3.75/5 ⭐️
2/5 🌶️

This was cute! The FMC Mabel was funny, witty, and relatable for so many reasons. I loved the banter between Alfie and Mabel, and Mabel’s inner dialogue was hilarious.

As sad as it is to say, most stories do not center around mid/plus-size characters- they’re oftentimes described as beings with luscious hair, glass skin, slender (yet perfectly defined) bodies, and the curveball is their “quirky” personalities that don’t match their outwardly perfect appearance.

Mabel on the other hand, is exactly opposite of those things and this story felt exceptionally refreshing and real because of that. She doesn’t have the perfectly pretty face, she’s not great with cosmetics, and she struggles with feeling “fat” due to her curves.

I liked the vulnerability of our FMC because it felt relatable as well as a bit eye opening at times; something that I feel we don’t get to see as much of as we should in romances today. There’s something fun and alluring about romances that are impossibly perfect and whisk us away, don’t get me wrong. But it’s nice to read about the romances surrounding characters who struggle with real insecurities that real people can relate to.

Huge thanks to the Author, publisher, and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this e-arc.

Was this the most amazing thing I have ever read? No not really. Did it pass the time and was fairly enjoyable? Sure! Average plot with average characters. The romance was okay. I don’t think I will remember this book in a couple of days.

I enjoyed this so much! I loved that the main character was plus sized! She seemed more real and raw, insecurities and all. The male main character is suppose to be the grumpy one, but I think he's just misunderstood. The female main character had more push back and grumpy moments than he had. I loved how this was a fake relationship trope, it beautifully played out. Some bits seemed to slow roll by but keep pushing through it's a worthy read!

I received this ARC from NetGalley to read and review. All of the statements above are my true opinions after fully reading this ebook.

Mabel is a ghostwriter who uses her bright, bubbly charm and her quirky fashion as an armor to protect her soft heart. Alfie is an ex-footballer known by all for being anti-social, grumpy, and having the technology skills of an octogenarian. This unlikely pair is brought together to work on a memoir about life as a footballer. When the couple are caught working together by paparazzi, they must pretend to be dating or else chance the public knowing Alfie's memoir was not written by him.

Okay so... I almost didn't finish this. At about 15% I felt so lost and uninterested that I really wanted to put it down. But I also wanted to provide a full and honest review of the whole book, so I kept going. I'm glad I did, because it does get better. Not grand, but better.
Let me start out by saying that I love love LOVE contemporary romance novels. All the tropes! All the feels! All the spice! I am also the kind of person who usually goes easy on book reviews because I feel like authors put a lot of themselves out there for us when they write a book.
Perhaps the reason why I'm going a little hard on this book is because I really wanted to like it, and I can see that it has a whole lot of potential to be great.

Let's start with what I liked:
🌷 Grumpy/Sunshine pairing (although I felt this was a bit too on-the-nose, caricatures instead of characters)
🌷 Chubby FMC (but be prepared for a fair amount of negative self-talk about this from the FMC)
🌷 MCs in their 30s
🌷 Banter, so so much banter
🌷 Spice spice spice! Nicely done without feeling cringe-y
🌷 One Bed Trope (can't ever go wrong!)
🌷 Fake dating
🌷 He falls first/He falls harder

And on to the things that I think could be improved:

Pacing: I felt like the beginning had no direction. It was a lot of dialog and confusing interactions between the MCs and I didn't have a sense of where things were going. It gets better toward the middle, but then it seems like we lose the thread of the main story and the focus is fully on character banter and inner dialog. Then at the end, feelings and story come rushing in all at once and it feels a bit overwhelming. Things at the end are overexplained to the point where I felt like I was being beat over the head with plot and dialog. I think some more editing and subtle weaving of the main plot throughout the relationship exploration would help keep things tied together and get rid of the need to bluntly tie things up at the end.

Chemistry: The pairing of these characters feels a bit forced. And not just because of the fake dating or the unlikely pairing. I think something about the way the characters were shoved into their "grumpy" and "sunshine" boxes felt unnatural and further made their interactions feel awkward and unrealistic. There's so much smart and witty banter that the relationship gets lost in it. Of course, there are a couple scenes where the MCs actually talk about real-life stuff, but it's not enough for me to fully believe that they could possibly know enough to really love each other. I would have loved a more soulful exploration between the characters.

Overall, I think that this book has potential to be great. There will be (and already are) people who love it just the way it is, but I feel like it could be so much more!

This book was very reminiscent of another book I read where the female protagonist was a ghostwriter. I can't remember which one it was, but I wondered a few times whether I had read this one before. I loved that Mabel was a "normal" gal and Alfie was a "footballer' with some depth. There was a lot of chemistry between these two! Whew. I was definitely blushing at some parts. Overall, it was a fun story with a happy ending.

Alfie is a grumpy ex-footballer who is trying to finish his memoirs. Mabel is a cheerful and cute ghostwriter who tries to help him. They are mistaken as a couple and are forced to continue the pretense.... until it's not....

Love Mabel and Alfie together. Mabel is super cute. The banter is funny... I wish the relationship would build faster though! It's really sweet to see how they got to know each other though... A fun and cute rom-com.

Thanks to the publisher for the arc.

Adorable! I loved the banter between Alfie and Mabel. You could see it all acting out in front of you and turning your head back and forth, like watching a tennis match. This book hit pretty much all my boxes for perfection. Comedy, romance, feels…. The one thing that I have always had an issue with is way too much inner dialogue, and there is a lot of that. Otherwise, I wouldn’t change a thing!

Everything that was supposed to be cute and quirky about this book was nonsensical and borderline painful to read. The first few chapters seemed to have no consequences attached to the actions and the actions themselves seemed waaayyy too childish for our thirty-something protagonist. I cannot in good conscience recommend this book to human beings, please save yourself and read something, anything else.

As always, thank you to St. Martin's and NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and SMP for the free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review. I kept trying to read it and unfortunately couldnt get past the 20 page mark. I wanted to be sucked in by a book and be OBSESSED with it and i was nt. The cover is stunning love to see plus size rep in books and completely bummed this wasn't a 5 star book

2.5/5☆

This was a cute story! So swoon worthy and fun! It was so ridiculously funny, I found myself giggling and smiling quite often while reading it.
If there is a pride and prejudice quote in a book, it automatically wins me over:)
It did include a few “graphic” spicy scenes that I skipped right over.
(These happens closer to the middle-end) I still think the book was enjoyable without reading the 🌶️ parts.
🫶🏻💻📖⚽️
-slow burn
-fake dating
-opposites
-tension

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and Net Galley for the arc in exchange for the honest review!

Mein Leseerlebnis

Die romance hörte sich durchaus frisch und unterhaltsam an, dass die beiden Hauptcharaktere recht eigen sein würden, vor allem der Held, war mir vor dem Lesen nicht bewusst. Aber gleich nach den ersten Kapiteln war mir das glasklar.

Um mit dem Roman eine gute Zeit zu haben, sollte man offen für einen Helden sein, dessen Verhalten teils etwas schroff ist und den man erst im Verlauf des Liebesromans so langsam zu verstehen lernt.

Ich fand beide Hauptcharaktere faszinierend und habe gerne mehr über sie erfahren. Gleichzeitig bin ich mit ihnen aber nicht komplett warm geworden.

Die romance ist flott geschrieben und so einige der humorvollen Szenen haben mich zum Lachen gebracht.

Die Dialoge hörten sich teils etwas unnatürlich an, gleichzeitig wirkten sie auf mich durchaus energiegeladen.

Der Liebesroman wird wahrscheinlich nicht für jede:n funktionieren, wenn es passt, könnte er für einen aber toll sein.

🖤🖤🖤 1/4

Für wen?

Wer frische Liebesromane mit etwas speziellen Hauptcharakteren mag, für den könnte das Buch eine gute Wahl sein.

DNF - why is he so angry just right from the first page? They’re *really* trying to show he’s angry angry angry for no reason. There’s soooo much banter. It’s a lot. I just feel like this book is pushing the grumpy / sunshine thing straight away and it comes off as fake.

I loved this book!!! The name speaks for itself. It was really great book. I loved the main characters and their chemistry.

This story takes place in the UK, England. It stars Mabel and Alfie, two very different people. He is a former football player who now is writing his story and he needs someone to help him put it down on paper. Mabel is who he hires to write his story. These two are like oil and water and they were a total laugh riot. They are both very quirky people, and it was fun watching them find each other.

This is a VERY slow burn book and while I laughed a lot while reading it. I wanted a little more heat, and I felt the book could have used a little more editing. It took a long time to get to where I wanted the book to go. I also felt the ending was super rushed and would have rather seen the book wrapped up in several chapters and kept to the same pace as the rest of the book.

That said I also really loved the characters and I really enjoyed some of the scenes, they were hysterical.

This book was so good!! I loved all of the tropes that were included! The grumpy/sunshine part was amazing. I will definitely reread this!

While I was initially excited to dive into a grumpy sunshine trope this book went right into a relationship before we even met any of the characters. As a result I felt very disconnected from the main protagonists. We begin with a board meeting and a very high profile athlete has been searching for a ghostwriter for his novel. All we know about him is that is he is apparently the worst… which as we read the book I certainly agree with this. our female lead is apparently insulted during this meeting because a comment is made about her weight. She storms out of the meeting, And from there, romance ensues… this story read like a preteen fan fic written about a crush. And the worst part of all is Alfie (our main dream boat) doesn’t understand technology! He complains about cell phone and computers. This is not cute this is a red flag. The third act plot twist was odd and the resolution felt unearned and out of left field. Unfortunately this book was just not for me.

I’m so excited to say that Alfie and Mabel have found a place in my heart. Although the title states “Grumpy,” there wasn’t much grumpiness to Alfie after the first chapter. I’m glad that Mabel and Alfie became comfortable around each other quite quickly after the many misunderstandings that lead up to them eventually working together. The fact they could help each other relax during a serious situation through joking around with each other was amazing! It broke my heart into pieces towards the end of the book when they separate due to more misunderstandings and miscommunication, but Alfie and Mabel put my heart back together when they confess to each other that they’re both in love with the other. And the spice was *chef’s kiss*

I picked this one up because the premise of the story seemed quite interesting, and it definitely takes enemies-to-lovers to a different level than I'm used to seeing. But, we do love a good grumpy-meets-sunshine trope, don't we?

When I first encountered Mabel, I was intrigued by her inner monologue and her interesting descriptions of Alfie. Once Alfie was on the scene, I was pretty excited to see how their dynamic would play out.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed. I'm all for some good banter, but in this case, it wound up feeling excessive and repetitive, without the plot actually moving forward or developing in any way. I've never been one to dislike a lot of dialogue, but in this case, it got almost tiring to read through.

I would've much preferred to understand their feelings, their thoughts, their opinions than see them go on and on with their back-and-forth.

Unfortunately, this one was a miss for me.

3 ⭐️

Ghostwriter Mabel Willicker has been tasked with the impossible. She’s been hired to write the memoir of ex-football legend Alfie Harding, one of the most private, grumpy and taciturn people she has ever met. After a series of disasters, Mabel is ready to give up on the project when Alfie himself convinces her to stay on. As they work closely together, Mabel gets the tight lipped Alfie to open up to her and they form a friendship based on their similar bad childhoods. When a paparazzi photo of them gets misinterpreted, Alfie and Mable find themselves having to fake date, changing the dynamics of their fledgling friendship. Now things between them are heating up, but will it lead them to form an even stronger relationship or blow their friendship apart?

Charlotte Stein is hilarious! When Grumpy Met Sunshine had me belly laughing on multiple occasions. The situations Mabel and Alfie keep finding themselves in were just so outrageously funny. All I can say is pepper spray! Stein did some excellent character development. Mabel is perma sunshine…smart, quick witted and not willing to give up. Alfie is the grumpiest of grumpies, but so hard working and kind with a quirky sense of humor. Both of them are scarred by their childhoods, but they understood each other, really listened to what the other was saying, and encouraged each other to go after their dreams. Obviously this was a very British book with tons of British slang and jargon, which this American found so fun and descriptive. The writing was strong and clear, the story sweet and exceptionally dirty, dirty, dirty! The chemistry was fan your face hot. Loved it all!

I enjoyed the unique style of the author and the banter of the characters. Warning that there is a good chunk of more graphic sex, which isn't my thing. I could have done without quite this much. But overall I liked the story.