—but Collin and Jeremy really wrecked the story for me. Their pre-wedding antics are so childish and stupid. As an introvert, I felt so sorry for Jude, continually dragged into "make the wedding favors" and other jerky activities. Apparently this was supposed to be funny, but I was just appalled instead. And this is Jude's best friend. Yeah, in the end he apologizes, but really.

The subplot about Indira and Collin's deadbeat dad was dead depressing. So tired of rom-com parent bashing.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I read through most of it in two days. I appreciated the way it touched upon serious themes and carefully worked through them. There were so many things I could relate to on Indira’s side (she also reminds me of a close friend of mine who works in a similar field).
Her moments with Jude were so genuine and progressed organically, I absolutely thought they made sense together and weren’t forcing anything. The pacing worked well. My favorite parts were any pages where I would find them bickering or when they were alone with one another. All their supportive friends and family were great characters as well, they each had their own vibrant personalities. Reading the conflict made sense and it wasn’t too angsty, I understood why the characters felt/reacted the way they did.
It was somewhere past the halfway point that I slowed down because I did think it was dragging on a bit. The characters had their main climatic point worked through by then so the plot just felt stagnant. That being said, I absolutely loved the ending. It was perfect for the two leads (and not what I expected in the best of ways). I was overall satisfied with the story, the middle was not enough to lower my rating.

I want to give a big thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me a chance to read this amazing book. I hope to read more from this author in the future. I will definitely look into the other books in this series.

Thank you Netgalley and Mazey Eddings for this ARC.

Here's a quick list of things to look forward to:
✨ Enemies to lovers
🫧 Brother's best friend
✨ Childhood friends
🫧 Fake dating

And so much more. This book is so special. It's tender, forgiving, witty, and emotional. Indira and Jude have the best banter and never stop roasting each other. I loved the focus on the importance of mental health and the depiction of therapy. All the stars

ARC review ✨ thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read an arc in exchange for my honest review.

Another 5 stars for Mazey Edding! Indira and Jude are a complex and somewhat accidental coupling, combining a few of my favorite tropes in one book. If you’re a fan of A Brush with Love or Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake, you will not be disappointed when picking up The Plus One. In fact, you’ll love all the cameos!

Perfect for fans of:

🕶️ Fake dating
👨 Brother’s best friend
💥 Jokes & teasing
🏕️ One tent
😭 Emotional (in a good way)
🧠 Highly accurate depiction of mental health including PTSD
💕 Heartfelt moments
💍 Enemies to fake dating to lovers

After how much I liked Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake I was a little worried that The Plus One wouldn’t live up to my expectations, but I’m happy to say that it definitely did. I have enjoyed every story Mazey Eddings has written so far and this was no exception. I love the maturity of her characters and how willing they are to communicate with one another. Often times using so many different tropes in a single book can become a little bit overwhelming but it was so well done I barely even noticed. Indira and Jude were the epitome of childhood friends (enemies?) to lovers and seeing them realizes they were in love with one another was a lot of fun. Their jump from hating one another to being fully in love felt slightly rushed but I loved the book nonetheless!

MAZEY EDDINGS DOES IT ONCE AGAIN FOLKS!! SHE WROTE A HIT, AGAIN!! I fucking love Mazy Eddings so much, her books are so underhyped can people start talking about them more often (but not actually I enjoy her being my little secret and I don't want people to ruin her for me). Now that that is done, I loved this book. I literally finished it in a day, her book are so addicting. I loved the openness about therapy and healing and all that jazz. Ugh, it was just so amazing, go read her books.