What a fun read! I liked how there were heavy nods to Jane Austen, without actually reusing any of her plots. Three very modern romances occur against a backdrop of Regency recreation.

This was an enjoyable read but I wasn't into it until the first 20% tbh. The characters were pretty well described and had a strong personality. The matchmaking setting was brilliantly portrayed but since I picked this book up expecting more romance between the main character, I found it quite off putting when some new characters' povs were introduced. I wasn't a huge fan of the writing because there's so much going on in each of Emma, Jane, Lydia and Annie's life that it was hard to keep track of. I went in expecting to get only Emma & Mr. Knight's story but the mix up made me lose some interest tbh. Also I didn't see the funny parts anywhere considering it is a romantic comedy but the only two things I liked about the book are Emma and the slow burn relationships. Emma was an awesome woman, a good friend and someone whom I could relate with. But I'm not gonna lie, the multiple storylines slowed down the plot a lot and made me feel disconnected with the other characters.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review

Emma, new owner of a match making service, organizes a modern day regency dating event not thinking she herself would succumb to its charms, or at least guest Mr. Knight’s grumpy charms.

This was a nice retelling of Emma, the Austen classic. The story isn’t just Emma’s. There are actually four characters that are followed, all with their own individual stories. While it was nice to see all of them, that did slow down the book a lot. The representation was good though (one of the main characters is pan which you don’t see enough of!).

You will like it if you enjoy:
-slow burn
- closed door
-classics retelling
-following multiple characters

Thabk you to the author and publisher for the ARC book in exchange for an honest review.

I have been through one of those grisly 'can't read' phases and this has tugged me right out of it. Engaging characters, delightful contemporary variations on the best Austen classics (as if there are any bad ones...not!) and, of course, lashings of romance. There are nods to yesteryear, but all full embraces of today's world and its many variations on how complicated life can be and how much better it is when you fall in love. Any Austen fan would be a fool to miss out on this joyous, Bridgerton-esque romp through the modern world of dating. Thank you to Hera and to Ally Sinclair for this sparkling addition to the world of dating agency books. A delight through and through.

I liked this one, but I didn't love it. 3.5 stars for me

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC.

Devoured this book in two sittings. Absolutely loved the premise. The characters were well drawn and credible and the situations they found themselves in were very relatable.

A modern-day must for lovers of Jane Austin. Can not wait for the next book in the series.

Highly recommend.

A season for love is an adorable 21st century homage to Jane Austen’s Emma and a good start to a new series.

Emma Love is inheriting her parents’ matchmaking business and comes up with a fun idea way to get people meeting up in person. The Season was to be an 8 week sequence of get-togethers like people used to do in the regency period, only better because it is inclusive and not gender-biased. This is definitely something I think today’s single people could really use! And this Season was so successful I’ll be looking forward to reading about the next one! Recommended for British rom-com readers of authors like Josie Silver and Sophie Cousens.

Big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

When Emma Love’s mother retires, it is time for her to take the reins of the family dating agency and build on its success. And she has a fresh new idea: to host a Jane Austen-style Regency Season of glamourous events where potential lovers can actually take the time to get to know each other in person, with no apps in between.
Emma has no intention of becoming romantically involved herself, of course; she is a matchmaker on the hunt for the perfect partner for ladies like Annie (who thought she had missed her chance at love a long time ago), Jane (recently divorced and nervously stepping into her new life) and wild child Lydia (more interested in hooking up than finding Mr Darcy).
As the Season unfolds, there is only one fly in Emma’s ointment – the irritating Mr Knight, with his casual attitude and gentle cynicism. Why is she allowing him to ruffle her calm, ordered life and why can’t she stop thinking about him? She is far too sensible to take a chance on love – isn’t she?

There are four primary characters:
Emma - owner of the matchmaking business, sister to Josh. She plays online poker games and despite running the matchmaking business, has never been in love herself.
Lydia - a PE teacher with serious commitment issues, who is used to pick up guys but stays emotionally detached. Slept with Will, who has his own story, too.
Jane - recently divorced from Josh. Her family lives in a commune, but that is not the only secret she’s kept from her friends...
Annie - the girl who signed her friends Lydia and Jane up for this course. She hopes she will meet The One, but she actually already has…?!

The story is told from multiple points of view. Emma, Annie, Jane and Lydia all have their own story and they meet other people who you get to know very well and also have their own stories. There is a lot going on; you keep switching from one character and storyline to another. Some stories act like background stories but the writer has invested a lot of time in these secondary stories. You can guess early on who will end up with whom and what will happen, but because of all the side stories it takes a long time before the HEA. I think this book is a kind of ‘Love Actually’ XXXL meets ‘You’ve got mail’.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book and thank NetGalley for supplying me with a copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is a fun, easy read and if you love Jane Austen (as I do!) then it'll be just up your street. A great, original idea, to merge the Regency 'dating scene' with modern day dating and I thought it worked really well. If you've read 'Emma' then you might guess what happens when the heroine in this book meets Tom Knight and I guessed some of the other endings/pairings too but that didn't spoil the enjoyment. Only reason for giving 4 stars not 5 is that there were a lot of characters to get my head around at the start of the book and it took me a while to get to know who was who. But a great read and, as I understand it, the first in a series. I'm sure it'll do well!

Bridgerton for the modern day romantic. I really loved the idea for A Season for Love bringing back Regency courtship in today's world. I found the story very entertaining and while it was somewhat predictable I did enjoy how all the characters got to where they needed to be. My only complaint would be the amount of characters and story lines taking place in this novel, it never really felt like anyone was the main character. It was also a light confusing in the first few chapters until you became familiar with everyone. That being said I would recommend this one rated 3.5 stars rounded up to 4. I want to thank NetGalley and Hera Books for the digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

A great premise, an old fashioned approach to networking, courting and meeting "the one". I found the multiple POVs detracted from the story, there wasn't enough information about some of their back stories which left gaps for me.

I loved this book. Any book that has the word love in it usually has me hooked from the beginning. The cover with the cartoon characters was beautiful and I love that it tells the story with the hooked in line about courtship. I watch a lot of shows about courtships and this one really felt like it could become a tv show afterwards. I loved the characters and the atmosphere. It was perfection.

“Miss Emma Love, requests the honour of your company at the inaugural Ball of the Season”
To say that this romance was not what I was expecting would be a huge understatement!!! Definitely not an every day romcom !!!
It was a complicated hot mess of people trying to find their Ones in a world where life gets on the way and it messes things up.
Emma is an amazing main character and honestly the one I could relate to the most in the entire book.
Tom is a man who loves completely and endlessly and he has suffered through t great pain.
Annie is too sweet and generous for the world, and a part of a friends to lovers you are not completely sure you want to happen.
Lydia is a total mess and she owns it but she still deserves better than what she’s got in her past.
Jane … she has to figure out who she truly is and what she wants … and she will have to face it all !!
I loved how all their life got mixed up in a setting that was pure regency romance and Season … and how much at the end, the happy ending was everything we wanted to get !!
“Better to have loved and lost though. At least that’s what people tell me”
“You don’t fit in with the world, Lydia. You bend the world to fit around you”

When Emma Love’s mother retires, it is time for her to take the reins of the family dating agency and build on its success. And she has a fresh new idea: to host a Jane Austen-style Regency Season of glamourous events where potential lovers can actually take the time to get to know each other in person, with no apps in between.

Emma has no intention of becoming romantically involved herself, of course; she is a matchmaker on the hunt for the perfect partner for ladies like Annie (who thought she had missed her chance at love a long time ago), Jane (recently divorced and nervously stepping into her new life) and wild child Lydia (more interested in hooking up than finding Mr Darcy).

As the Season unfolds, there is only one fly in Emma’s ointment – the irritating Mr Knight, with his casual attitude and gentle cynicism. Why is she allowing him to ruffle her calm, ordered life and why can’t she stop thinking about him? She is far too sensible to take a chance on love – isn’t she?

A super quick, fun read, I just wasn't convinced by the romance.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book in return for my honest review.

This book said if you love Sophie Kinsella than you will love this one! So instantly I knew I had to check it out!
I love books abt dating and dating agencies and this was such a cute read! It takes readers back in time. You get to know a person for who they really are without all the technology. Emma and Mr Knight were an irresistible combo. Highly enjoyed


Description
Can old-fashioned courtship survive in today's dating world?

When Emma Love’s mother retires, it is time for her to take the reins of the family dating agency and build on its success. And she has a fresh new idea: to host a Jane Austen-style Regency Season of glamourous events where potential lovers can actually take the time to get to know each other in person, with no apps in between.

Emma has no intention of becoming romantically involved herself, of course; she is a matchmaker on the hunt for the perfect partner for ladies like Annie (who thought she had missed her chance at love a long time ago), Jane (recently divorced and nervously stepping into her new life) and wild child Lydia (more interested in hooking up than finding Mr Darcy).

As the Season unfolds, there is only one fly in Emma’s ointment – the irritating Mr Knight, with his casual attitude and gentle cynicism. Why is she allowing him to ruffle her calm, ordered life and why can’t she stop thinking about him? She is far too sensible to take a chance on love – isn’t she?

This book was a little bit difficult for me to read. The description says that it’s about Emma but I very quickly realised that it jumped between multiple POVs.

That being said I did enjoy it once I got through said jumps. I loved the characters and their different stories (especially Lydia and Jane). They all get their happily ever after in the end and that made the ending somewhat satisfying.

The negative thing about the rapid jumps between POVs is that I didn’t get enough of each character’s back story. It all felt quite surface level. There wasn’t enough character development for each character and as a result the tension couldn’t quite build between them all.

Overall I still enjoyed reading this book and it put a smile on my face.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of A Season for Love in exchange for an honest review.

I once watched a reality tv show called Regency House Party where a cast of people partook in Austen/Regency inspired activities to find love. Based on the description of this book, I was excited that I might find something akin to that here. While that was quickly shown to not be the case, I didn’t mind and was still excited to read it. Whatever high hopes I had for this book were immediately tempered when I realized a few things within the first 5% - 1) despite the summary of the book sitting with Emma, this book pov jumps extremely rapidly between a much larger cast of characters and 2) in a fan fiction lite approach, the cast of characters are inspired by an amalgamation of Austen’s works, but changed just enough to feel off. In my opinion, for a romance novel to work, we need the POV to sit squarely with one or both of the two main leads, with minor to no other POVs (I’ve only had one book break this rule that I enjoyed) or else I cannot muster enough care or follow along well with their journey as the story becomes too disjointed. Also, the characters being such heavy handed nods to Austen felt obviously distracting, made worse by the interweaving of the various Austen novels. This book carried many of my frustrations with published fanfiction that I don’t see in the unpublished variety. Due to these early frustrations, I have to admit I quickly became a biased reader before the plot really kicked off.

Also since apparently I’ve gone nitpicky with this review, the “Col, Colin, Colin Williams” bit that I’m sure was supposed to be funny felt more irritating than anything.

All told, I’m sure it was a much better book than I gave it credit for. Once the plot began, I enjoyed seeing the “Season” unfold and the overall progression of the plot. There were even a handful of moments I found delightful.

I think had the book not run into my two early frustrations (plus two of my absolutely dreaded tropes made less dreadful because of how little time we spent with any character’s story) it would have been such a perfect read for me, but in the end I never could connect with the story.

This was a cute read!! I was pleasantly surprised when the perspectives shifted and changed to accommodate new character POVS in the book. Though I enjoyed learning about the different characters, I feel like it took away from the full development of all the characters as a whole. I would have loved further development from ALL the characters, because I feel like I only got small glimpses into each of their lives, making it a little harder to root for them fully.

The matchmaking social season aspect of the whole story was a great backdrop for a plot! A regency vibe in a modern day dating scene is a great concept and I loved meeting everyone in the story and enjoyed all the character pairings.

Thanks to Netgalley and Hera Books for the advance reading copy.!

Emma Love is trying to revitalise her mother's dating agency by adding an old fashioned twist - A season, where people meet potential partners face to face, eschewing the digital dating app and going to actual conversations and fun instead. Will it work? Will everyone get paired off?
There are four couples in this story - Annie, Lydia and Jane - all of whom are Emma's clients and Emma herself. They all get their own stories, complete with happy endings.

Omg, I loved this book, I read it in two hours and I couldn't stop!
This is a modern-day take on Jane Austen's Emma and regency romance/dating. The book had Bridgerton vibes, humor, comedy, romance, well written characters and an interesting plot and good development!
Highly recommended if you love everything I just said!

A Season for Love is out Everywhere on January 12, 2023! Don't miss it!

Posted review:

“ Can old-fashioned courtship flourish in todays dating world?

This is the question Emma Love seeks to answer after her mother passes away, leaving Emma in charge of her dating agency. Emma has to do something to revitalize the company, and amidst all the dating apps (that all are the same), Emma’s tired of using technology to find love. So, she takes dating off the phone and into the ballroom. Emma hosts eight events (Bridgerton style) in a season where those who have joined search for true love. Will Emma succeed in bringing back a face to face dating world? Will she find partners for everyone in the season? Will she open her heart to the one person she least expected to fall for?

This is a cute book, and what drew me to it was the concept. I love the idea of ballgowns and courtship Jane Austen style, brought into the 21st century. This is a fun read and perfect for any fans of Bridgerton or Jane Austen (where some of the inspiration comes from)! I will say, there are a lot of “main” characters to keep track of, in addition to their relationships. The plot got overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information at times, which resulted in some parts in the middle of the novel being dry.

Overall, I give this ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5. It’s probably not one I would read again, but it’s definitely worth a first time read! Look for A Season for Love by Ally Sinclair on shelves January 12, 2023!! 💘🌹”