This one was just okay - cute enemies to lovers theme, with a holiday twist. Fun to read, and quick. Nothing groundbreaking, but cute.

The Valentine's Hate by J.L. Beck was an enjoyable read that combined enemies-to-lovers and second chance romance tropes in an interesting way. The chemistry between the main characters was palpable, and I appreciated the author's efforts to delve into their complicated past. The pacing was solid, and the writing was engaging and easy to follow. However, I did have a few issues with the book. Some of the conflict felt a bit contrived, and I found myself wanting more development of certain plot threads. Additionally, while I enjoyed the romance, I felt that the resolution was a bit too rushed and could have been more satisfying. Overall, I would recommend this book to fans of contemporary romance, but with the caveat that it's not without its flaws.

Please add warnings to the front of this book. I DNFed this because I was caught off guard by the loss of a child. Something like this should be warned, especially in a romance novel. This one just wasn't for me.

Ms Halston is a new-to-me author, so I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked this up. The cover is cute, and drew my attention and when I read the blurb, I definitely became interested in reading it. I was not disappointed! The story was cute, fun, and flirty with wonderfully delightful characters. I loved Lizzie's character, she was strong and had a lot of spunk and was not afraid to stand up for herself. Brian initially comes off as a diffibult person, but ultimately his kindness and loyalty shine through. The two grew up living next door to each other and hated one another, and nothing seems to have changed when they run into each other as adults. But each might be able to offer the other some much needed help. The chemistry between them was strong, and they complemented each other well.
The enemies to lovers/fake engagement trope was done well and the this was an enjoyable read and I hope to read more by this author in the future.
I received a complimentary copy from Netgalley and am voluntarily leaving my review.

I didn't love this book but I also didn't hate it. It took a bit for me to finally get into the story. There were parts where I was like, wow I really like this and others where I contemplated DNFing the book. But I finished and I am glad I did.

One thing I didn't like was the way the male MC talked at times, especially during the "steamy" scenes. The dirty talk felt forced and just didn't flow with the vibe of the book in my opinion.
Along with this, some of the word choice just didn't feel right. There was some open-door language (which I don't feel comfortable using in a review) used in this book that made me cringe and it usually doesn't. This book just gave sweet, wholesome vibes most of the time and then the word choice at times ruined that.

I liked the dual point of view and being able to see Lizzie from Ben's point of view. I really liked their relationship, especially the banter. There were parts during Brian's point of view that made me swoon. It has enemies to lovers and fake dating which are two of my favorite tropes. Overall, not a terrible book especially if you're looking for a quick, sweet read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

💘Book Review:
Title: The Valentine’s Hate
Author: Sidney Halston
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/4 stars

Cute, funny Valentine’s read or really for any time of the year! If you're not a HUGE fan of Valentine’s Day, this book is for you. 💘

Lissette Alonso used to love Valentine’s Day when she was a little girl, but as the years of February 14th have passed, she begins to hate it thanks to Brian Anderson. Brian seemingly made it his mission to destroy that day and others for Lisette with his nonstop pranks towards her.

Heading to her best friends wedding, on Valentine’s Day 😑, she realizes that someone else is coincidentally on the same flight as her. Her nemesis, Brian. He happens to be attending a conference at the exact same resort that she's staying at. Great.....Then to make matters worse, she ends up sharing his huge room with him because of a mix up on the part of the resort.

But, they soon realize they will need each other to get through this stressful situation. Brian poses as her boyfriend to keep her ex off her back and Lisette acts as his girlfriend/assistant to keep a married and horny actress in a film adaptation of his bestselling book away as well. So naturally, this leads to this being the first Valentine’s Day together that they mend fences and maybe a mending of a few other things 😏😉.

Fun book! I enjoyed it! 💘💘

Thank you, @netgalley and @avonbooks, for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

Published December 27th, 2022

I thought this story was really fun and easy to read! I love a good enemies to lovers but maybe we were never really enemies!

I will say I felt the conflict Brian and Lizzie are in regarding the photograph should’ve been handled better on his end and his expectations for her reaction were very unrealistic.

I enjoyed the ending but I really, really needed and epilogue to tie it all together.

3.5 stars

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon books for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Funny, sexy and heart! I had such a good time reading this it was super fast paced and fun. The fake dating and forced proximity were PERFECT.

The story follows Lizzie and Brian who have known each other and HATED each other since the second grade. They've played mean pranks on one another their whole childhood but Brian has always took it to far on Valentine's Day. They dont see eachother for years until as adults they accidentally run into eachother at a hotel in Mexico where Lizzie's best friend is getting married and where Brian is having an author event for his book series. To keep Brian's fans off his back and to keep from Lizzie's ex thinking shes a loser they decide to start fake dating.

This was a fun and quick read! I hadn't read any Valentine's themed books before this year and I think I might have gone a little overboard since I read a few that ended up being very similar to each other, but still enjoyable!

Lizzie and Brian are both fun characters that I really enjoyed reading about. Their relationship was fun with them being childhood nemesis and their banter was hilarious. I loved that there were flashbacks so we got to see what they were up to and why they were nemesis instead of just being told that they were. They had great chemistry and a good bit of steam as well.

A fun, light and easy read to read each Valentines Day!

Lisette Alonso hates Valentines Day ever since she had the worst one. Her best friend is having a Valentines Day wedding and she is the maid of honor. During the wedding festivities she runs into her childhood enemy Brian Anderson, who is responsible for her hatred of Valentines Day.
I loved this book, Lisette and Brian were such great characters. Most of the other characters were not as well-written in my opinion. That's the main thing I would have improved in the book. Overall it was a great cute read and I definitely recommend it. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

This was such a cute read-- I am a fan! We have my favorite tropes: enemies-to-lovers and fake dating! We have spicy and drama (oh, the drama!), but it's all within reason, and the chemistry between Lizzie and Brian was palpable even when they were being hot-headed toward each other. Can you say tension? And the MMC is a writer, which ads a really fun layer to reading that I enjoyed, especially when the fake-dating is for him and his situation with a famous actress. Put this together, and you have a romance that's re-read worthy. This author is on my radar, and I'm glad for it! Highly recommend.

Read this if you like childhood enemies to lovers and fake dating. Loved the valentines theme. The whole cheating/misunderstanding with violet wasn’t my favorite and wasn’t well fleshed out but it was still a quick read that i really enjoyed.

Sexual chemistry and clever dialog are not mutually exclusive (even though this kind of lacked both)! Authors, you can give us both I encourage you! Thanks to Avon and Netgalley for the eARC but I DNF _*deep sigh*_ if you want something a little messy and steamy go for it. Enemies to lovers and a fake relationship-two of my favorite tropes but I get really bored when the characters have no redeeming qualities and are poorly written. Our lovers are both frustrating - I couldn’t get a good read on Brian’s character. Like I’m supposed to believe in his quiet sincerity but one day into this arrangement he’s done in during a couple’s massage and abandons all propriety to [redacted] in a spa bathroom? There’s something for everyone, but this was not for me. If you prefer a slow burn with a solid build-up, take this one off the shelf completely.

Brian and Lisette's story is fun and engaging. I usually do not like a fake-dating trope but this was a different take and I enjoyed it.

I was pretty worried about this book when I started it. The prologue was written to show the relationship that the two main characters had in their school years and to prove how much Lizzie hates Brian. And honestly, what he did was harsh. I almost put the book down because of the prologue but ended up pushing through it.
This book really moved fast for an enemies to lovers, although the enemies portion was mainly one sided, it really shouldn't have moved this fast. They run into each other some years after high school, start the fake dating charade and then they're actually dating. There was a lot of miscommunication spread throughout the book, between almost all of the characters. Most of these problems could have easily been fixed by having a conversation, not ignoring the other for days to weeks on end.
Other than those things, the book was really cute. Once I took the enemies to lovers plot line out of my head, I really enjoyed the story and Lizzie and Brian's relationship.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon US for an eARC copy of this book.

Personally this wasn't my favorite read and I ended up DNF this read. I had high hopes but it wasn't my cup of tea. I was kinda confused reading it and it didn't live up to the hype in my mind and based off what I had seen from others sharing about it.

Thank you Avon Books and Netgalley for a digital ARC copy of this wonderful rom-com in exchange for my honest review!

Lizzie and Brian are childhood nemesis: he ruins her Valentine's Day everyday, she ruins his every day. Fast forward 15 years and they find themselves staying at the same hotel for two different events, struggling to avoid ex's and a movie star (??). They hatch a plan (read: Brian begs) to solve both their problems and fake a relationship.

This was the best enemies-to-lovers I've read in a long time. It took the childhood comfortability and made it at once sweet and annoying for our two MC's. They remembered things differently (of course) and sorted out a lot of miscommunications from childhood. They also rehashed old pranks and fights. It was funny. It was cute. It was romantic. I loved it!!! And it was PERFECT for Valentine's Day.

Read if you love: childhood friends, enemies-to-lovers, over-protective MMC, and a romantic comedy with an emphasis on comedy!

When Lisette Alonso was a kid, she was pretty happy. Her parents had moved to the States from Cuba when she was an infant, and her dad left shortly after that. But Lizzie had her mother and her grandmother, and she loved school. She had friends and knew everyone in her neighborhood, and she had a best friend in Mariana. And then Brian moved in.

He came from Boston to live with his grandparents, and from the first day he showed up at the bus stop, he was awful to Lizzie. As the school years went by, he teased her and competed with her and once put lizards in her locker, knowing how scared she was of them. He ruined every Valentine’s Day she had in school, by destroying the cards she had carefully made for everyone in the class or smashing the cupcakes she had made for her first boyfriend. And then he stood her up for prom.

But now, Lizzie is grown, living and working in London, and Mari is getting married. It’s a beach wedding in Cancun on Valentine’s Day, and Lizzie is hoping her best friend has the best day, despite it being that blasted holiday. But when Lizzie finds herself bickering with the guy sitting in the aisle seat of her last of a series of flights, she finds herself staring into the eyes of none other than childhood nemesis Brian Anderson.

Brian is heading to Cancun, to the same resort as Lizzie, actually, because the book series he’s been writing has been made into a movie, and the publisher has put together a weekend for fans and press. He’s not done much promotion so far, as he’s not really comfortable around crowds. But with the movie release, his publisher is insisting on his being more available to fans, and his agent is supposed to meet him there to make things easier on him. But then she comes down with the flu.

When Lizzie gets to the resort, she discovers that there has been a flood and they had to relocate several guests to another hotel. She’s exhausted and doesn’t want to get on a bus to head to a hotel an hour away. Brian, meanwhile, has a two-bedroom villa right on the ocean. He sees her easy way with people, and he comes up with an idea. If Lizzie comes with him to some of his events, helping to protect him from some of the crazier fans, and from the actress starring in the movie, then she can have the extra bedroom.

Lizzie agrees, with the caveat that Brian not fall in love with her. She will pretend to be his girlfriend to try to spare him the attentions of the actress and will help him with his social anxiety. And when she finds out that her ex-boyfriend is a guest at Mari’s wedding, by a strange twist of fate. But as the weekend goes on, the snarking that she and Brian volley at each other seem like more than general distaste and years of resentment. Maybe Lizzie was wrong about Brian as a kid. Maybe he was just a sad boy who lost his parents too soon. And maybe he’s grown into a man who is smart, successful, and perhaps even a little sexy.

Will he ruin this Valentine’s Day for her, now that they’re adults, or will Lizzie finally find the February love she’s been looking for her whole life?

The Valentine’s Hate takes the enemies to lovers trope and sets it on a beach with too much tequila and too many social media posts. These characters are sweet and interesting, kept apart by secrets and misunderstandings, and when the flirting turns into something more, the books gets super steamy. Bestselling author Sidney Halston brings this love story to life through lifelong friendships, family ties, and comedic moments.

I really enjoyed The Valentine’s Hate. I liked these characters a lot, especially how they took their childhood traits and grew them into their strengths as adults. The Valentine’s Day setting is fun and can resonate with anyone who has suffered a bad one (and isn’t that just about everyone?). Fun, flirty, and fresh, this story is the candy heart of rom coms for that February holiday, no matter how you choose to celebrate it.

Egalleys for The Valentine’s Hate were provided by Avon Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.

3.5 stars. The Valentine's Hate is an enemies-to-lovers/childhood nemeses meet at a Mexican resort by chance story.

I'm not really sure how to summarize my review of this one (lol!). I recommend this to anyone who can get past an unrealistic plot, unrealistic setting, unrealistic character actions, and a why-are-you-reacting-that-way ending. But I'm not going to say that The Valentine's Hate still wasn't fun to read. I recommend reading when in a beach-read mood, though I'm still scratching my head.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for a complimentary copy to read and review. All opinions are my own.

This was super cute with some fun tropes - childhood enemies, only one hotel room, fake dating. It was also fast paced, easy to read, and spicier than I expected. Definitely recommend for a seasonal read!